John And Paul
David McCullough's biography of John Adams helped raise our second President's profile. Adams had always run, at best, a pour fourth among his contemporaries (after Washington, Jefferson and Franklin).
Now the HBO adaptation is spreading the message even further. Though after watching Paul Giamatti fret his way through the role, my guess is Adams will now be remembered as the most perpetually annoyed of the Founding Fathers.
posted by LAGuy @ 1:38 AM
2 Comments:
Interesting choice for HBO- putting an actor best known for being whiny alcoholic oenophile as the 2d president (not to mention an actor I associate with being wimpy doctor/prison rape victim as the founding father himself) I only saw bits and pieces of a few episodes but I couldn't get beyond the modern lens- Paul Giamatti seemed to playing Paul Giamatti in a wig. I guess thats the risk of getting well-known actor personalities to play well-known historical personalities(on the other hand I remember a TV miniseries from the 80s which had Brad from the Rock Horror Show and the Principal from Ferris Bueller as Washington and Jeferson, respectively and had no trouble with the verisimilitude- although it was a atrociously dull production)
Now you see why actors hate typecasting, but producers don't. Giamatti's appeared in over 50 films and many different kinds of roles, but if the general viewing public associates you with one role it can be hard to break away.
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