NEW YORK, July 3 (UPI) — Frasier legend Kelsey Grammer says Thomas Fairfax, the 18th-century, Virginia plantation owner he plays in the new film Young Washington, changed the course of history.
“He’s pivotal because he’s the guy that really secures George Washington’s first commission,” Grammer told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“Basically, he says: ‘I’ve got some interest in the land in Ohio. I’ve got a couple of tracts of land that need to be sort of scoped out and maybe you’re the right guy.’ He sees something in him that probably reminds him of himself,” Grammer said.
“They’re neighbors,” he added. “[Fairfax] sort of knows him. He’s the kid down the road, but I think he sees potential in him and decides he’s going to author an opportunity for him. He says: ‘OK, get in the game. Go do this.’ That was fun. It was a great scene to play. But it’s also significant in the fact that he’s the guy that just started the engine.”
Opening in theaters on Friday, the film casts William Franklyn-Miller as George Washington, the military hero who would become the first American president.
Mary-Louise Parker plays George’s mother Mary, Andy Serkis plays Major-General Edward Braddock, who serves in the French and Indian War, and Ben Kingsley plays Robert Dinwiddie, the British lieutenant governor of Virginia.
The movie was written and directed by Jesus Revolution and I Can Only Imagine filmmaker Jon Erwin.
“I love adapting true stories and they’re so meaningful to me because they really happened and I kind of keep it this simple: If I am moved by a story emotionally, in a life-changing way, I just want to give it to audiences everywhere,” Erwin said.
“I was so moved about a decade ago when I just got curious and started reading a lot of books on the American Revolution and I was enthralled by the drama of the story and blown away by the unlikely events that led to America working at all,” he added. “The fact that this country is here at all is a miracle.
Erwin said he was particularly fascinated by Washington.
“So many of us only know him as carved into a mountain or [printed] on a dollar bill. I got really curious in knowing: ‘Where did this person come from? And where was this mythic character formed? And who’s the man behind the myth?’” Erwin said.
“I got to his early life and to this coming-of-age story and this adventure and this rite of passage and it was so meaningful to me that he was forged in things that we all experience, but that we don’t really attribute to great leaders in failure and in hardship and in loss,” the filmmaker added. “But he endured and he learned and he kept going. So, I think that there was a lesson in there for all of us.”
Erwin sees the film as a love letter to America for on its 250th birthday.
“I just thought the origin story of our first founder would be a magnificent way to start that and I’m so grateful to have made the movie and so grateful that it’s coming out on our 250th anniversary,” Erwin said.
Grammer said he hopes the film reminds viewers of how and why the country created.
“There’s this phenomenon in our culture today to dismiss a great deal of the contributions of our Founding Fathers as a ‘bunch of old White guys’ or whatever that particular phrase might be that diminishes their accomplishment,” he said.
“What John has done is revivify them and we realized they were young guys. There were young guys without form, who were not embracing themselves yet, who were not completely in possession of themselves at that time, but were willing to fight.”
The Emmy-winning actor also said he hopes audiences are inspired by what they see on the screen.
“If we are fortunate enough to reconnect people alive today and infuse them with some of the blood of our forefathers, they will be energized by the same thing that energized [the ancestors], which is this dream of the possible,” he said.
“America is a land where dreaming of the possible is more likely than surrendering to dismay and disillusionment. We are always hopeful, always optimistic. And if there is a living, breathing example to go ahead and paint that picture for some young person that may be sitting in the audience the occasion when they see this movie and they discover young Washington. They might discover themselves in that as well.”