First Look: Ed Harris As John McCain In HBO's 'Game Change'

Today has been a good day for politics as Donald Trump announced that he'd stick with what he knows — business and insipid TV — rather than leap feet-first into the political arena. It isn't quite as good a day for entertainment that leapfrogs off of politics, but here's one fairly entertaining thing: a new image from the HBO film Game Change.

There has already been one photo of Julianne Moore released in her stage guise as Sarah Palin, and now here's a shot of Ed Harris making a pretty convincing impersonation of John McCain. We'll have to wait for a trailer to see if either portrayal goes deeper than superficial artifice, but I like how Ed Harris looks in this pic. It's creepy, yeah, but I like it. (Ignore the criticism implied by the photshop header above; I just couldn't resist.) See a larger version after the break.

EW presented this photo, and the earlier one of Julianne Moore as Palin. Also in the cast are Ron Livingston, Woody Harrelson, Sarah Paulson, and Melissa Farman.

In the event you need a refresher on the story,the film basically covers John McCain's 2008 bid for the US Presidency, and so will hit all the memorable notes from that campaign, likely paying particular attention to the selection of Sarah Palin as running mate, and the effect that had on the campaign. Here's a recap of the book upon which the film is based:

Even before the book was out, its juiciest bits were everywhere: Sarah Palin was serene when chosen for V.P. because it was "God's plan." Hillary didn't know if she could control Bill (duh). Elizabeth Edwards was a shrew, not a saint. Overall, the men from the campaign garner less attention in these anecdote wars than the women and tend to come off better—but only just: Obama, the authors note, can be conceited and windy; McCain was disengaged to the point of recklessness; and John Edwards is a cheating, egotistical blowhard. But, hey, that's politics, and it's obvious that authors Heilemann (New York Magazine) and Halperin (Time) worked their sources well—all 200 of them. Some (including the sources themselves) will have trouble with the book's use of quotes (or lack thereof). The interviews, according to the authors, were conducted "on deep background," and dialogue was "reconstructed extensively" and with "extreme care." Sometimes the source of a quote is clear, as when the book gets inside someone's head, but not always. Many of the book's events were covered heavily at the time (Hillary's presumed juggernaut; Michelle Obama's initial hostility to her husband's candidacy), but some of what this volume delivers is totally behind-the-scenes and genuinely jaw-dropping, including the revelation that senators ostensibly for Clinton (New York's Chuck Schumer) pushed hard for Obama. Another? The McCain camp found Sarah Palin by doing computer searches of female Republican officeholders. A sometimes superficial but intensely readable account of a landmark campaign (librarians take note: the exceedingly flimsy binding may reflect the publisher's haste to rush the book to press).