Watergate thriller to film in Albany

HBO series a retelling of Nixon’s “plumbers”

The city is no stranger to political scandal.

But New York’s capital will soon serve as the location for a retelling of the crime that’s synonymous with political corruption: the burglary at the Watergate complex.

President Richard Nixon’s “plumbers” are getting their own five-episode limited series on HBO, and a casting company is looking for extras for location filming slated to take place here in the late summer and early fall.

Grant Wilfley Casting Inc., describes the premise of “The White House Plumbers” in a release: “Set in the early 1970s, the series will tell the true story of how Nixon’s own political saboteurs and Watergate masterminds, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, accidentally toppled the presidency they were trying to protect.”

The show is being being made by the producers of HBO hits “Veep” and “Succession,” the latter of which has also used locations in Lake George and Albany for filming.

Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux — HBO vets from “True Detective” and “The Leftovers,” respectively — will star as Hunt and Liddy, who coordinated the 1972 break-in at Democratic

Party headquarters. Both men eventually served prison time, and the Watergate scandal forced Nixon to resign the presidency on Aug. 8, 1974, rather than face impeachment in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Both of the protagonists have connections to New York: Hunt was born and is buried in the town of Hamburg in Erie County; Liddy was born in Brooklyn, attended Fordham University, served as a prosecutor in Dutchess County and ran unsuccessfully for Congress from a Hudson Valley district.

The new HBO show isn’t Albany’s first connection to Watergate: Before he moved to Albany in 1978 to take over as editor of the Times Union and its sibling the Knickerbocker News, Harry M. Rosenfeld oversaw Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of Watergate in the Washington Post.

It is at least the second HBO show expected to start shooting in the region this summer: Production of “The Gilded Age” is set to resume later this spring in Troy.

The political thriller will apparently feature smoke-filled rooms: The casting notice says extras must be OK working around smoke. Natural hair color and a willingness to have locks cut into a 1970s style are also musts.

Anyone who wishes to be considered for the “The White House Plumbers” can register at www.gwci.app/talent.