Josh Harris — the Internet entrepreneur who crashed at the end of the dot-com bubble in 2000 — is happy Jonah Hill will be playing him on the big screen.
Harris — who now lives in Las Vegas as a professional poker player — told me: “Jonah Hill has a tall order, as I am funnier, smarter and better looking than him.”
It was announced in January that Ben Stiller will direct the dramatic adaptation of “We Live in Public,” the Sundance prize-winning 2009 documentary by Ondi Timoner about Harris’ infamous surveillance experiment with 150 residents in a Manhattan bunker amid Y2K panic.
Timoner will produce with Stiller’s Red Hour Films.
“I remain in awe of Jonah’s balls for taking on this project,” Harris said.
As for who will play his then-girlfriend Tanya Corrin, Harris says, “I like Taylor Swift, but the producers are talking Amy Smart.”
Harris, who was said to be worth $80 million before his site Pseudo.com went bust, lived in Ethiopia and then operated an apple orchard in the Catskills before moving to Vegas, where he plays Texas Hold ’em online, and with less skillful players in the casinos.
“The tourists are just giving you the money,” he said.