The American series "The Comey Rule", broadcast on Canal +, is an adaptation of the memoirs of former FBI boss James Comey, who worked under Barack Obama before being fired by Donald Trump in 2017. The opportunity to seeing for the first time an actor, in this case Brendan Gleeson, donning the costume of the American president in a fiction.

There have already been sketches, those parody sketches that Americans love in their

late shows

.

But Donald Trump had never been embodied in a fiction before the release of

The Comey Rule.

In this four-part series produced by Showtime and broadcast in France on Canal +, which adapts the memories of former FBI boss James Comey to the screen, it is Brendan Gleeson who lends his features to the American president.

Already seen in particular in the

Harry Potter

saga

, Braveheart

or

Good kisses from Bruges, 

the Irish actor does everything not to fall into the pastiche.

Two months with a vocal coach

Putting on the costume of the American president is not an easy task, as the latter seems to have decided to be a character himself.

Physically, almost everything is there: peroxidized blonde wig and orange make-up, Brendan Gleeson would look like two drops of water like Donald Trump if it weren't for this roundness, when the head of state seems more square.

But it is especially at the level of the voice that the actor stands out.

Thanks to two months of work with a vocal coach, he manages to find the president's particular phrasing, and to capture even his breaths.

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The series also spares its effects.

It is indeed James Comey, responsible for investigating Hillary Clinton's emails, then Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential campaign, who is the main character.

We must therefore wait two whole episodes before the appearance of this fictional Donald Trump, who will engage with the boss of the FBI in verbal jousting as tasty as they are worrying.

"We were looking for an effect of reality"

For Billy Ray, creator of

The Comey Rule

, the important

thing

was above all not to fall into caricature.

"It was clear that I was not looking for a theatrical or exaggerated game", he explained a few weeks ago at the CannesSeries festival, during a videoconference organized by Canal +.

"I don't take those kinds of actors. There wasn't a single moment during the shoot where I had to tell Brendan to do less. We were looking for a real effect, that's it. that the actors give the best of themselves. "

The fact remains that an interpretation, whatever it is, is necessarily a manifesto.

The Donald Trump version Brendan Gleeson appears by turns stubborn and naive, intelligent, manipulative and in constant search of recognition.

What strongly displeases the real tenant of the White House who, for the moment, and despite Billy Ray's fears, has still not given his opinion or written scandalized tweets.

Brendan Gleeson nevertheless made the prudent choice to return to Ireland and not add to the promotion of the series.