Father Figure

George Washington is now on TV.                                    

Turn: Washington’s Spies is the intensely dramatic and emotionally charged AMC original series that chronicles the American Colonies’ fight for independence and its nascent espionage that was instrumental in winning the Revolutionary War.

Actors Jamie Bell (Abraham Woodhull), Angus Macfadyen (Robert Rogers), Seth Numrich (Ben Talmadge), Meegan Warner (Mary Woodhull), Daniel Henshall (Caleb Brewster), Heather Lind (Anna Strong), Samuel Roukin Lt. John Simcoe), JJ Feild (Major John Andre), Kevin McNally (Judge Robert Woodhull), and Burn Gorman (Majoy Hewlett) all give riveting, highly honed performances.

However one role in particular is under the microscope and constant surveillance. And that is of the man whose picture has graced our quarter dollar coin and still adorns our one dollar bill: George Washington.

How does an actor approach portraying a man of such stature, this heroic and victorious Revolutionary War general elected First President of the United States some 240 years ago?

Ian Kahn is the accomplished actor who auditioned for the role, and when exiting the room actually thought he might have booked it, and was indeed offered and accepted this challenging opportunity.

How did he handle the expectations heaped upon him when cast in what is in essence another acting gig, albeit an important and possibly career making performance?

Research, always an actor’s go to, would seem to be first in the process of creating behavior.

Kahn says, “I can't overstate enough how important not just the research but the historians that I've grown close to.

One in particular, which I have mentioned before. His name is Dan Shippey and he is a Washington impersonator on the West coast. He runs the Breeds Hill Institute. It turns out that a friend of mine in California, when I got this job said, ‘There’s someone you need to talk to, the man who's dedicated his life to George Washington’."

“I called him and ended up spending three hours a day on the phone with him at the very beginning, just talking to him. Learning everything I possibly could about this iconic man. About this human being. Shippey knows everything and would send me every letter Washington ever wrote.”

Shippey, who has since become good friends with Kahn, also put him in touch with historians in Virginia who were able to answer other questions.

“The series is about turning away from your country. Whether it is Abraham Woodhull (Jamie Bell) turning away from the British, or as everyone knows, Benedict Arnold (Owain Yeoman) turning away from Washington in the Continental Army.”

“There is the very famous moment that I don't mind talking about because it happens in Season Three. I've been talking to Shippey about this moment for three years. Washington says, ‘Arnold has betrayed us. Whom can we trust now’? It's a very, very famous moment and I was able to get everyone's perspective on it.”

“Lafayette wrote in his autobiography about it. Alexander Hamilton had an opinion about it. All of these different people, I'm getting all of this different information so that I can hopefully create a well-rounded figure of this man that can be entertaining for modern audiences but also that historians can look at and say, ‘Yeah, that's General Washington. That's the General Washington that I studied’. That's very important to me.”

Kahn says that Turn creator Craig Silverstein compares the show a bit to Martin Scorsese’s, The Departed, because the Revolutionary War was all about double crossing each other, tricking people and playing chess with people’s lives. It is also reminiscent of The Godfather, when Don Corleone says to Michael, “whoever comes to you with the deal is the one betraying you.”

With his research in place, Kahn concentrated on creating the elements of the character that he would bring to the screen. On his authentic accent he says, “when I first auditioned for the role, it said on the breakdown that they were looking for something somewhere between American and British to show that the colonies were growing but that it was still the same country at the time, so that was sort of the base of it.”

Kahn notes that it is well documented that Washington suffered from pleurisy as a young boy, which damaged his lung function. And so, partially because of his impaired lung, he developed the habit of often speaking very quietly.

“And he would use this as a tactic to get everyone listening very carefully to whatever it was he was saying.”

General Washington was also known to have felt awkward about many personal things. Affording an insight into his process Kahn says, “The one thing he was particularly self-conscious about were his teeth. So when I got the job in Season One I stopped brushing my teeth for a while (about a week prior to the start of shooting) to see what it would be like to be ashamed of one's teeth.”

This included no flossing or dental hygiene of any kind and continued once on set in Virginia. But Kahn adds, “Except mints. I kept the mints handy because I was making new friends. I kept those Listerine strips close.”

“What I found myself doing was speaking without opening my mouth, particularly loudly. I would find, because of the need to keep your mouth closed enough that people didn’t see my teeth, I became very aware of not showing my teeth in scenes.

What ended up happening was there was sort of a rich, I don't know if rich is the right word, but a deep sound to him. I also imagined that he, one of our greatest men, perhaps the greatest of the Founding Fathers that he spoke with great resonance in his voice.”

Kahn’s artistic leanings began when his parents moved from Long Island to New York City and sent him to the very well-known private Fieldston School in Riverdale, the Bronx. Known as a great art school Kahn started studying theatre while also becoming an All City catcher on the Fieldston baseball team.

His stage opportunities there were prodigious; playing Vershinin in Chekov’s The Three Sisters, Lenny in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Oedipus in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, and as a senior sang the title role in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. That Sweeney Todd production entered the International Thespian Society Festival and won Best High School Show in America.

Commenting on his abilities to perform musical theatre Kahn says, “Professionally, I've only played Henry Higgins (the lead role in My Fair Lady), and I did that a few years back. I haven't really put the time in to do it, to my agent's chagrin. I think he would love for me to do it, and I love doing musical theater.”

Kahn went to Skidmore College in Upstate New York and continued acting. His baseball career ended after his freshman year and a rotator cuff injury that required surgery, which he declined. So focus was solely on his acting.

Upon graduating he almost immediately got an agent (the chagrined one that he is still with) and booked a pilot. However the show did not get picked up and he wanted to do theater, so for the next five years he worked the Regional Theater circuit.

“High school and college was my training, and then it was working on original theater stages. So I was a theater actor for most of my career and I’ve always come back to the stage as sort of a base of my acting roles for many, many years.”

“Right before we began shooting Season Three I did a play in New York at the TACT Theater Company, called Hard Love. It’s a two-hander (two character play) with a wonderful actress named Victoria Mack, and it was great to get back on the stage.”

Kahn says, “There were moments that were called upon in Season Three where I said to my wife, you know, if I hadn’t done Hard Love, I don’t know in that scene if I would have been able to hit that moment.”

Seasons One and Two are available on Netflix. 
Season Three premiers April 25.