Who will be the man to take on the dramatic challenge — and that combination smirk/sneer expression — of stepping into the shoes of the notorious Bush VP, Dick Cheney? Since HBO announced its upcoming Cheney miniseries, the ideas have started to fly around on newspapers and blogs: Tommy Lee Jones, OK, but Jeff Bridges? That’d take some range. –KA

“Popwatch” on Entertainment Weekly:

Comics later turned him into a cartoon — Jon Stewart made him sound like Batman’s enemy Penguin — or a Star Wars villain, but he remains the most dramatic figure of the period, in the purely Shakespearean sense. There’s his personal and political reaction to 9/11, his break with the Right on gay rights, the Valerie Plame Affair and Scooter Libby, and let’s not forget, his shooting his hunting pal in the face. From an acting point of view, he’s a great part, and it should be interesting to see who HBO recruits. Richard Dreyfuss looked the part in Oliver Stone’s W, but he was a little too overtly Machiavellian. HBO’s Cheney shouldn’t be villainous. Can’t he be a tragic hero? The Washington Post has proposed five actors to play Cheney, including the outside-the-box idea of Jeff Bridges.

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