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PASADENA, Calif. -- In Showtime's Strange Justice, Mandy Patinkin plays the lobbyist who led the spin campaign in Clarence Thomas' 1991 Supreme Court confirmation fight. But if you're expecting Patinkin to say the movie is an unbiased look at history, you've got the wrong actor.He says the cable movie (Sunday, 8 p.m. ET/PT) comes down firmly on the side of law professor Anita Hill, who accused Thomas of sexual harassment -- a view at odds with that of Showtime executives.
''I had a very specific goal,'' says Patinkin, 46, who appears as intense and passionate as the characters he plays (Chicago Hope, The Princess Bride). ''Which was to make Anita Hill's truth, which I believe was self-evident, come through. I believe that he was lying, and she was telling the truth.''
Delroy Lindo (Clockers) plays Thomas; Regina Taylor (I'll Fly Away) is Hill. Patinkin is Kenneth Duberstein, who was retained by the Bush administration to push good publicity on Thomas' behalf.
''What's fascinating about this is that it's not about what the truth is about, but how the spin is manipulated to sell a product,'' Patinkin says. ''In this case, the product was Clarence Thomas. And his product did not deserve to hold the lifetime position on the Supreme Court.''
Based on the book of the same name, Strange Justice has been a Hollywood hot potato for years. The film started out at TNT, then moved to Fox. Both killed it for fear of offending Thomas. Showtime, which has a history of picking up controversial discards (Bastard Out of Carolina, More Tales of the City), green-lighted the movie last year.
''We didn't want to be accused of having a particular political agenda,'' Showtime programming chief Jerry Offsay says. ''We wanted it to be as evenhanded as we could.''
While making Justice, says executive producer Jacob Epstein, Patinkin was ''totally neutral. He's a brilliant actor, and it's only after we were all done that his real feelings emerged.''
Duberstein, the lobbyist Patinkin plays in the film, tried to contact the actor but was rebuffed. ''I choose to treat him as a dramatic character,'' Patinkin says. ''I just played a guy called Ken Duberstein.''
Duberstein says he's ''intrigued'' and ''looking forward'' to seeing the film. ''I only wish I could sing as well as Mandy Patinkin.'' (Patinkin does about 40 concerts a year and records show and pop tunes.)
A Supreme Court spokesman said Thomas would have no comment on the film. Calls to Hill's office at Brandeis University, in Waltham, Mass., weren't returned.
Patinkin says Taylor, as Hill, steals the film.
''She has such an honest, truthful, powerful presence that is undeniable. After watching her on the first day of filming, any concerns I had about the film being tilted toward Thomas were erased.''
This is a busy year for Patinkin, who plays villain Huxley in The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, a Muppets film out later this year, and is back on CBS' Chicago Hope as brilliant heart surgeon Jeffrey Geiger, the Emmy-winning role he left in 1995. He'll appear in half the season's episodes.
Geiger now heads the hospital's board and fired half the staff on May's finale, a story that mimics reality. CBS said it would cancel Hope unless dramatic steps were taken to reinvigorate the show. The result: Many new faces, including Lauren Holly and Barbara Hershey, will be seen when Hope returns Sept. 23. Only Adam Arkin and Hector Elizondo remain from the original cast.
''It feels like going home,'' Patinkin says. ''Like going to live in an old neighborhood where you grew up. There's just a couple of relatives left, a lot of the houses have been torn down, but there are a lot of new relationships to be made.''
