HBO announced Thursday that it would
air its documentary on attorney Roy Cohn next year.
The untitled project will draw on
“extensive, newly unearthed archival material to present the most
revealing examination of [Cohn] to date,” HBO said in a press
release.
That material is recently discovered
audiotapes of discussions Cohn had with journalist Peter Manso, with
whom Cohn and novelist Norman Mailer shared a house in
Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Included in the documentary from
director Ivy Meeropol are interviews with playwright Tony Kushner and
actor Nathan Lane. Cohn is prominently featured in Kushner's play
Angels in America, and Lane played Cohn in the play for nearly
a year.
Cohn represented President Donald Trump
in the early 70s and is credited with introducing Trump to Rupert
Murdoch in the mid-1970s. Murdoch's Fox News has largely embraced
Trump and his administration's policies.
In a 2008 The New Yorker op-ed,
Trump associate Roger Stone is quoted by Jeffrey Toobin as saying
that Cohn was “not gay” but rather “a man who liked having sex
with men.” Cohn died in 1986 from complications related to AIDS.
“The time has come for audiences to
understand a man who, while hiding so much of himself from the world,
has had a profound influence on our society, even to this day,”
director Ivy Meeropol said. “We are thrilled to partner with HBO
Documentary Films to bring this remarkable story to life.”