MSNBC's Abrams in the Role He Was Born to Play

The new film Nothing But the Truth is a fictionalized take on the Valerie Plame-Judith Miller saga, with Kate Beckinsale playing a glammed-up version of Miller, the New York Times reporter who went to jail for refusing to say who had leaked her the name of a CIA operative.

But one real-life media personality made it onto the screen without a name change: MSNBC's Dan Abrams, who appears as himself, doing what he does, which is to say talking about legal matters on the teevee. It's the first time he's acted in a work of fiction.

Abrams, who's been a more sporadic presence on MSNBC since his primetime show, Verdict, was replaced by The Rachel Maddow Show in September, says he wrote his own lines. "They told me the plot line and I wrote the script," he says.

His father, noted First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams, has a more extensive role in the film. The screen time of Abrams fils is limited to two brief cameos. He declined to say much more than that for fear of spoiling. "Let's just say that at one point Matt Dillon exclaims, 'Turn that guy off!'" (Dillon plays a character based on special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.)