In spite of reports earlier in the week that he would retire from acting soon, Charlie Sheen has been cast as the President of the United States in Machete Kills, according to director Robert Rodriguez.In the film, which stars Danny Trejo in the title role, the U.S. government calls upon Machete to take down leaders of a Mexican drug cartel. Co-starring Jessica Alba, Mel Gibson, Amber Heard, Sofia Vergara and Zoe Saldana, the film is a sequel to Rodriguez’s hit Machete. The character and concept first appeared in the Grindhouse double-feature that Rodriguez co-directed with Quentin Tarantino, as one of a number of fake movie trailers which played in between the films.The Hollywood Reporter suggests that early drafts of the script had the role written as a thinly-veiled expy for Barack Obama–an African-American President with a basketball hoop on the grounds–but that all of that changed in a rewrite. There’s no explanation as to whether it was changed because they were taking on Sheen or for other reasons.It may just be me, but while watching the film, I’ll now secretly be pretending that the POTUS in the film is secretly the illegitimate child of Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen’s character from The West Wing) and that the movie takes place in the same world as Aaron Sorkin’s classic NBC drama.
