The missiles are still flying, but some social media users are already trying to cast Jeremy Renner — who plays Hawkeye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a movie about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, The New York Post reported Monday.
Zelensky and Renner bear "striking similarities to one another," the Post writes, both of them with "deep-set eyes, short brown hair, and an almost identical jawline."
Before becoming president, Zelensky had a successful career as a comedic film and television actor. In a sense, he even played himself — or, rather, a future version of himself — in the show Servant of the People, in which Zelensky starred as a non-politician who becomes president of Ukraine.
Zelensky is highly popular, both in Ukraine and around the world. According to a poll conducted on Sunday, 91 percent of Ukrainians support Zelensky's leadership during the crisis, The Jerusalem Post reported.
Not everyone was excited about the fan casting, however.
One Twitter user wrote that discussing an eventual movie while Ukrainians are dying was "pathetic and tasteless," while another compared the trend to "people tweeting about which actor should play a 9/11 fireman ... while the towers are still burning."
Others mocked Americans for the tendency to view all political events through the lens of popular entertainment franchises like Marvel, Harry Potter, and Star Wars.