What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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T10 WHATS UP! October 4 - 10, 2020 during a time known as "Bleed- ing Kansas," when anti-slavery groups clashed with pro-slavery groups. Even though that was 164 years ago, the content seems somewhat timely with the cur- rent focus on the #BlackLives- Matter movement and the out- rage over systemic racism in America and around the world. Originally slated to premiere in August, the miniseries was pushed back to October — a move that Peter White from Deadline.com reported may have been designed to give pro- ducers time to carefully consid- er the content and design an ap- propriate PR campaign. Even with the delay, there's plenty of buzz about the series, thanks in part to Hawke's in- volvement. The program marks the Academy Award nominee's first major TV gig in nearly a de- cade. It's clear from the trailer for the new series that Hawke's Brown is sufficiently unhinged. The real-life Brown was on a mission to abolish slavery at just about any cost, allegedly con- vinced that he was doing God's work and that violence was nec- essary to end the practice of slavery. Bringing such a charac- ter to life would be a challenge for any actor, but Hawke's part in the miniseries is just one in a long list of challenging roles the actor has tackled throughout his career. He first came to the at- tention of audiences as Todd Anderson in "Dead Poets Soci- ety" (1989) alongside Robin Wil- liams ("Mrs. Doubtfire," 1993). Hawke's other notable film cred- its include "Reality Bites" (1994), Richard Linklater's "Before" tril- ogy and "Training Day" (2001) — the latter of which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He also earned a nod in the same category for "Boyhood" (2014). The actor is no stranger to adapting stories for the screen, having earned two Oscar nomi- nations for Best Adapted Screenplay for "Before Sunset" (2004) and "Before Midnight" (2013). Hawke's co-star Johnson is one of the entertainment indus- try's up-and-comers. The teen- ager has landed roles in FX's "Snowfall," TNT's "Animal Kingdom" and ABC's "Black- ish." On the big screen, he starred in the indie movie "It's Just a Gun" (2017) and the fea- ture "Ray Meets Helen" (2017). In contrast to Johnson's por- trayal of a fictional character, Broadway star Daveed Diggs ("Hamilton," 2020) plays a re- al-life historical figure: famed orator and abolitionist Freder- ick Douglass. In "The Good Lord Bird," Brown and Onion take refuge with Douglass and his wife for a spell. Of course, this isn't the first time Diggs has portrayed a historical fig- ure. The actor, singer, rapper and songwriter originated the roles of Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette in the musical "Hamilton," winning both a Tony and a Grammy. On film, the multifaceted perform- er has appeared in "Wonder" (2017) and "Velvet Buzzsaw" (2019), while his TV credits in- clude "Black-ish" and "Snow- piercer." Other notable castings in "The Good Lord Bird" include Wyatt Russell ("Lodge 49") as first Lt. J.E.B. "Jeb" Stuart, Da- vid Morse ("The Green Mile," 1999) as Dutch Henry Sher- man, Steve Zahn ("War for Planet of the Apes," 2017) as Chase, Orlando Jones ("Sleepy Hollow") as The Rail Man, and Ethan Hawke's daughter, Maya Hawke ("Stranger Things"), as Brown's daughter, Annie. As the cast brings to life real and imagined players in the quest to abolish slavery, view- ers will follow Onion and Brown as they travel to Canada, encounter Harriet Tubman (Zainab Jah, "Blindspot") and engage in a plot to take control of the nation's largest armory at Harper's Ferry — an event widely credited as one of the catalysts for the American Civil War. Watch the drama unfold in "The Good Lord Bird," pre- miering Sunday, Oct. 4, on Showtime. Daveed Diggs in "The Good Lord Bird" continued from page T2 History unhinged: Ethan Hawke stars as John Brown in 'The Good Lord Bird' TV FEATURE