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EXCLUSIVE: Anson Mount has landed the lead in AMC’s period drama pilot Hell on Wheels. Meanwhile, Irish actress Dominique McElligott has been cast as the female lead in the Western, set during the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. The project centers on Cullen (Mount), a former slave owner and a Confederate soldier determined to avenge the rape/murder of his beloved wife by tracking and killing the Union soldiers who killed her. Fearless, Cullen winds up working on the Nebraska prairie’s Hell on Wheels’ portion of the transcontinental railroad. McElligott will play Lily Bell, an intelligent woman taking care of her ill husband who is part of the team of surveyors mapping the railroad’s course. In the pilot, Mount and McElligott join recently cast rapper-actor Common.
Mount, most recently seen in the feature Cook County, on which he also served as producer, just wrapped production on Straw Dogs and Burning Palms. On TV, he co-starred on the NBC/Dick Wolf series Conviction. McElligott recently wrapped The Guard and Blackthorn. Hell on Wheels was created and written by Joe and Tony Gayton and developed by Endemol USA. The Gaytons and Endemol USA’s Jeremy Gold executive produce; Entertainment One’s John Morayniss and Michael Rosenberg oversee production. David Von Ancken is directing the pilot, which is scheduled to begin production in August in Alberta, Canada.
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Really? Do we need a TV show that tries to make a hero/anti-hero out of a former slaver owner/Confederate soldier???!!!
Yech!
The irony that this guy is seeking revenge for the rape and murder of his wife is obvious.
Oh, and by the way,… those “Nebraska prairies” will be filmed in Alberta,Canada.
If they ever do get around to making the Kurt Warner story into a movie, Anson Mount has to be the guy. I mean, the guy is a dead ringer.
Ok, here we go again. I spoke about this on another post. We really need to stop portraying confederate soldiers as sympathetic heroes because they’re NOT. I’m glad they cast Common in this but he better be more than an “ex-slave yassuring” all over the place.
Perhaps we should withhold judgment, as Don and Walt are both anti-heroes.
“We really need to stop portraying confederate soldiers as sympathetic heroes because they’re NOT.”
You know, there’s a reason recent movies (JONAH HEX, RIDE WITH THE DEVIL, COLD MOUNTAIN) with sympathetic Confederate characters don’t do well no matter how many smart black characters are put in them to show said Confederates weren’t “all” bad. It’s a shame Hollywood hasn’t gotten a clue as to why. These people were traitors (or were fighting for traitors) to defend a loathsome system, and there’s nothing heroic about being that deluded, selfish, or cruel.
So then, by your logic, all Americans are traitors to the United Kingdom?
IMHO, portraying Confederate soldiers as sympathetic without some really amazing contextualization is about the same as portraying Nazi soldiers as sympathetic.
As this AMC putting on this show, I’m willing to give them a chance to pull off this character in an interesting and compelling way, even if the character is doing – or has done – some pretty heinous things.
Bryan Cranston’s Walt in Breaking Bad is a compelling character, because we understand what’s compelling him, and why he does the things he does, even as we cannot condone the path he takes. In real life, this dude belongs in prison at the very least, but in the show he’s a really interesting cat to follow.
If Anson Mount’s character in Hell on Wheels is as interesting as Walt or Don Draper in Mad Men, this could be a great show. This is why I’m suggesting we withhold judgment.
Well, duh. Yeah. We ARE traitors to the crown. We just don’t mind being traitors to the crown. So this point about the Confederacy stands. That said, this was a time when loyalty to your state was the common feeling. Lee, for example, wrote against slavery but still couldn’t abide an invasion of his native Virginia.
I think they did just fine in the outlaw Josey Wales.
If you want to suppress all mention of anything unethical in human history, you are only reassuring that history will repeat itself. You cannot pass judgement on individual actions until you walk in their shoes. Have you had your family brutally murdered? Have you had your entire life’s work taken from you? I would think someone who experienced that would be a little messed up and focused on revenge. They wouldn’t be looking at the big picture, only survival. By teaching the next generation about what use to be, allowing them the respect to make their own opinion, then we can rest knowing that we have done our part to make sure that such atrociousness do not repeat. If a TV show can help in all this, then so be it.
withholding judgment?? dude, this is the internet. we don’t need no wisdom on the internet. we need instant analysis — and preferably condemnation — asap.
