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Celebrities such as Dax Shepard and Jared Leto are clamoring to play “Tiger King’s” Joe Exotic in a biopic based on the hit Netflix docuseries. Online bettors, with sports to wager on, are putting their money on Kevin Bacon in the titular role. But now, Exotic himself has offered an opinion on who should play …
Celebrities such as Dax Shepard and Jared Leto are clamoring to play “Tiger King’s” Joe Exotic in a biopic based on the hit Netflix docuseries. Online bettors, with sports to wager on, are putting their money on Kevin Bacon in the titular role.
But now, Exotic himself has offered an opinion on who should play the role.
“He would like Brad Pitt or David Spade to play him,” “Tiger King” directors Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin tell the Hollywood Reporter.
Only “he doesn’t refer to David Spade as David Spade — he refers to him as ‘Joe Dirt,’ ” says Chaiklin.
Joe Exotic, real name Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage, 57, is currently serving 22 years in prison, after being convicted in 2019 for animal abuse and a murder-for-hire plot to kill Big Cat Rescue CEO Carole Baskin — which is chronicled in the smash hit Netflix docuseries.
He is currently in coronavirus isolation in FMC Fort Worth (reportedly just as a precaution), so he hasn’t seen “Tiger King” yet, according to his fourth husband, Dillon Passage.
While Pitt seems like a vanity choice, the actor, 56, is the right age now. And in between his cool-guy roles, he’s always displayed Exotic-level acting chops in films such as “Burn After Reading” and “12 Monkeys.” He also could be game for the gig because earlier this year, he told Variety, “I’m a little obsessed with comedy right now.”
Spade, 55 (who made “Joe Dirt” in 2001), is also the right age, and on his talk show “Lights Out With David Spade,” he has even interviewed several subjects featured in “Tiger King,” including zoo staffers John Reinke and Kelci “Saff” Saffery.
No big-screen biopic based on “Tiger King” has been announced. A scripted series is coming, but Kate McKinnon is the only actor attached so far, playing Baskin.
