Ben Stiller Spoke With Julian Assange About Acting in 'Zoolander 2'

Julian Assange/Getty Images

Julian Assange, comedy superstar?

That’s what Zoolander 2 writer-director Ben Stiller was thinking. With the long-anticipated sequel to the 2001 comedy hit finally in production, Stiller told Howard Stern in an interview last week that he was hoping to stock the comedy with cameos “of people who you wouldn’t see in a movie” — including the 43-year-old Wikileaks mastermind.

Assange, who’s currently taking refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault charges, has appeared via satellite in a number of documentaries and TV interviews, including the Oscar-winning doc Citizenfour.

The Zoolander sequel would have been his narrative feature debut, but the red tape enveloping his legal situation was too much to overcome. “He wanted to be in it, but we couldn’t figure out how to do it,” Stiller said. “I wanted to have him appear via satellite in the movie from the Ecuadorian embassy. He had some issues regarding the charges against him.”

Assange may actually leave the embassy soon, since Sweden agreed to question him in London, not Stockholm. But with the US still investigating Wikileaks, it doesn’t look like an exit will happen right away.

Perhaps Benedict Cumberbatch will reprise his Assange, instead.