Hawke’s own fascination with John Brown began in 2015 while shooting on set in Louisiana for Antoine Fuqua’s “Magnificent Seven.” While there, a cameraman suggested that Hawke read “The Good Lord Bird” and that he should one day consider playing Brown. Not since Jewell Parker Rhodes’s 2002 novel, “Douglass’ Women” has the messiness of Douglass’s domestic life been so cheekily depicted. “We had fun with the Frederick Douglass character,” McBride said. “But what about the man who gave his life and whose one act changed the course of American history? If Harpers Ferry hadn’t happened, there’s a good argument to be made that the Civil War would have been pushed back 10 or 15 or 20 years.”

Source: New York Times October 13, 2020 21:33 UTC