Michael Corrente told an audience in Providence yesterday that Russell Crowe, Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman and Robert DeNiro are in the running to play Buddy Cianci in Corrente’s planned movie.

Journal photo / Sandor Bodo

So who’s going to play Buddy in the movie?

That was the question on everyone’s mind yesterday when Rhode Island’s favorite-son director-producer Michael Corrente presented an infectiously self-deprecating and off-the-cuff talk about his life and times in the movie biz to an audience of media and business types at the offices of the advertising and public relations agency RDW Group near the State House in Providence.

It was all very entertaining — the story of how a Pawtucket-born son of the Ocean State became smitten with the movie business because of his father’s love for it, and was able by a combination of luck and perseverance to exchange his contractor’s toolbox for a movie director’s cut board.

But the juiciest bits came at the end of the hour-long presentation. That’s when audience members asked what they’d wanted to know all along: Has Australia’s hunky heartthrob of a temperamental movie star Russell Crowe gotten the role of former Providence mayor Buddy Cianci in the planned movie version of The Prince of Providence by Journal reporter Mike Stanton? Or is the decidedly less charismatic character actor Paul Giamatti — best known for his role as a wine nerd in Sideways — tops in the running?

And what does the former mayor have to say about who’s going to play him on the big screen?

It turns out that a long list of top stars are lining up to play Buddy. And why not? asked Corrente. “It’s a role that dreams are made of. Buddy was — is — a complex individual, as we all know, and the final chapter hasn’t been written on him. He’s coming back, loaded for bear, and probably with me in his crosshairs. Does Buddy get a vote? No. If he did, I’d be dead. (If the U.S. Attorney is here, I meant that as a joke.) But, no. If there’s one person Buddy doesn’t want making his movie, it’s me.”

Among the stellar names Corrente mentioned along with those of Crowe and Giamatti are Dustin Hoffman (who took the role of Teach in Corrente’s first big movie, American Buffalo, after Al Pacino wasn’t quick enough on the draw), Robert DeNiro, and (faster to reply to Corrente’s phone calls this time around) Pacino. (Corrente told the story of a long-running cat-and-mouse game he played with Pacino over the role that Hoffman eventually snagged in Buffalo.)

Corrente said he does have a list of names in his head of stars he doesn’t want to play Buddy. Top on that list is Joe Pesci, the actor who has made a specialty out of portraying wise guys and stereotypical Italians. “Can you picture it? How that would go?” asked Corrente, expertly imitating a Pesci riff. “Buddy is not a deez-dem-doz guy. He has political genius, wit . . . that’s why so many actors want this role.”

Comparing the three stars that he indicated were high in the running, Corrente said, “Russell wants to change things. He says, ‘I’ll do it this way.’ He is a big movie star, but Paul (Giamatti) physically bears a greater resemblance. But probably better than anyone else at ‘getting’ Buddy in all his complexity is Alec Baldwin, who is one of the most politically savvy actors in the world. And he understands the whole Rhode Island thing.”

Corrente ended his presentation by saying that it may take a long time for him to decide who’ll play Providence’s colorful former mayor. “The great movies take a long time to make, and once they’ve been made, no one even remembers how long the process took. So bear with me, and hopefully I’ll choose the right actor.”