*In an exclusive interview, we chatted with Hamish Linklater, who portrays Abraham Lincoln, and Anthony Boyle, who embodies John Wilkes Booth, in the highly anticipated new APPLETV+ series “MANHUNT.”
Delving into their respective roles as pivotal figures in one of history’s most significant events, the actors provided unique insights into their characters. With the series poised to explore the gripping narrative of Lincoln’s assassination, Linklater and Boyle offer a glimpse into the intense emotional journey and dynamic storytelling awaiting audiences in this compelling drama.
Per Apple TV+, “Manhunt” is a conspiracy thriller about one of history’s best-known but least understood crimes: the astonishing story of the hunt for John Wilkes Booth after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.
“I don’t know how many people know that this was a coordinated attempt to take down the government and reverse the results of the Civil War,” Linklater told EUR exclusively. “That’s what this young actor was participating in. It was such a terribly perilous moment in our country’s history and we dodged a totally terrible fate by the skin of our teeth. And that’s what the series does.”
Starring alongside Linklater and Boyle in the seven-part true crime limited series are Tobias Menzies (“The Crown”), Lovie Simone (“Greenleaf”), Will Harrison (“Daisy Jones & The Six”), Brandon Flynn (“13 Reasons Why”), Damian O’Hare (“Hatfields & McCoys”), Glenn Morshower (“The Resident”), Patton Oswalt (“A.P. Bio”), and Matt Walsh (“Veep”). Watch the trailer below.
Showrunner Monica Beletsky told Collider she wanted to “portray a domestic version of Lincoln.”
“We do have little windows into him preparing the second inauguration speech, and so we get little pieces of the Lincoln that we are familiar with, or have been canon. But because this was about losing him and the people who were going to fight so hard to avenge his death, I felt it was really important to know him as a human being.” Beletsky explained.
“Hamish is someone who is both so witty like Lincoln and so wonderful with words in real life, and he also has such heart and intelligence, so he just brought a lot to it that I knew would be really ideal for the role,” she added. “He’s also very tall, which helps. Because Tobias is also very tall, and so to be convincing that Lincoln is taller, it really needed Hamish to be all 6’4″, because Tobias is over six feet.”
She continued, “Hamish just seemed that he could comfortably fit in his skin in a role that had been played by so many incredible people.”
We asked Boyle to share some insights into his process for getting into the mindset of a historical figure like John Wilkes Booth.
“I was very lucky that I had access to a lot of the letters that Booth had written from the ages of 15 until 26. When he’s 15, he’s quite rambunctious. He’s like a wayward kid. He’s mooning people at fairs, he’s getting up to mischief. When he’s 20, he starts to get a bit violent. And then by the time he’s 23, so this is 1862, he’s starting to say things like, “The black man is enslaving the white man in America.” This racist ideology has really taken hold of him,” he told EUR.
Boyle added, “Through reading these letters, I got to see this real descent into madness. So that was great for me in terms of research to have these letters. It wasn’t just conjecture. It wasn’t just authors saying, “I felt Booth would’ve thought this.” You had his actual letters, his interactions between his friends and family. And that was a great thing to draw upon.”
Watch our full interview with Hamish and Anthony via the clip below.
“Manhunt” will make its global debut on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes on Friday, March 15. New episodes will be added weekly, every Friday through April 19.
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