Art Imitates Art

Sometimes actors get a break when they get a role because they played it already on another show, movie, network. The most recent case is that of Timothy Bottoms playing George W. Bush in a serious September 11 TV movie. Timothy Bottoms starred in the short-lived Comedy Central show, That's My Bush! which was a spoof of our leader by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. The "Remaking of George W. Bush" from the TMB site is funny, but it also makes you wonder what Timothy Bottoms has been doing since "The Last Picture Show." Anyway, Bob Balaban probably got the role of Warren Littlefield, president of NBC during the 90s, after producers of The Late Shift (the HBO film based on NYT writer Bill Carter's account of Leno and Letterman jockeying to be the number late night host in the post-Carson era) saw him as Russell Dalrymple, head of NBC, on Seinfeld.