Tiger King Joe Exotic reveals who he wants to play him in Hollywood movie

Source: photograph by dorisj / Getty

Joe Exotic is using his renewed moment of fame to milk his outrageous story for everything it’s worth.

During a recent talk with The Hollywood Reporter, Joseph Maldanado-Passage, who is currently incarcerated for 22 years after trying to have Carole Baskin killed, revealed who he wants to play him in a silver screen biopic.

Co-directors Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin spoke on Joe’s behalf and also talked about the process of creating Tiger King.

Has he expressed any desires as to who should play him if they made this into a scripted movie or TV show?

CHAIKLIN: Yes.

Who did he pick?

CHAIKLIN: He would like Brad Pitt or David Spade to play him.

He throws a wide net.

CHAIKLIN: He doesn’t refer to David Spade as David Spade — he refers to him as “Joe Dirt.”

Joe Dir-…we mean David Spade would be PERFECT for this role. Strangely, we can also see Brad Pitt doing a pretty damn good job as he’s had plenty of experience playing…unique characters.

Chaiklin also spoke on the way the public is viewing Joe as opposed to how they are viewing Carole…

Slate ran an opinion piece which argued that you gave Carole the villain edit, while being more sympathetic to the male figures in Tiger King. That essentially the series had a misogynist take on its subjects. How do you respond to that?

CHAIKLIN: It’s categorically untrue. I’m a feminist. I would never do that to a woman. I think what we did was we allowed people to speak for themselves and unfortunately the court of public opinion is not always kind. It’s not something we anticipated. Joe is super likable and charismatic and people have gravitated to him even though he did some really horrible things. And people have come down so hard on Carole. I’m not saying by any means she’s perfect, but she’s certainly doing much better by the cats, at least in her social messaging, than Joe. It’s unfortunate, but I don’t think that’s true.

If you’re a fan of Tiger King you should definitely read this interview in its entirety HERE.