By Matthew Purucker · Editor-in-Chief
Mosser Casting is seeking paid extras for the film “Butler,” based on Washington Examiner journalist Salena Zito’s account of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13, 2024.
The casting company is looking for background actors to portray characters, including rally attendees, event staff, Secret Service, security and vendors, during filming weekdays from Monday through Oct. 23 at locations mostly in Beaver County.
The story is about Zito combating “media sensationalism, personal ethics and the entrenched political divide uprooting the nation,” in the aftermath of the assassination attempt, according to the Lawrenceville-based Mosser Casting.
Zito published “Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America’s Heartland” on July 8, 2025, and it debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
“(Pensé Productions) asked to see an early copy of the book,” Zito said on The Sean Spicer Show in July 2025. “They were interested. They thought this was a really pivotal moment in history. And they read the book and went crazy for it.”
Academy Nicholl Fellow R.J. Daniel Hanna co-wrote the film version of “Butler” and is directing it. The Pittsburgh- and Los Angeles-based Pensé Productions is producing the movie, which has an “anticipated” nationwide theatrical release, per Mosser Casting.
The film uses the book, as well as congressional testimony and other first-hand accounts for inspiration.
“That is great news, because this must-read book on the untold story of Donald Trump in Butler would be a must-see movie,” political science professor Paul Kengor wrote in his review of the book in The American Spectator in July 2025.
