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Joe Exotic Reportedly Says He Wants Brad Pitt Or David 'Joe Dirt' Spade To Play Him In Movie About His Life
Joe Exotic is apparently basking in the attention he's getting from the Netflix hit "Tiger King," though he's got to enjoy it from behind bars.
In a move that will likely surprise nobody, Joe Exotic has reportedly suggested that Brad Pitt would be one of his choices to play him in a movie about his life.
Exotic, 57, is the eccentric zookeeper at the sequin-filled center of Netflix’s “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness," which became a hit as many around the country began their coronavirus self-isolation. Exotic may be one of few people out there who hasn’t seen the docuseries; not only is he in prison but he’s in isolation there as well. He was recently moved from a county prison, where there were COVID-19 cases, to a federal penitentiary in Texas, the directors of “Tiger King” told The Hollywood Reporter. He hasn’t been able to communicate with the outside world since.
Exotic’s current husband Dillon Passage, 24, said that although Exotic hasn’t yet seen the explosive docuseries, he’s definitely loving all the attention.
“He’s in jail, so he can’t necessarily watch it, but once the show dropped he was getting hundreds and hundreds of emails to his jail mail, and he was ecstatic,” Dillon told Andy Cohen on SiriusXM’s “Radio Andy” on Wednesday. “It was a lot of good feedback, and he likes attention, obviously.”
Exotic has more attention to look forward to, as a multiple-episode Wondery-produced podcast is being turned into a television series starring "Saturday Night Live" comedian Kate McKinnon as Carole Baskin, Vanity Fair previously reported.
A leading man to play Exotic in that adaptation has not yet been announced. Both BuzzFeed and Vanity Fair have suggested Matthew McConaughey as a contender. However, Exotic has his own ideas of who should play him if his life story was turned into a scripted movie or television series.
“He would like Brad Pitt or David Spade to play him,” Rebecca Chaiklin, who directed “Tiger King” alongside fellow director Eric Goode, told The Hollywood Reporter.
“He doesn’t refer to David Spade as David Spade — he refers to him as ‘Joe Dirt,’” she added. That checks out as “Joe Dirt” is a 2001 movie which stars Spade as the film’s mullet-sporting, acid washed jeans-wearing hero.
“Tiger King” documented Exotic’s dramatic downfall before he went to prison for attempting to hire a hitman to murder cat sanctuary owner Baskin, his longtime rival.
