Om Puri is off to fight Charlie Wilson’s War.
The veteran thesp has nabbed a lead role in Mike Nichols’ film, which Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Amy Adams and Phillip Seymour Hoffman are already signed to.
Puri’s playing General Zia-Ul-Haq, who was president of Pakistan until he died in 1988. The previously reported movie sees Hanks’ moral-free congressman teaming up with a rogue CIA agent (Phillips) to manipulate the US government and several foreign regimes in order to aid the Afghan rebels battling the Soviets in the 1980s. The fallout? Many of those armed by the CIA ended up as the Taliban giving American so much grief in Pakistan today.
With a script adapted from George Crile’s book by writing legend Aaron Sorkin, Nichols starts shooting in Morocco later this month before a stint in LA in December.