Rob Lowe will get to play President John F. Kennedy in Killing Lincoln, NatGeo’s follow-up to the successful Killing Lincoln. Like that last special, the new one is also based on a book by Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly. The Parks And Recreation actor spoke about playing the president on the first day of the Television Critics Association summer press tour.
Lowe was asked if he cared that the material on which the show is based was written by a conservative pundit. “I didn’t think about it all, because the book had come out and been so successful,” Lowe said, reports Deadline. He added that O’Reilly stuck to the facts in his book and noted that Hollywood is always looking for surefire hits based on best-selling material.
He also rejected a suggestion by one critic that the show could be boycotted like the film version of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game because of the author’s views. The actor explained that while talking with O’Reilly, the two found some surprising similarities, including a “devotion to the memory of John F. Kennedy,” Deadline notes.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Lowe spoke about his interest in JFK’s life and assassination, even though he was born after JFK was killed. “I’ve been following the Kennedy assassination since I was in the first or second grade,” Lowe recalled. “I’ve read every conspiracy assassination book… I’ve come around to thinking [the Warren Commission] got it right — that [Lee Harvey] Oswald acted alone.”
During the panel, Lowe also said that presidents after Kennedy have worked hard to copy him. “Every president today talks like him,” he said. “They’re all like bad actors who do variations on that performance. … If we were in a corner I could do every [modern] president’s version of imitating President Kennedy.”
Killing Kennedy, which co-stars Ginnifer Goodwin as Jackie Kennedy, will air in November, in time for the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination.
image: NBC