By the time Hamish Linklater props his boots up on the Resolute Desk, you realize this isn’t the Lincoln you slept through in high school history class. This Lincoln cracks wise, loves his family, and — spoiler — is still about to get shot in the back of the head by a moody actor. “He put his boots up on the desk a lot,” Linklater says, almost gleeful about the detail. “He wanted to put people at ease. It was an incredibly tense time, so he tried to make the room feel human.”
It’s the kind of image that Manhunt, the Apple TV+ limited series, revels in — Lincoln the husband, the father, the friend. Not Lincoln the marble statue or the solemn figure glaring down from a five-dollar bill. “We know his words. We know him as a Statesman,” Linklater tells me. “But how was he at home? That was a great relief and an exciting challenge — to find out who this guy really was in the kitchen.”
That “kitchen” turns into a crime scene before the second episode is up. But Manhunt doesn’t want you to sit comfortably with your AP U.S. History cliff notes. It wants you squirming at how eerily recognizable this post-assassination chaos feels in present day. “People should know this story because they don’t know this story,” Linklater says. “If they know anything, it’s that the most famous actor in America shot the President. But they don’t know it was part of a huge conspiracy. They don’t know they went after the Vice President and the Secretary of State on the same night. Those orders came from somewhere.”
You can practically hear him holding back the words: Sound familiar? “Johnson wanted to pardon the insurrectionists,” he points out, dryly. “It’s incredible — and maddening — how familiar that sounds. We should always be listening, always be looking for the signs.”
For a guy who spends most of the series draped in Victorian wool, Linklater knows the ghosts he’s channeling. He didn’t stress about the beard — that’s baked in. He stressed about the voice. “We have no recordings, so I worked with a voice coach,” he says. “It’s Kentucky. It’s that twang that would come out when he needed it — folksy. Politicians still do it today. They lean into those roots. It’s calculated, but it’s real.”
He even finds a way to praise Lincoln’s sense of comedic timing — cracking jokes to break the tension while the country falls apart at the seams. “He wanted the best out of everyone around him,” Linklater says. “He wanted their deep-felt beliefs, not just their strategy. He was hungry for what made people go. And what might save the country.”
What about his co-stars? He lights up at the mention of Lily Taylor, who plays Mary Todd Lincoln. “I worked with Lily 15 years ago — it’s so lovely to have that friend and that history,” he says. And Tobias Menzies, who plays Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War hellbent on hunting down Booth, gets the same nod: “A dear guy, wildly talented. Just a privilege to be on set with him.”
If you’ve followed Linklater’s career from Groove to Midnight Mass to the Chuck Klosterman-inspired Downtown Owl (co-directed with his partner Lily Rabe — “And we’re still married!” he jokes), you’ll know he loves a good tension — the human moments inside the horror. Manhunt is full of them. Boots up, bullet chambered, country in chaos. “It’s an exciting story,” he says. “It’s wild how perilous that moment was. It’s wild how perilous it still is.”
Someone hand the man his boots. America’s about to need them.
Watch the interview above and then check out the trailer below.
