Robin Williams to Play President Dwight Eisenhower in ‘The Butler’

Williams earned his first Academy Award nomination for 1987’s career-making Good Morning, Vietnam; three nominations later, the comedian took home the best supporting actor Oscar for 1997’s Good Will Hunting. Says Williams: “I was backstage, and Jack Nicholson” — who had just won for As Good as It Gets — “said, ‘Well Robbo, now I have one for every decade.’”

The usually hirsute Robin Williams will be going bald for his next acting gig, since he’s just been cast as President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Lee Daniel’s The Butler.

Williams will follow up that assignment with the starring role in Phil Alden Robinson’s The Angriest Man in Brooklyn.

The true story of Eugene Allen, a White House employee who served eight First Families over the course of three decades, The Butler is scheduled to begin shooting later this month in New Orleans. Its ensemble cast also includes Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, Vanessa Redgrave, Terrence Howard, John Cusack, Alan Rickman, Jane Fonda and Colman Domingo.

Danny Strong wrote the script with Daniels based on Wil Haygood’s Washington Post article about Allen. Daniels also is producing the film with Hilary Shor, Cassian Elwes and Pam Williams for Laura Zisken Productions.

In The Angriest Man In Brooklyn, Williams will star opposite Mila Kunis, Peter Dinklage, Melissa Leo and James Earl Jones. The film, set to begin filming in Brooklyn, N.Y. in Sept., is the story of a stand-in doctor who mistakenly tells an obnoxious patient he has 90 minutes to live. The medic tries desperately to locate the man after her comments sends him on a contrite tour of the city to right all the wrongs in his life.

Robinson will direct from a screenplay by Daniel Taplitz. Landscape’s Bob Cooper and Tyler Mitchell are producing with Daniel J. Walker.  Jean-Charles Levy serves as executive producer.

Williams is represented by WME and MBST Entertainment.