‘The Good Lord Bird’: Release date, plot, cast, trailer and everything else about Ethan Hawke's limited series
Inspired by the award-winning James McBride novel titled ‘The Good Lord Bird,’ Ethan Hawke’s next project will be an eight-part limited series to be aired on Showtime. The show, which will be produced by Blumhouse Television, will see Ethan Hawke wearing the actor, writer and producer hats.
It was during the 2016 South by Southwest festival that Hawke and Jason Blum, who is another executive producer on the show, came up with the idea for the show. Hawke reportedly told Blum that his wife and he had just read the book ‘The Good Lord Bird’ and that they should bring it to the screen. The “dominoes started falling” soon after that, Deadline quotes Hawke him as saying.
Release date
‘The Good Lord Bird’ will premiere on Showtime on August 9.
Plot
Told from the perspective of "Little Onion," a slave in Kansas during the Bleeding Kansas era, ‘Good Lord Bird’ narrates the story of his various encounters with special focus on his relationship with the 19th-century abolitionist John Brown. Onion becomes a member in Brown’s motley family and goes on to participate in the famous 1859 raid on the Army depot at Harpers Ferry.
Even though this particular incident did not have the intended impact Brown wanted, it is what instigated the civil war. “’Good Lord Bird’ is one of my favorite books, told with wit, grace and wisdom by the great James McBride,” Hawke said. “Bringing this story to the screen has been a passion project of mine.”
Cast
As of now, only Ethan Hawke's role as John Brown has been announced.
Creator
Hawke is a Tony and four-time Academy Award nominated actor and writer whose diverse career as a novelist, actor, director, and screenwriter spans more than three decades. He received critical praise for his performance in Paul Schrader’s 'First Reformed' and was named Best Actor by the New York Film Critics Circle and the Gotham Awards, in addition to winning this year’s Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead.
He has been in many iconic films such as 'Dead Poets Society', 'Gattaca', 'Training Day', 'Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead', 'Boyhood,' 'Born to Be Blue', Richard Linklater’s 'Before' trilogy, and 'Juliet, Naked'. He also directed and co-wrote the music biopic 'Blaze' which he produced with his wife Ryan for their Under the Influence banner.
Where to watch
The show will air on Showtime.
Trailer
The trailer for ‘The Good Lord Bird’ that dropped on Tuesday, May 12, paints an intense portrait of not just John Brown, but also of “Bleeding Kansas”, the skirmishes between pro- and anti-slavery forces that were part of Kansas' difficult transition to statehood, and the 1859 raid on the U.S. Armory at Harpers Ferry, that marked the beginning of the American Civil War.
In the trailer, Onion (Joshua Caleb Johnson), the series’ narrator, a fictional enslaved boy who becomes a member of Brown’s motley crew of abolitionist soldiers, says of Brown: “Whatever he believed, he believed. Didn’t matter if it was true or not. The old man was nuttier than squirrel t*rd.”
If you like ‘The Good Lord Bird’, you will also like:
‘The Hateful Eight’, ‘Django Unchained’, ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’, ‘12 Years a Slave’, ‘The Birth of a Nation’, ‘Harriet’, and ‘Lincoln’.
