Miniseries Broken Trail was its highest-rated program, and AMC has done well in airing genre movies. Now the network is tackling a weekly Western drama series set in 1865 and chroncling the building of the transcontintental railroad.
Hell on Wheels, due Nov. 6, stars Anson Mount as Cullen Bohannon, a former slave owner who joins a crew laying track in part to seek out those responsible for the death of his wife. Singer Common plays Elam Ferguson, an ex-slave who crosses paths with him.
It's one of a growing number of period dramas, led by AMC's own Mad Men, which is set a century later, and actors say they're liberated by the ability to play a different era.
"I'm from the rural South and my interest in this period borders on the religious, and I've been paranoid that I'm missing something," Mount says.
Common says he feels "a true responsibility to be as faithful as I can to what black America suffered at the time."
"One of the difficult things as an actor is taking on the prejudices of the period," says Colm Meaney, who plays a corrupt railroad boss. "It can be a bit unnerving when you're playing very negative values."
But producer Joe Gayton, who created the series with his brother Tony, says, "We will be politically incorrect at times, but we have to be. We're not going to shy away from that. It's a big part of the show."
Source: USA Today
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