Michael Douglas executive produces and plays the title role in Franklin, an upcoming eight-episode limited series from Apple TV+. Douglas portrays American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin who, as the show chronicles, at age 70 and without any experience in diplomacy traveled to France to win their financial and later military support for America’s revolution against Britain.
Accompanied by his grandson Temple (played by Noah Jupe), Franklin spends the next several years outmaneuvering spies, informers and even some of his own colleagues to forge the Franco-American alliance and, ultimately, the peace treaty that saw Britain recognize its former colonies as a united independent nation.
I recently had the opportunity to speak with Douglas, Jupe and the series’ sole director, Tim Van Patten, about Franklin, but as the Q&A below reveals, the interview actually kicked off with a question for me.
Michael Douglas: What do you think the odds are of a guy from the US, a democratic, starting a new country, going over to a monarchy like France, and raising enough money to support and create the country of the United States?
IGN: I think it's a pretty good chance, if that guy also happens to be the smartest guy in the room.
Michael Douglas: Well, okay.
IGN: If they sent an idiot, it might not have worked out.
Tim Van Patten: Absolutely. Well said.
IGN: So, this is going to be the hardest-hitting journalistic question you're going to be asked today. Michael, why isn't Benjamin Franklin bald in this?
Michael Douglas: Why isn't he bald?
IGN: Yes, I'm curious.
Michael Douglas: Well, you could ask him why isn't he fat? Why is he that? I mean, there were certain decisions... I have a high, receding foreheadline. We did test, we looked at it, and it was not as far back as later periods of Franklin, but it seemed to work. We basically juggle the amount of time spent on makeup, on appliances, and creating someone that looks like Ben Franklin, even though we don't know what he sounds like, or never heard him speak, or we have a few portraits of him, most of which are done by women. He seemed to have no problem with women taking portraits of him. I fooled around with it, but people said, "No, you really don't want to shave your hair up here." I tried to stay away from wigs, my hair was long.
It was more a question of production time, and how much time we would lose having to wait for me, number one. Number two, over eight hours, you need the essence of Michael Douglas, rather than somebody all made up for eight hours. We all felt like it needs somebody we can relate to, and find that balance. I'm happy to say you're the first person who's asked that question.
IGN: Noah, I think this is the first time Temple Franklin has ever been portrayed. I don't think he's ever been in any other production.
Noah Jupe: Yeah.
IGN: One thing I liked about his story is that you could take out the idea of his grandfather being Benjamin Franklin, and it's still an interesting coming-of-age story of an American in France at that time.
Noah Jupe: 100%. But even going back before that, he was the bastard son of the bastard son, and he was born in the UK, when his father was over there. There is literally no record of who his mother was. He was born in the UK, and his father just sent him to a foster home and left him in the UK. Benjamin Franklin came over to the UK and picked him up, and took him under his wing, and tried to repair the damage a little bit.
Already you have a crazy dynamic for a kid, and then add onto that, this sort of going to America, finding out about the Revolution, and then going on the mission to France. He just has no idea who he is. He's got no idea really where he's from and what matters to him. He's just trying to discover that and find his purpose in the world, and then he goes to France to find that.
Tim Van Patten: Going into it is the added complexity of the fact that his grandfather had his own (son) locked up as a loyalist to further raise the stakes.
IGN: People forget the Revolution was a civil war. They were British subjects, so Loyalists, they just wanted the status quo. Franklin could shake hands in the end with the British, but couldn't shake hands with his own son. Michael, can you talk a little bit about that relationship? While not depicted directly in the series, it shadows over the entire story.
Michael Douglas: When Franklin's son, William, was the governor of New Jersey, and continued to be a Loyalist, he supported and accepted his son going to prison. This is one of the quirks about Franklin. You always find the heroic qualities, but there's also a yang. I think there's a vindictive quality in Franklin about that. He was very adamant because I think even more than the family, he saw democracy as the penultimate truth, as a new future where the world really had to go.
Franklin was really the first middle-class person. He evolved and developed a middle class and that type of thinking. Then beyond that, he was a seductress. He was dealing with an incredibly tough gamble situation going over there [to France], and getting the support, and he would say just about anything, or do anything to get what he needed.:
He was many things, and perfect was not one of them. He was many things. All those assets that he had, the good, the bad, and the ugly, he brought that into the game. I think that's why he's such a unique character, and only he could pull it off.
IGN: Temple was the only family member he really forged a relationship with. He was distant from his wife, he was distant from his daughter. Obviously, we just talked about what happened with his son. What do you think it was with Franklin that he just couldn't connect really with family, until I guess Temple came along?
Michael Douglas: Well, I mean those are one of the qualities I don't think that are his finest moment. He was not a family man. I would not have wanted be his wife. He was into bigger things. There was a narcissist quality. I mean, I always saw a lot of Elon Musk in Benjamin Franklin. A little bit of brilliance, but pretty much self-involved, and himself at the center of situations. If you're looking for character flaws, he had plenty of them.
IGN: Tim, you've directed plenty of period pieces, particularly American history stuff. Were there costume drama tropes that you wanted to avoid? What do you think are the mistakes maybe directors make when they take on a historical piece? Because I was watching a costume drama last week where at no point did I feel like those people were really wearing those clothes or were really inhabiting that home. It felt like, "Don't break anything, we're just renting it.”
Tim Van Patten: We purposely avoided all of that because we wanted to make this feel connective. We wanted to have the audience relate to it, on every level. The idea was to build a world that was totally authentic, viscerally authentic, you could feel it, right? I think it just helps us, in having the French language in it, elevates it.
Michael Douglas: Two sets, you only had two sets.
Tim Van Patten: We only really had a couple of standing sets, otherwise it was all shot on location. That's the way we approached it. Every show has its own culture, and I adapted what every show needs. This show felt like it needed to feel alive, the characters as well.
Michael Douglas: I also think I've never been aware so much of how much extras can support an environment. I'm sure Tim had a lot of discussion in the studios about the budget, on the size and the number of extras. But you see it was so crucial, because you look, those are say 400 to 500 people in full wardrobe, full wigs, all makeup. But I never spent more time watching the extras too. Because they were all French and everything else, and they were probably the best acting extras I've ever seen, just really helped. They were very comfortable meeting with the actors and not sort of staying far apart. Because of the French European style, it came natural to them. I think they really helped create in this real environment that Tim created.
Tim Van Patten: Well, we had great extras casting department, and we cast each extra individually. We also, outside of our first AD, we had an AD that was directly relating with the background so every one of them had a purpose. In a historical piece, they just crisscross, and they go back and forth. You go, "Where are they going? What are they doing?" But every single one of them [here] had a purpose.
IGN: Tim, you've done Masters of the Air, now this, both of them Apple TV+ projects. What strikes me about Apple TV+ right now is that they're doing what HBO used to do. You did a lot of work with HBO over the years, but I don't know if HBO would've made this. They made John Adams years ago, but now I feel like if they were making John Adams now, it'd be on Apple.
Tim Van Patten: I think quality material will rise to the surface, wherever it's at. Fortunately, Apple TV+ has got a lot of great projects on the table, and it's been nothing but a pleasure.
Franklin premieres globally on Apple TV+ with the first three episodes on Friday, April 12, followed by one new episode every Friday through May 17, 2024.
This Q&A has been edited for clarity.
