History takes a ‘Turn’ to the secret on AMC

By Kate O’Hare © Zap2it

The Revolutionary War is a lot more than dates and battles and guys in powdered wigs. It was fought in front yards, on the back forty, down the road, up the hill, and over dining tables and picket fences across the colonies.

It pitted rebels against an empire that didn’t feel obligated to give them their rights under the law yet felt entitled to a chunk of what they created with the sweat of their brows.

And like all great conflicts, a fair part of it was conducted in complete secrecy.

On Sunday, April 6, AMC premieres “Turn,” an espionage thriller based on the nonfiction book “Washington’s Spies,” by Alexander Rose. It centers on Abraham Woodhull (Jamie Bell), an ordinary farmer supporting his family in British-occupied Setauket, Long Island.

But when the war comes too close to home, Woodhull joins forces with childhood friends Benjamin Tallmadge (Seth Numrich), a Yale classmate of Nathan Hale, now an officer in the Continental Army; whaler Caleb Brewster (Daniel Henshall); and Anna Strong (Heather Lind), wife of a patriot leader, to form the infant nation’s first spy network, the Culper Ring.

Also starring are Ian Kahn as Gen. George Washington, Angus Macfadyen as British mercenary Robert Rogers, JJ Feild as British spy John Andre, and Kevin McNally as Abraham’s loyalist father, Richard Woodhull.

Meegan Warner plays Abraham’s wife, Mary; Burn Gorman plays British Major Hewlett; and Samuel Roukin plays British Captain Simcoe. Executive producers are Craig Silverstein and Barry Josephson; the project filmed on location in and around Richmond, Va.

Founded in 1737, the city is the current capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia and notable for such Revolutionary War events as Patrick Henry’s 1775 “Give me liberty, or give me death” speech and the 1786 passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which was written by Thomas Jefferson and disestablished the Church of England in the U.S. and granted freedom of religion to all, including Protestants, Catholics and Jews.

And that wasn’t the only thing attractive about it as a location.

Says Silverstein, “We found they had the sets, some still standing, from HBO’s ‘John Adams’ and Spielberg’s ‘Lincoln,’ all in the same area, which is called the State Farm, which is state-owned property.

“The house you see where Abe Woodhull’s dad lives, that was Thomas Jefferson’s boyhood home; that’s called Tuckahoe. They let us film inside; they let us film outside.”

For British-born Bell, who lives with his wife and new baby son in the states, playing Woodhull was a strange experience.

“In a way,” he says, “I have a different relationship with England as a whole. I don’t live there anymore; I live here now. I have that sense of separation from them.

“So it’s weird, it feels perfect, that I’m originally from there, but I have this sense of total separation from it, and I’ve set up home somewhere else. If someone came here and did the same thing that they did to the colonists, I’d have a similar reaction — which is, I don’t know what the hell I’d do about it.

“I’m not sure I’d want anything to do with it, but because I’d want to take care of my family, but ultimately, it’d be like, ‘It’s our land; this is our home; we govern ourselves. We’ve been here long enough; I think we can manage it.’ ”

A native of Minnesota, Numrich hadn’t heard about the Culper Ring, but he learned fast.

“Most people in this country don’t know,” he says. “These aren’t household names. Hearing about these people and hearing about the lengths that they went to, the risks they took, and the impact that it had on the course of the war and changing the tide of the war ... there’s an argument to be made that their efforts really affected the outcome in a huge way, uncovering the Benedict Arnold plot.

“These characters were all wrapped up in a lot of these huge, monumental events during the war. It was surpris- ing to realize that these characters aren’t known. We get the opportunity to tell those stories.”

For Lind, it’s about fighting the war at home.

“A lot of what I’m dealing with,” she says, “is the domestic front of the war, what it was like to quarter soldiers and do their laundry. It was an incredibly invasive system. The people didn’t have any extra money to do that. They were barely keeping it together, and they had to support five soldiers and 10 soldiers.

“It was not the battlefront. It was what they did in their off time. It was when they were drinking and when they were having festivals and when they were sleeping. There were lots of little domestic conflicts.

“Just what was it like to do somebody else’s laundry, who wants you to die? What does that feel like? It’s just so humiliating in some ways.”

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?

Across

1. Cariou of “Blue Bloods”

4. Dharma’s man

8. “Sanford and __”

11. School in Provo, for short

12. Girl of old comic strips

13. Word in the title of Ashton Kutcher’s series

14. Role on “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” (2)

17. eBay offer

18. Play on words

19. NBA or PTA

21. Late Foxx

24. Entertainer Don

25. Most-watched series of the 1998-99 season

26. “Home Improvement” role

27. Battery size

28. “The Golden __”; 2000 film for Uma Thurman

30. “The __”; 2002 Naomi Watts movie

32. Actress MacGraw

Down

1. Presidential monogram

2. “Eagle __”; 2008 film for Shia LaBeouf

3. Deadens

4. Pleased

5. Largest nation: abbr.

6. Actor Marienthal

7. Tom Hanks’ 1994 role

8. Phillips, for one

9. “On Our __” (1994-95)

10. Refusals

15. Garland’s eldest

16. “Perfume: The Story of a __”; 2006 Dustin Hoffman movie

19. Gregory Peck’s role in “Moby Dick”

20. Fly alone

22. Martin, for one

23. Boring event

29. “Leave It to Beaver” role

31. “Seven Days __ __”; 1964 Burt Lancaster film

33. Swenson of “Benson”

34. Game show panelist Myerson

35. “__ About You”

36. Jim Nabors’ state of birth: abbr.

37. Part of a phonograph

38. Actress Panabaker

39. “__ Maria”

40. “Emerald Point __” (1983-84)