Joel Kinnaman Cast as Former CIA Agent John Nixon in Saddam Hussein Interrogation Drama DEBRIEFING THE PRESIDENT

Joel Kinnaman, best known for his roles in The Killing and Suicide Squad, is set to star in AR Content’s adaptation of John Nixon’s Debriefing the President. Kinnaman will star as former CIA analyst Nixon who wrote the non-fiction book about his experience of being the first American to identify and interrogate Saddam Hussein following his 2003 capture.

Ziad Doueiri was formerly attached to direct the project as a feature film, but due to scheduling reasons, he’s dropped out and the project will go forward as a limited series. 

Nixon was a senior leadership analyst with the CIA from 1998-2011 who regularly wrote for and briefed those at the most senior levels of the U.S. government and later taught leadership analysis to the new generation of analysts coming at the Sherman Kent School, the agency’s in-house analytic training center. 

“After confirming the prisoner was indeed Hussein, who had a known tribal tattoo on the back of his right hand and a scar from a 1959 bullet wound, Nixon began interrogating Hussein and was surprised by his findings. Instead of a ruthless despot bent on stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, Hussein had turned his foreign policy decision-making to his lieutenants and seemed more focused on writing a novel.

“Hussein had also failed to understand why he had become the focus of U.S. anger after 9/11 and Nixon came away in disbelief that America’s intelligence services and the George W. Bush administration had been so wrong in its reasons for plunging the country into the shock-and-awe origins of an Iraqi occupation.”

Kinnaman said of the project:

“When I received this beautiful adaptation of John Nixon’s memoir, I was immediately thrilled to participate. It’s a very intelligent character drama where the psychological cat and mouse game between John Nixon and Saddam Hussein will also shed new light on the chaos behind the second Iraq war. I couldn’t be more excited to be making this cinematic piece with Alexander Rodnyansky and his talented team of producers.”

This sounds like a fascinating limited series that I’m looking forward to checking out. We will let you know more as it develops.

via: Deadline