Presidential incarnations

[selenak]

This morning there was an interview with Bryan Cranston in the NY Times, about playing Lyndon B. Johnson in All The Way. It's a good interview, and I knew this was his upcoming project, but somehow I'd missed out on the fact this was a theatre play, not a movie or tv miniseries. Which is great for theatre goes in New York but sad for transatlantic

Comments

[selenak]

Alas no. I can't make it across the Atlantic until next year in autumn, for a conference in Los Angeles.

[zahrawithaz]

Good interview, and a very good point about Johnson, who even in the US is hard to spin as entirely sinner or saint--though I think respect for him has been increasing over the years, especially on the liberal side, for many of the points that you touch on (*coughObamacomparisoncough*). He suffers some from the inevitable comparison with Kennedy, who didn't get much done but who won the cultural wars the same way Elvis did, with death all but canonizing him, so as Kennedy has been more tarnished his star has risen

[selenak]

Good grief. No wonder your uncle still carries a grudge.

Some of the articles I've read mention that Johnson thought he would be getting something like what Dick Cheney carved out for himself with Bush, an almost parallel presidency, whereas what he did get was completely the other end of the extreme.

re: hostilities between a sitting President and his VP today, I have the impression there isn't much love lost between Gore and Clinton these days, but also that this is something that developed during the Gore versus Bush campaign, not something that already existed during the actual Clinton in office years. Incidentally, in The West Wing there is open antagonism between President Bartlet and his first VP, and not much love lost between Bartlet and his second VP, and I always wondered on whom Sorkin & Wells based this on...

ETA: re: Obama & LBJ, guess what I just found?

[zahrawithaz]

Yeah…not the only member of the family who does, actually.

Yes, and I don't think LBJ's catapult from being completely shut out to actually running the show was pleasant. But it does make for a dramatic plot point when telling the story!

Good point about the Clinton/Gore post-presidency. I haven't seen the West Wing (someday!), but I can see how prez/vp tension might be a storytelling boon. I'm a couple seasons behind on Scandal, but I vaguely remember there being similar tensions in that show, which while not actually based on a specific administration (at least insofar as the president is concerned) does channel a lot of their plot points meant to remind the viewers of specific DC players. And of course Kerry Washington's character is based on directly on the first Bush's fixer, Judy Smith.

Great image!