On the fateful day of April 14, 1865, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a play with his wife, just five days after the Union\u2019s victory at the Battle of Appomattox Court House, and died the following day. This kicked off a dogged search for his assassin and swirled into an investigation involving a wider conspiracy, traitors and double-dealers.<\/p>\n
While many know the broad story of Lincoln\u2019s assassination and the arrest of John Wilkes Booth, the intricate details of the event have rarely been portrayed, especially regarding the actual investigation. Now, it is brought to life in Apple TV+\u2019s\u00a0Manhunt<\/em>, a new seven-part series that dropped its first two episodes on March 15.<\/p>\n Creator, showrunner, writer and executive producer Monica Beletsky had the idea for a series about Lincoln\u2019s assassination told through the point of view of Edwin Stanton, his Secretary of War, who took charge of the hunt for the assassin and tried to uphold Lincoln\u2019s legacy of reconstruction. Using James L. Swanson\u2019s\u00a0Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln\u2019s Killer<\/em>\u00a0as a jumping-off point, Beletsky delved into various sources to craft the story in a historically accurate way and portray the characters as close as possible to their real-life counterparts.<\/p>\n Among the chief sources she consulted was the transcript of the conspirators\u2019 trial, a document that is around 1,000 pages long. She found many of her main characters from the pages of the trial. \u201cI knew that I wanted to arc the show to the trial,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt was about working myself backward because I knew I wanted certain emotional payoffs with those characters, so it was a question of how to set those figures up early and show their journey so that when we get there, it\u2019s meaningful to the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n There were other primary sources available as well, such as an autobiography from Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Todd Lincoln\u2019s gown designer. In the book, she writes about her time in the White House, \u201cand apparently some of the scenes that she writes about the Lincolns, we would not know about had she not documented it,\u201d Beletsky says. \u201cIt was important for me to find a way to show her in the story as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Hamish Linklater stars as Lincoln in the series, and while much of the research was done for him during the scriptwriting process, he did a bit of his own to accurately portray the historical character, who is depicted not as the larger-than-life icon everyone knows him as but as a heartfelt father, husband and overall human being. \u201cI certainly read a lot of the big authoritative books,\u201d Linklater says. \u201cWhen I was on set, I\u2019d be reading George Saunders\u2019\u00a0Lincoln in the Bardo<\/em>\u00a0book, which is\u00a0so<\/em>\u00a0heartbreaking. It\u2019s just unbelievable, about him and his son [and his son\u2019s death], and I think he just carried that [grief] with him every day. God, he carried so much mortality inside him during the presidency.\u201d This, to Linklater, makes his assassination even more tragic.<\/p>\n Aside from providing characterizations of historical figures that are not often seen on screen, the series also brings to light parts of the assassination story that are not as widely known. For example, Lincoln\u2019s assassination was part of a wider conspiracy to eliminate the three top officials of the Union: Lincoln, Secretary of State William Seward and VP Andrew Johnson. \u201cIt\u2019s a story we think we know, but we\u2014or at least I\u2014had no idea,\u201d Linklater says. \u201cThis was actually an attempt to reverse the results of the Civil War. And it almost happened.\u201d<\/p>\n This is exactly what Beletsky wanted to accomplish with her story\u2014reveal the unknown characters and parts of an iconic historical event. And that includes being accurate to more than just the narrative. The sets and costumes were meticulously crafted to be true to the time period, she explains, though in a way that most people may not expect. Often on screen, colors in period pieces may seem more subdued, but that is not the case in\u00a0Manhunt<\/em>.<\/p>\n The production designer, Chloe Arbiture, \u201cdesigned over 200 sets for the show,\u201d Beletsky says. \u201cWhen we were doing our research and coming up with our palettes for different locations, what we realized, as well as with Katie Irish, the costume designer, is that this was pre-electronics, pre-cinema, pre-color photography, and we were amazed at the patterns and the colors of the gowns, of the wallpaper, of the drapes, of the rugs. I mean, almost everything I would describe as gaudy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe couldn\u2019t believe there were actually fluorescent colors at the time,\u201d she continues. \u201cHow I came to understand it was that they had theater, they had music and painting, but they didn\u2019t have a lot of visual stimulation in the arts like we have now with screens. So, their clothing, their homes, that\u2019s where they could express that stuff and have visual excitement. All of our wallpapers are period-correct. I decided to have the women in colorful gowns because that was period-correct. In the depictions of it, we\u2019re so used to seeing it in black-and-white that it\u2019s not necessarily known.\u201d<\/p>\n Though there were many set pieces constructed specifically for the show, they were able to film in a few real locations, as well. While scouting in Savannah, Georgia, where filming was set to take place, Beletsky and the team stumbled upon General William T. Sherman\u2019s headquarters, where he and Stanton agreed to Field Order 15, which would allot plots of land in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida to formerly enslaved families.<\/p>\n While out on a scouting trip, \u201cI looked in the park, and there was one of those blue [historical marker] signs, and it said, \u2018Here is where Edwin Stanton made the contract with Sherman for Field Order 15,\u2019 which is the 40 acres and a mule reconstruction deal,\u201d she explains. \u201cI just got chills. I couldn\u2019t believe it was right there. Almost no one\u2019s ever even heard of Stanton and that it happened right there. I was happy to get that scene into the show because it\u2019s not directly part of the investigation, but it\u2019s so important to me to show the audience what was at stake and what was lost when we lost Lincoln. That was very moving, and it was very moving on the day to be in that space.\u201d<\/p>\n With all this dedication to the accurate portrayal of the pivotal historical event, the hope is that viewers will lean more into President Lincoln and that era to discover things they didn\u2019t know before. And, of course, enjoy \u201cwhat a good edge-of-your-seat thriller it is,\u201d Linklater says.<\/p>\n The first two episodes of\u00a0Manhunt<\/em>\u00a0are now available on Apple TV+, with the remaining five to drop weekly on Fridays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Monica Beletsky and Hamish Linklater talk about what went into making Manhunt historically accurate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1412,"featured_media":20358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,70],"tags":[3360,8727,2116,8726],"class_list":["post-20357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-features","category-top-stories","tag-apple-tv","tag-hamish-linklater","tag-manhunt","tag-monica-beletsky","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\n