Dan Fogler to Impersonate Sam Kinison in HBO Biopic

In the 1980s, one of the most famous and loudest comedians in the business was Sam Kinison. Kinison's famous scream and outrageous style made him a household name before his death in 1992. Now HBO is set to honor and deconstruct Kinison's life in a made-for-TV biopic, which is now moving forward with an actor to impersonate Kinison's yells, according to the New York Times.

Dan Fogler, who has been in a few B-movie comedies in the last few years, has signed on to play Kinison in HBO's Brother Sam. The movie is based on the memoirs of Kinison's brother Bill, who chronicled Kinison's life and death.

Fogler is not a very famous pick to play Kinison, though he shares Kinison's body type. Fogler first made it big on Broadway as a Tony winner for the musical The 25'th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee in 2005.

After that, Fogler was more widely panned by movie critics for the films Balls of Fury and Good Luck Chuck. Fogler lent his voice to Horton Hears a Who and Kung Fu Panda this summer.

The movie will be directed by Tom Shadyac, the director of several critically planned box office hits like Patch Adams, the Ace Ventura films and Bruce and Evan Almighty. More promisingly, Brother Sam has a script by American Splendor screenwriters Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini.

Aside from having to do Kinison's screaming and routine, Folger has to portray the rest of Kinison's brief but topsy turvy life. Kinison famously went from being a Pentecostal preacher to a raucous stand up comic. His routines on David Letterman, Johnny Carson and Howard Stern cemented Kinison's envelope pushing reputation.

Kinison died in 1992, six days after marrying his girlfriend. He crashed into a pickup truck driven by a 17-year-old, though Kinison also had cocaine and tranquilizers in his system.

Soon after his death, Kinison's brother and manager Bill wrote Brother Sam, which was bought for the movie rights by Stern. But since the book had such a downer ending, Stern never moved on the project. HBO, which has no such reluctance for downer material, has gotten farther.