Jeffrey Wright dips into Muddy Waters

Oh, how much better Live Free or Die Hard would have been if they had cast Jeffrey Wright in the lead villain role as rumored instead of the 'wooden' Timothy Olyphant. Granted, it still would have been a terrible movie but at least it would have had a cool face-off at the end. Wright could have easily done the same job that Phillip Seymour Hoffman did in Mission Impossible III.

Wright, who will reprise his role as Felix Leiter in Bond 22 has joined the already cast Matt Dillon in Cadillac Man. That's the film we talked about on Monday which has gone through a quick name change from Cadillac Records. Wright will play Muddy Waters, the R & B artist whose career was launched by the South Side Chicago Blues label Chess Records. Waters eventually became of the most influential artists of the 20th century and was nominated no. 17 in the 2004 Rolling Stones list of the 100 greatest artists of all time.

Awesome bit of casting right here, Wright is a terrific character actor who is still amazingly an unknown actor for far too many people. This is turning into a project to keep an eye on. Let's hope writer/director Darnell Martin's many years in t.v. land and especially his experience on Law and Order where it's very character driven, will translate to film because Dillon and Wright could be great in this. source - coming soon