Trailer
Plot summary
At Yale University in 1966, George W. Bush goes through a Delta Kappa Epsilon pledge initiation, reciting the fraternity members' names and nicknames and declaring that his family's political legacy does not interest him. Rowdiness after a football game lands him in a New Jersey jail, and his father, George H. W. Bush, offers help one last time. He works at a Texas oil patch after graduating but quits within weeks. In 1971 he tells his father that professional baseball is what he wants.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about W. (2008)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Stone's original idea for the main role was to propose it to Harrison Ford, whom he said had "a pretty similar face as of George Bush"; Stone then cast Christian Bale, who spent months researching for the role but dropped out after he was not satisfied with the prosthetic makeup tests.
- Stone was originally attached to direct Pinkville, a film about the Army's investigation of the My Lai Massacre, but development was canceled due to the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike and actor Bruce Willis pulling out of the film three weeks before shooting was set to start, and United Artists shut the production down.
- Josh Brolin later said Bush actually watched the film after Bill Clinton, who borrowed Oliver Stone's copy, lent it to him, and that Bush reportedly liked it and found some moments sad.
- Stone was interested in Robert Duvall as Cheney, but Duvall turned down the role; Dreyfuss and Stone did not get along well during filming, and Dreyfuss was harshly critical of the director during the film's press junket, noting Stone had attacked him right before the tour began.
- Josh Brolin, cast at the last minute as Bush, prepared his vocal style by calling hotels in Texas and talking to front-desk staff to study their accents, and watched footage of Bush walking at different points in his life.
- Slate magazine's Timothy Noah argued that the film was too kind to Bush in omitting certain reported events, including an allegation that Bush mocked a woman executed during his tenure as governor of Texas.
- Christian Bale, who left the Bush role over makeup problems, later played Dick Cheney in the similarly themed 2018 film Vice and earned an Academy Award Best Actor nomination for it.
- The character Hudd is a composite of several religious figures influential in Bush's life, including Billy Graham, James Robison, Kirbyjon Caldwell, Mark Craig, Tony Evans and T. D. Jakes.
