Patton Oswalt On Why Apple TV+'s Abraham Lincoln Assassination Drama Manhunt Is “Weirdly Comforting”

If your knowledge about the President Abraham Lincoln assassination begins and ends with his killer John Wilkes Booth, then the Apple TV+ series Manhunt will take you down a rabbit hole of post-American Civil War politics.  

It certainly has been the experience for Patton Oswalt, who plays Detective Lafayette Baker, the lawman tasked by Lincoln’s Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (The Crown’s Emmy-feted Tobias Menzies) with hunting down Booth (Masters of the Air’s Anthony Boyle), a theatre actor-turned-assassin-turned-poster-child-for-the-failed Confederacy.

Based on James L Swanson’s 2007 book, Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, the seven-part limited series looks at how Lincoln’s death throws a spanner in the works of his Reconstruction plans and who stand to benefit the most from the ensuing upheaval.

Speaking to 8days.sg over Zoom from LA, Oswalt said, “I did not know the enormity of the plan against the Union, and that there were other attacks [on government officials] at the same time as Lincoln’s assassination.”

“I certainly didn’t know the level of chaos and terror, and the velocity in and the hunt for Booth. ‘Oh my God, we gotta stop this guy — if he gets down South, he’ll restart the Civil War! I did not know that it reached that level of fever pitch. That was fascinating to me.”

Oswalt believed he was cast as Baker because of his comedic background (his credits include Ratatouille, Young Adult, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and the upcoming Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire). 

“I don’t know if I was there to add levity, but I certainly was there to add a level of humanity and absurdity,” said Patton.

“Sometimes humans are at their most human when they’re being ridiculous and a lot of times Lafayette Baker’s motivations of ridiculous and selfish and childish.”

He added: “I just love the contradiction in a guy who is heading the hunt for Booth, but his main focus is the reward money and the fame’s he’s going to get from it, which is a very human thing.

“I think [that] probably drove a lot of events and aspects of history: people were in it for the money. That’s a very real thing, and I’m glad that they acknowledged that and focused on that.”

Oswalt also pointed out that wearing the military fatigue and fake beard was a pain in the ass. “It was so hot,” he said. “It was brutal.”

But the harsh production conditions in Savannah, Georgia, helped with character development. “It put me in the mood that guy must have been in at the time, like sweaty, impatient and angry.”

That said, he relished filming one scene where he tore up the symbol of hate, oppression and division that’s the Confederate flag.

“I got my Christopher Plummer in Sound of Music moment, ripping up the Nazi flag,” he said, proudly, referencing an iconic scene in the1965 Oscar-winning movie musical.

And how did Oswalt feel doing it? “Fantastic!”

With all the talks about insurrections and coups, Manhunt feels disturbingly contemporary: it’s difficult not to draw similarities between the events depicted in the series and what’s going on in the contemporary political scene (if Booth were alive, he would feel at home at the MAGA rallies), notably the January 6 US Capitol attack.

“It shows that history is cyclical. We’ve been here before. We're here now we’re gonna be here again,” Oswalt said.

“You know, that, that aspect of history is always fascinating to me — and weirdly comforting. We’ve survived it before we can survive it again.

On the prospects of Donald Trump returning to the Oval Office in November, Oswalt said, “Trust me — we are all very nervous over here right now.”

Manhunt is on Apple TV+; Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire opens in cinemas on Apr 10.

Photos: Apple TV+