‘Death by Lightning’ Stars Explain the Wild True Story of a U.S. President’s Fan-Turned-Assassin: “He Thought He Was a Hero”

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Death by Lightning.]

The four-episode Netflix limited series Death by Lightning tells the true story of James Garfield (Michael Shannon), the Ohio Congressman who reluctantly became the 20th President of the United States, and Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen), an admirer who was convinced he was responsible for Garfield’s success. A political office-seeker whose delusions of grandeur led him down a path that only worsened his mental stability, Guiteau spiraled until he ultimately shot Garfield. While the gunshot didn’t immediately kill him, the infection it caused did, ending Garfield’s six-month presidency, leaving his wife Lucretia (Betty Gilpin) a widow, and resulting in Guiteau’s hanging.

During this interview with Collider, co-stars Shannon and Macfadyen discussed what they found most compelling about Garfield and Guiteau, Guiteau’s delusions and how many people are like him today, how this is another project with Shannon and his longtime friend Shea Whigham (who plays Roscoe Conkling), the decisions they made when it came to effectively embodying their characters, how frightening it is that Garfield could have survived, shooting Guiteau’s scene at the gallows, and that particularly memorable moment between Guiteau and Garfield’s widow.

’Death by Lightning’s Michael Shannon Saw Admirable Characteristics in President James Garfield

“He tried to elevate all the people around him.”

​Collider: All I really know about James Garfield is that he was one of our presidents. This series really humanizes him and lets us know more about the man he was. Michael, what did you find most interesting about him? You’ve said that you wish there were more people like him nowadays. What are the qualities in him that you think really set him apart and that you wish you saw more of now?

MICHAEL SHANNON: He was super intelligent, but not arrogant about it, which I always admired. I do think that most of the time, in most situations, he was the smartest guy in the room, but he wouldn’t flaunt that or rub it in anybody’s face. He took this intelligence and tried to use it to help people. He didn’t take advantage of them or beat them down, but he tried to elevate all the people around him, which is an admirable characteristic.

It says a lot about him that when he starts to get these votes that he didn’t know he was going to get, he’s genuinely surprised and shocked.

SHANNON: Yeah. I wasn’t actually there when it happened, so it’s hard for me to say with complete data that that’s the truth. But based on the research I’ve done and what I’ve read about him, that seems true. I know our writer, Mike Makowsky, was very interested in exploring the flipside of that humility and whether he actually did possess ambition and wanted to succeed, whatever that means. But whether or not that was true, he ultimately just believed in common sense and what was logical and what was helpful to the country. That’s what he was a proponent of.

MATTHEW MACFADYEN: And he had the great ability to listen. He wasn’t afraid to listen.

Matthew, what did you find most interesting about Charles Guiteau? Was he someone you found challenging to understand?

MACFADYEN: I just really loved the experience of playing him. I loved his complexity. He’s got a childlike quality, as well. He means well, doesn’t he? He would see himself as a hero, which is always fun to play, especially when you’re doing terrible things and not behaving very heroically. I loved it.

You have a knack for playing men who want to be noticed by powerful men that they also get brushed aside by. Do you think that Charles Guiteau and Tom Wambsgans might have been kindred spirits in some way?

MACFADYEN: No, I didn’t. Not really. They didn’t exist in my imagination at the same time. I’m sure they’ve got similar qualities.

Why do you think it was important for Charles Guiteau to matter to these powerful men?

MACFADYEN: That’s a normal human thing, isn’t it? He wanted to be noticed, and he wanted to feel important and productive. That’s not hard to understand. People want to be seen, want to be visible, and want to be part of a group that’s doing something.

SHANNON: There are so many people like Charles Guiteau in this country right now. This country is populated with Charles Guiteaus right now. No offense to anyone, but there are a lot of Charles Guiteaus running around saying, “I want to be involved. I want to feel important.”

MACFADYEN: “I want to be heard.” He wasn’t really very good at anything, and he wasn’t very well in his head. He fixated on Garfield, and he really believed that he got him elected. He believed that he was solely responsible for getting him elected. So, he became fixated, and then inevitably let down terribly when he wasn’t brought into the fold and given a consulship, and it unravels from this. It’s very sad.

You almost feel sympathy for him, watching him trying to get these people to care about him and what he has to say when they honestly would have thrown each other under the nearest bus if there were buses back then, let alone giving this guy the attention he wanted.

SHANNON: It’s true.

MACFADYEN: He really believed that he was instrumental in getting Garfield elected, which was silly. But there are people today who believe in all kinds of nonsense conspiracy theories. It’s an interesting thing. Why do we fall for these things?

