‘Manhunt’ star: Lincoln’s assassination is still a call to protect democracy

In “Manhunt,” the Apple TV+ miniseries about the hunt for John Wilkes Booth in the wake of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Tobias Menzies plays Secretary of War Edwin Stanton as an immovable but vulnerable force, marching forward sadly, angrily, but most of all steadily. “It’s very clear when something is working and when the atmosphere in the room is starting to really get electric, and it’s very clear when it’s not that.” Menzies gives the impression of someone who is always thinking, onscreen and off-; one of the thrills of “Manhunt” is watching the wheels turn inside Stanton’s head, and how those wheels then determine what appears on his face: consternation, resignation, outrage, occasionally even satisfaction. In preparing to play Stanton, Menzies took his own crash course in stoics of the American screen, including Gregory Peck in “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Henry Fonda in “12 Angry Men.” “What I love about Fonda is he’s an amazing exponent of thinking on camera,” Menzies said. “The men look like us in different clothes.” English actor Tobias Menzies never really studied the Civil War era in school, or U.S. history in general.