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October 10th, 2008

“W.” cast and crew get personal about politics

Posted by: Jill Serjeant

 The makers of the upcoming “W.” biopic about President George Bush say they put olly-stone.jpgpersonal politics aside for the Oliver Stone-directed movie — and so far the early reviews seem to agree.  

 But that didn’t stop the cast and crew sounding off in a Beverly Hills press event this week about their personal feelings towards the U.S. president and his administration.  

 Screenplay writer Stanley Weiser told journalists he “had to park all my politics at the door. Before writing this I couldn’t even bear to listen to Bush. I had to turn it off.”

    Weiser went on to compare Bush with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying both men wanted the best for their people “but there is an absolute blind fundamentalism that develops” which makes Bush and Ahmadinejad believe they are 100 percent right about everything.

   Weiser added; “Sarah Palin (http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/sarahpalin)  is George W. Bush on steroids with less brains and much more dangerous.”

    Although the movie has many satirical moments, the actors  said they were not laura-bush.JPGdeliberately trying to mock Bush. 

“We weren’t trying to be funny. It was always about being authentic, but a lot of what these people said to each other, and did, was preposterous,” said Elizabeth Banks, who plays First Lady Laura Bush.

    Stone said it was difficult for people to have a movie made on their own life and he doubted Bush, who is not a movie buff,  would watch “W.”, when it is released on Oct 17.

But Stone said he hoped Bush “may enjoy it some day when he is wise enough to surrender himself to it.”