In the Netflix limited series Death by Lightning, James Garfield (Michael Shannon) attends the 1880 Republican National Convention to support James Blaine (Bradley Whitford) but, after a fiery speech that impresses the crowd, he reluctantly becomes the presidential nominee. A low-key, accessible campaign and strongly-held political positions begin a presidency cut far too short by the bullet of assassin Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen).
Awards Buzz spoke with Shannon whether he knew anything about this United States president prior to taking on the role:
“I didn’t. I really didn’t. But that’s not saying much, because when I went to school, I thought history was about the most boring thing imaginable. It was not something that intrigued me. But I realized, once I got out of school, that it wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in history, it was just that it was taught to me so poorly that it would be impossible for anybody to be interested in it. When you act history, and really get an opportunity to try to inhabit history, it becomes very fascinating.”
On whether this show feels like a parody, Shannon expressed:
“I personally never felt when I was on set that we were doing anything too outlandish. People did have senses of humor back then. Parody existed back then, and political cartoons and all the rest of it. There’s always been a lot of humor in politics. It’s one of the ways of dealing with how stressful it is, because it’s a very stressful job. Usually, wherever there’s a large amount of stress, there’s a little bit of humor hiding around the corner.”
Watch the video above to hear what Shannon found to like about Garfield and how he’d love for him – or someone like him – to be president right now.
All four episodes of Death by Lightning are now streaming on Netflix.
