On Thursday, FX announced that Courtney B. Vance will play Johnnie Cochran in its O.J. miniseries, “American Crime Story: The People Vs. O.J. Simpson.” Vance joins a laundry list of actors who’ve already been cast in the series: Cuba Gooding Jr. (Simpson), Sarah Paulson (Marcia Clark), John Travolta (Robert Shapiro) and David Schwimmer (Robert Kardashian).
We thought it would be fun to help FX cast the remaining players in the O.J. drama, so here are our picks. You’ll need to use your imagination for some, but just picture it . . .
Dax Shepard as Kato Kaelin
If the former star of “Parenthood” and “Web Therapy” wore a wig with bleached-blond extensions, he could easily pull off mimicking the spaced-out surfer dude who maximized his 15 minutes of fame.
Masi Oka as Judge Lance Ito
Oka (“Heroes”) would need to grow a beard, but he’s got the broad face and stern countenance of Ito, who’s stayed out of the spotlight since the trial ended in 1995.
Eric Roberts as Mark Fuhrman
Hollywood can work wonders when it comes to altering someone’s physical appearance, so Roberts — who’s currently 58 — would need some work in the makeup chair to look like Furhman, the Los Angeles cop who was around 43 at the time of the trial and who infamously perjured himself on the witness stand.
Isaiah Washington as Christopher Darden
Darden cut an imposing figure in the LA courtroom where O.J. was tried, and achieved his own notoriety when he asked O.J. to try on the bloody gloves. Isaiah Washington is a quietly intense actor whose stature and smoldering sexuality fits in with Darden’s trajectory, as the prosecutor later had an affair with Marcia Clark.
Tommy Lee Jones as F. Lee Bailey
Jones certainly has the right craggy look and intellectual power to play the famous attorney who destroyed Fuhrman on the witness stand. Only problem: that Texas drawl. Bailey is from Waltham, Mass., so producers would have to get Jones a dialect coach.
George Takei as Dr. Thomas Noguchi
As Takei would say, “Oh my.” The resemblance between the former “Star Trek” actor and the former LA coroner-to-the-stars is uncanny.
Christian Bale as Fred Goldman
Fred Goldman was the anguished father of Ron Goldman, who was murdered in the same alley as Nicole Brown Simpson — simply because he was returning a pair of eyeglasses left at the nearby restaurant where he was working. During the trial, Fred Goldman won the nation’s sympathy and afterward won a $33.5 million civil jury award against Simpson. If Christian Bale could transform himself into con man Irving Rosenfeld in “American Hustle,” we think he could easily morph into Fred Goldman.
Keri Russell as Nicole Brown Simpson
“The Americans” star has the same blond, athletic good looks as Simpon and would also be believable as the mother of two children. We are assuming here that there will be some kind of reenactment of the actual murder and we won’t just be seeing Simpson in evidence photographs.