Thank you again Hollywood for yet another show about slavery and pre-civil rights America.
Maybe if we make enough of these shows, we can go back tot he good-old days when there were no black people.
Here’s some more suggestion for all white shows:
STAFFERS – An all-white TV writing staff enjoys life without black people.
THE AGENVY – An entertainment agency does nothing to help their clients while enjoying life without blacks.
THE STUDIO – Hilarity abounds as white executives make shitty movies without black people.
The whole point of “diversity” is that the entire TV universe does not have to be 24/7 Black. Whites don’t demand that BET run nothing but shows about/by/for Whites. Neither do they demand Univision and Telemundo broadcast in English and do stuff about America instead of Mexico.
Want all Black themed stuff? Watch BET. Its got you covered. Want all-gay? LOGO and a few other channels can fill that need. Want all women, or all golf, or all motor racing? Cable’s got it for you. That’s the whole point.
Meanwhile, AMC’s model is to get rich White folk to watch. That could degenerate into a battle to get Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs to watch, and no one else, but for now it seems to work. Why would they change?
Its not as if the Black Middle class were more than 5% of the population (they’re not). There are probably more golfers than middle class Blacks, so you might as well complain that AMC is not having John Daly and Phil Mickelson guest star on the show.
As far as terrible movies without Black People, have you seen: Big Momma, Big Momma’s House, Norbit, Adventures of Pluto Nash, or anything by Tyler Perry?
I’m a bit tired by the anti-Americanism inherent in making Confederates into heroes (they were the original anti-Americans) ala Serenity, and a whole lot more. This sounds as tiresome and predictable as “Deadwood meets Madmen” which is *EXACTLY* how it was pitched, right down to Dan Draper meets the Tim Olyphant character. Complete with the “good girl” dumping her ailing husband to chase bad boy with a dark, tragic past.
How is AMC a “model to get rich white folk to watch”? Common was the first dude cast in this thing. For all we know, this could be his show entirely. And who says that a confederate is going to be a hero or anything else? Wait for the show, y’all. Let’s debate it then.
This show looks awesome and smart move getting Common on board for this, that guy is rad. AMC is on fire!
I’ve got a better idea. Let’s ignore the historical complexities of history and from now on make all southerners moustach-twirling villains and all northernerns as slavery-hating actinides. It’s not important that none of that is true. What’s important is maintaining the lie that makes you feel self-righteous.
Ironic that a man wants revenge for the murder of his wife? Why? He loved his wife AND he owned slaves. That’s the truth about history: it’s complex and messy but you’d much prefer the cartoon version right?
“Ironic that a man wants revenge for the murder of his wife?”
Extremely, considering that those who sold him his slaves didn’t exactly care that their actions led to/were responsible for the murder/rape of female slaves. What goes around, and all that…
“He loved his wife AND he owned slaves. That’s the truth about history: it’s complex and messy but you’d much prefer the cartoon version right?”
No, but I sure am not going to automatically regard as a hero a man who made his fortune through slavery. Nor am I going to believe a show that doesn’t honestly address the costs of his actions, which has always been where “Confederates are sympathetic, really” movies have always failed.
have any of you people actually read the script????
how do you know he did not free his slaves?
i love all the people making comments that most likely have not even read the script. for instance, how do you know there will not be an Asian storyline about the workers? just because 3 leads were cast that are not asian? this is not the story about he asian workers who built the railroads, or helped build them. but i would bet that AMC covered their “tracks” with this storyline!
Deering, you don’t know anything about the civil war, do you? Most confederate soldiers neither owned slaves nor fought to defend the system, they fought because they believed the union was coming to take their LAND. And most northerners at the time were as racist as any southerner, read about the New York draft riots if you don’t believe me. A bunch of those heroic northerners
… Lynched a bunch of black orphans on Bleeker street in NYC to make the following point, “we’re not going to die to fight slavery, on fact we hate blacks too”.