Do you think there is anything that would have knocked him off the path that he was on? Do you think he would have just found another thing that upset him that would have led him to the same point, or do you think something could have changed his actions?

MACFADYEN: I’m not sure. Probably something else would have knocked him off. He was constantly coming up against it. He wasn’t very well, psychologically.

SHANNON: And he was a bit of a narcissist. If Garfield had said, “Okay, I’ll make you the Ambassador to Spain,” or whatever, he would have gone to Spain and somebody would have disrespected him and he would have blamed that thing.

‘Death by Lightning’ Is Another Project for Longtime Friends Michael Shannon and Shea Whigham

“He’s just a dear human being.”

Michael, this is another project to add to your projects with Shea Whigham. What do you like best about him as an actor and what do you like best about him as a person?

SHANNON: He’s just a dear human being and he’s a real journeyman. He’s worked so hard for so long, and he really cares about the craft. He’s not hung up on the glitz and glamor of the whole situation. He just wants to tell a story and inhabit a character as authentically as possible.

MACFADYEN: He’s a supremely kind man.

SHANNON: He’s the salt of the earth. Our first movie together was Tigerland, which was a while ago. We’ve done a bunch since then. I know his family. I know his brother Jack very well, and his kids and his wife. They’re amazing people.

Every time you guys pop up in a project together, it feels like you have one of the longest running relationships in Hollywood.

SHANNON: Yeah. We’ve done quite a bit together.

Obviously, the beard, the clothes, and the sets help you get into the mindset of the time period, but was there anything that either of you wanted to do physically to help you embody these men?

MACFADYEN: I don’t know why, but I became fixated with making my hair nice, even though it was never nice. It was a greasy mess. I don’t know where that came from. I kept trying to be presentable, even coming out of prison. That was a little tick I did. I don’t know how much ended up in the show.

SHANNON: The clothing affects your movement, or at least it did for me. I had these vests that were very starchy. Everything is all pinned together. Sometimes you feel like if you take a deep breath, it’ll just pop and fall apart. The clothing gives you a certain bearing. You don’t want to be slouchy. You’re talking about a guy who was an officer in the military and rode around on a horse. He was a hero.

MACFADYEN: We had a lovely costume designer, Michael Wilkinson, and we decided to make Charles’ clothes a little bit either too big or too tight, so he felt like a kid that was wearing slightly too big or slightly ill-fitting clothes, which was helpful. That’s part of the fun.

Michael, what was your reaction to learning that Garfield died of sepsis and would have lived had he just been left alone?

SHANNON: It was pretty ironic because we shot this in Budapest, Hungary where [Ignaz] Semmelweis was from. He was one of the original vanguards of hygienic [surgery] . I saw a statue of him and was like, “I wish he would have been Garfield’s doctor.” It’s pretty frightening when you look at what I consider to be the steps backward that are currently being taken, as it relates to who’s running our healthcare system currently. You’d like to think that America would be at the forefront of medicine, but there seems to be some dangerous obstinance taking place currently, and also over a hundred years ago.

Shooting at the Gallows for ‘Death by Lightning’ Was a Memorable Day for Matthew Macfadyen

“He realizes that perhaps it’s erally going to happen.”

Matthew, how was it to shoot the scene at the gallows with a rope around your neck? Is that one of those acting moments that’s just a bit strange?

MACFADYEN: Yeah. That was a very, very, very hot day and it was a very stark set. We were outside in an old barracks outside Budapest. It was this great big space with the sun beating down. They built a gallows in the corner. I remember it very clearly. It was really wonderful to shoot and quite unsettling, in a good way. Charles was performing all the way to the gallows. He was performing to the crowd. He was at the height of his delusional state. And then, right at the very end, he realizes that perhaps it’s really going to happen. He thought he was a hero and that he deserved adulation and congratulations for what he had done.

One of my favorite scenes in this is the one with Garfield’s wife coming to tell him that she’s going to erase him from history and his reaction to that. What was it like to share that moment with Betty Gilpin?

MACFADYEN: It was just a privilege to watch and to act with Betty. She’s a force. She was just amazing. I didn’t really have to do much. She’s magnificent. The idea of being a footnote is the worst. It’s anathema. It’s a nightmare.

SHANNON: We can’t all have a big story in history. There are eight billion people on Earth. Can you imagine eight billion stories? Some of us have to be anonymous wasters.

MACFADYEN: Yeah, some of us have to coast along anonymously.

Death By Lightning is available to stream on Netflix. Check out the trailer: