Sevenscore and five years ago, James Garfield inadvertently charted his course to the Oval Office with a barnburner of a speech at the 1880 Republican Convention. Although he was technically there to advocate on behalf of another candidate — former Ohio congressman turned treasury secretary John Sherman — the resolute Civil War veteran delivered a stirring address that inspired one member of the crowd to vocally switch their vote, yelling: “We want Garfield!”
And Garfield they got. The 49-year-old emerged from the convention at the top of the Republican ticket, and he went on to defeat his Democratic rival, Winfield Scott Hancockto claim the presidency.
That speech provides the climax to the first episode Death by Lightningthe new Netflix limited series that dramatizes the 20th president’s brief time in the White House. Months after taking the oath of office, Garfield was shot by a disgruntled, mentally-troubled supporter named Charles Guiteau and died of his wounds in September 1881. But his convention speech lives on as an example of how history can pivot when one person is in the right place at the right time with the right message.
The specific challenge facing Michael Shannon — the Emmy- and Oscar-nominated actor tasked with playing Garfield — was figuring out how exactly that message was delivered in the room. Speaking in an era absent of recording devices, there’s no way of knowing precisely how Garfield sounded on the podium. It’s the same issue that confronts actors tasked with recreating Abraham Lincoln‘s famed Gettsyburg Address; contemporaneous accounts suggest that speech failed to land in the moment, its brilliance only fully understood after the fact when read on the page.
“It was hard to imagine how he sounded,” Shannon admits to Gold Derby. “The thing I had to keep reminding myself was how big that place was. Our director, Matt Rosstold me, ‘A lot of these people probably didn’t even hear him.’ But enough people heard him that something changed. We know that now — Garfield made this speech and people started thinking that he should be the nominee.”
“To me, he was speaking the truth,” Shannon notes about how he gave that 19th century speech a 21st century voice. “Anytime you’re in a situation where you’re speaking the truth, that’s a lot less awkward than standing in front of a bunch of people and lying your ass off! It feels nice to speak the truth.”
Premiering on Netflix on Nov. 6, Death by Lightning surrounds Shannon with an A-list ensemble that includes Matthew Macfadyen as Garfield’s assassin, Nick Offerman as his vice president-turned-president, Chester A. Arthurand Betty Gilpin as his wife, Lucretia. In a thoughtful conversation, the actor reflected on the lessons he took from Garfield’s story and why America’s currently political leadership would benefit from his example.
(This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity)
Gold Derby: As he’s dying, one of Garfield’s chief concerns is how he’ll be remembered by history. How much did you know about his presidency before taking on the role?
Michael Shannon: I didn’t know much about James Garfield, and I feel like I’m not alone in that department. But the more I learned about him, the more enamored I was of him with him and the more it seemed important to tell people his story. It sure would be nice to have someone like James Garfield around right now.
He had such a life; he started in poverty and worked hard to achieve what he achieved. Nothing was ever really handed to him. He really personified the notion of the American work ethic, and he worked in all aspects of his life. He wasn’t just a soldier and a scholar, he was also devoted to all different kinds of study and all different kinds of service — just an exemplary human being all-around.
One of the things I like about the series is how it presents the presidency as a job. He’s a civil servant who focuses on the work first and foremost. It often feels like the idea of serving the public is missing in today’s political landscape.
Yeah, politicians are public servants — they serve us, the public and they’re not in control of us. They’re not there to tell us what to do or how to behave or what to be. They are only there to serve our country and make our country as healthy and strong as it can be. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s their responsibility to make sure we’re happy all the time. And that doesn’t mean it’s their responsibility to remove any and all challenges from our lives; it’s up to us to accept responsibility for the things in our lives that are up to us to change. The government isn’t supposed to show up at your door every day with a sack of gold, but they’re also certainly not meant to be bullies exerting their will over the will of the people. That’s not in their job description.
What’s most evident in your portrayal of Garfield is a lack of ego — another contrast to today. I’m assuming that’s something that came up in your research.
It’s funny, I had several discussions with Ethan Alter Mike Makowsky about the opposite of that — this idea that nobody can rise as far as he did without some degree of ambition or ego. Nobody’s entirely devoid of ego, but it’s about the amount and how it’s applied. But I always took Garfield at his word when I read things he wrote. He wasn’t trying to be manipulative, it was more reflective how hard he had to work to get where he went.
For obvious reasons, you don’t share a lot of screentime with Matthew Macfadyen, but the scenes where Garfield and Guiteau do cross paths are very significant to their respective trajectories. What conversations did you have prior to filming those moments?
Frankly, we didn’t talk much at all — we hardly saw each other. Matthew had been there a couple of weeks working when I showed up, and then he got a couple of weeks off so we were very rarely on set at the same time. When we were on set together, we kind of kept our distance because these characters don’t understand each other terribly well. But there was an electricity that came with knowing that we were both the figureheads of the show, and having our different experiencing shooting it charged those moments accordingly.
There’s a moment in one episode where they share a handshake after Garfield wins the nomination. Given where history takes them, it’s a striking image — their clasped hands filling the frame in close-up.
That’s all Matt Ross; it was his idea and he had so many tremendous ideas throughout filming. Later on, there’s a scene where he comes into Garfield’s office in the White House, and the one idea I contributed there was that instead of sitting behind my desk, I would be sitting at my circular table where I liked to play chess — as if I had gotten up to stretch my legs or something. That gave a little more intimacy to our scene than if I had been sitting on the other side of my giant desk.
The other key relationship in the series is Garfield’s relationship with Nick Offerman’s Chester A. Arthur. That culminates in a hilarious scene in the final episode where he tries to resign and you refuse to accept. How did you and Nick approach that moment in particular?
I’ve known Nick since I was a teenager living in Chicago. He and I started out doing non-paying, non-Equity storefront theater there and I saw him do a lot of crazy stuff back then. He was part of the Defiant Theatre company and they did the wildest shows you’d ever seen. So getting the opportunity to actually mix it up with him all these years later was particularly sweet. We all agreed that Nick was the only guy who could play that part, and felt very fortunate that he agreed to do it given that he’s a busy fellow.
In terms of our dynamic, something that Nick and I share is that a lot of people perceive us as these big dudes that you don’t want to mess with, but we’re both softies when you get down to it. Nick is one of the sweetest people you’d ever want to meet, but he can also play a complete dips–t who is crooked or scandalous. At the end of the day, Arthur is the character who goes through the biggest transformation during the course of the series — he’s got the biggest arc as they like to say in the biz. I was grateful that Nick got to show off what he’s capable of doing in terms of his range and the depth of his ability.
It’s interesting to me that when Garfield is dying, he’s not raging against his fate — he accepts it. Was that your decision or was it, again, based on your research?
It’s probably a combination of both of those things. As much research as I do, I can’t honestly say that I’m an expert now on James Garfield and how he decided to die. I only have the written accounts to go on. But it seemed in line with how he had to prepare for death as someone who spent a lot of time on the battlefield. He was a braver man than me — braver than anyone I know. I don’t have any motivation to put my own spin on his death; my only mission is to tell his story as accurately as possible.
Assassination is a relevant topic again and there’s a different tenor around the discussion now in the wake of cases like Luigi Mangione. I don’t think Death by Lightning excuses Guiteau at all, but it does suggest that he didn’t get the help he needed. In your own mind, where’s the line between empathy and endorsement when it comes to contemplating who these assassins are?
Well, the one thing I agree with the right about is when it comes to gun violence, it is a mental health issue. I think anybody who points a gun at somebody and shoots them is probably mentally unhealthy. I don’t think anybody who’s healthy in their mind would do something like that. So it’s very hard to argue against that point. But my question is, “OK, you’re right. And so what are you going to do?”
But I also just look at the culture we live in with the messages we get from people that are in positions of authority and the romanticizing of war and of violence in general — both in our history and our artistic culture. I wish I could figure out a magic formula to changing that, but I don’t have it. I do feel like when I do a project like this, at least I’m contributing to highlighting the problem. And I’m not saying Guiteau should be excused for what he did, but he did suffer a great deal in his life and if you want to figure out how to prevent things like that from happening again in the future, you need to have empathy for these people. You have to be curious about them, and you have to have compassion for them. Otherwise, it’s just going to keep happening over and over again.
I recently directed my first film, Eric LaRuewhich is about a young perpetrator of gun violence and his parents dealing with the aftermath of his decision-making. That starts at the top; we’ve got to get more compassionate, empathetic, and curious people in positions of power. For me, Garfield was one of those people. And I think if that actually happened, the instances of this kind of violence would probably go down. I bet it would — I really bet it would.