Slavery was wrong but you must remember the times and the let go of the comforting fantasy that the Civil War was about heroic, slavery hating northerners fighting evil, racist Southerners. That image had been conjured on hind-sight. The war was fought for the same reason all wars are fought: money, power, greed. The north fought to preserve the union, NOT to free slaves.
More important than any of the above arguments: NO ONE HAS SEEN THIS SHOW and I doubt if anyone has read the script. How do we know if anyone is a “hero”? Were we supposed to condemn Tony Soprano for murder and racketeering (not to mention threatening a young black man with racial epithets when he tried to date his daugher)? Where was the outrage then? I suppose northerners are, by geography, exempt from these accusations?
Gaberman,
A lot of people weren’t fans of the Sopranos. Many Italians, in particular, HATED the Soparanos and saw it as racist against them because it perpetrated offensive stereotypes. Do a little googling and you’ll find plenty of opposition to the Mafia-related programs by Italian Americans.
Hello! Look at how many Italian Americans were livid about MTV’s Jersey Shore’s portrayal of Italian Americans.
The question here is that many people fear that this show will try to make a slave owner sympathetic. Is it a rush to judgement? Yep! But, really, that’s based off the aforementioned list Hollywood projects that tried to white wash Confederate soldiers.
As for Americans being traitors to the Brits, get real.
As a Brit and non-slaver owner, I’d just like to tell the South… Hold on in there! Help is on its way! And, yes, Mark, Americans are all rebels who deserve to be hanged from the highest tree. Twice.
I’m glad you brought this up. The parallel you present, however, is faulty at best. Italian American criticism of “The Sopranos” was about stereotyping. The current discussion board is an argument about how we should all jump on the bandwagon of condemning a show that no one has seen. Should we condemn “Shindler’s List” without seeing it because Liam Neeson plays a Nazi? Again, where’s the outrage? It doesn’t exist because the story vindicates the hero.
I’m not saying that slavery isn’t a terrible blight on our history. I’m certainly not saying that we should glorify the Confederacy. I’m just saying that to denounce something that no one has seen is exactly the same kind of mind-set that makes so much of America a truly contentious, angry and mistrusting place.
I’m only asking if we can get over our need to have idealogical arguments and just watch a fricking TV show that’s clearly trying to present several different characters with several different backgrounds and viewpoints. To me, that’s what America is about.
wow! let’s all hear it for a show that centers on the building of the transcontinental railroad — but NONE of the leads cast thus far are asian-american! i mean, 2/3 of the workers were chinese-americans! i just loooove this town … (it’s like, say, doing a show about the NBA, but no african-american leads; or doing a show about washington DC, but none of the leads are white.)
Gabberman, you are using logic and making perfect rational sense. Please leave the Internet immediately.
You damn Yankees just don’t understand a thing about what happened 150 years ago. Less than 3% of Southerners were slave owners; less than the percent of slave owners in the Union states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. It wasn’t about slavery. Lincoln didn’t free one single slave; while Robert E. Lee (the only person in history to make it through West Point without a single demerit) freed all of his wife’s slaves upon their marriage. Rant on, fools.
You people excel in bigotry and ignorance.
I’m currently working on the show. Its one of the best scripts I’ve ever read for television. Why don’t you wait and see before pre-judging it? Just a thought…
I know you guys want to white wash history and have all your main characters be sympathetic one dimensional people we can root for because they always do the right thing but that doesn’t always make the best story (aside from being completely unrealistic). Which is actually what people should be aiming for, the best story. I can name a hundred amazing westerns that had morally ambiguous characters; Unforgiven, Tombstone, Man with No Name trilogy, Curse of the Undead, Magnificent Seven, Seraphim Falls, 3:10 to Yuma, etc. This is the genre built on horrible men and women.
My argument would be to stop portraying Confederate soldiers as either sympathetic or unsympathetic. They were just men, not villains or heroes, but normal people who did what they felt they needed to or wanted to. Give me Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, Rescue Me, Deadwood, Hell on Wheels, and Walking Dead over another damned CSI, Rizzoli and Isles, or freaking Hawthorne clone.
When will the series start?
cool, because I like all the TV westrens
Ever just consider watching a show because it is entertaining. Food for thought.