The Triangle

Issue date: 3/14/08 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Ashley Peskoe From left: Director Tom Hooper, Executive Producer Gary Goetzman, Actor Paul Giamatti and Executive Producer Tom Hanks posed on the red carpet at the National Constitution Center for the HBO Miniseries premiere of "John Adams."

On March 16 at 8 p.m., "John Adams," a seven-part miniseries, will debut on HBO.

Executive Producers Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman worked with Co-Executive Producers Kirk Ellis and Frank Doelger to create a television miniseries based on David McCullough's New York Times No. 1 best-selling and Pulitzer Prize winning book, "John Adams."

The two main characters, John Adams and Abigail Adams, are played by Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney.

"[The miniseries] takes it out of the realm of just classroom history and makes it really about us and makes it about you and me and the world we believe in today," Hanks said.

The setting took place in New York, starting with the Boston Massacre, and then went through 50 years of America traveling through Washington D.C., Boston, Richmond, and ending in Philadelphia, according to Ellis, although all of it was filmed in Richmond.

They recreated all of the buildings because it would have been harder to film in Philadelphia with all the office buildings around and it would have been more expensive, according to Giamatti.

"They did CGI [computer-generated imagery] a fair amount … it was a huge money saving thing … they just kept recycling the same sets over and over," Giamatti said.

Although it could have been made into a two-hour movie, Giamatti said "It's a nicer idea to try to do something that gets more detail."

According to a press release, "John Adams" portrays the birth of America and turbulence the country endured. It also focuses on a representation of founding father John Adams' life. After a 50-year span, the miniseries ends with the deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on July 4, 1826. The series also is a "true love story."

Inspiration for students trying to pursue their goals is just to "try, try and try again, whatever you do you have to have a very thick skin because 90 percent of getting to the level like we are talking about now is being able to endure rejection," Kirk said.

Hanks advised college students aspiring to go into the movie industry to "just do it constantly. Just do it at whatever level you can. The technology that's available right now to tell stories makes it possible … don't sit around and talk about it; sit around and do it. It's as simple as that. Just do it in every available opportunity and never stop."

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