The very first trailer for Madoff, ABC’s upcoming miniseries about Bernie Madoff‘s rise and fall, was released on Friday, Dec. 11, starring Richard Dreyfuss as the white-collar criminal and Blythe Danner as his wife, Ruth Madoff.
In the dramatic teaser, Dreyfuss, 68, narrates and explains how Madoff, 77, orchestrated what is now dubbed one of the most notorious Ponzi schemes in U.S. history.
“You want to know how to get people to trust you with their money?” Dreyfuss asks. “You present it as an exclusive thing. Nothing on Earth makes people want something more than telling them they can’t have it.”
In real life, Madoff is currently serving 150 years, the maximum sentence allowed in the federal court system, in Butner, N.C. In an email from prison this past January, Madoff spoke out about the subsequent tragedy that affected his family. (His eldest son, Mark, committed suicide by hanging himself in 2010 on the second anniversary of his dad’s arrest. His younger son, Andrew, died last September after battling lymphoma.)
“As difficult as it is for me to live with the pain I have inflicted on so many, there is nothing to compare with the degree of pain I endure with the loss of my sons Mark and Andy,” Madoff wrote in his email. “I live with the knowledge that they never forgave me for betraying their love and trust . . . The fact that I was trying to protect our family by sheltering them from any knowledge or involvement in my wrongdoing still fails to allow me to forgive myself.”
Madoff’s late sons are portrayed by Tom Lipinski and Danny Deferrari in the miniseries, which was inspired by The Madoff Chronicles, a book written by ABC News’ chief investigative correspondent, Brian Ross. Charles Grodin and Lewis Black will also star in the series directed by Raymond De Felitta.
Madoff debuts on Feb. 3, on ABC. Watch the preview above.
