Posted in: Netflix, TV | Tagged: betty gilpin, Candice Millard, D B Weiss, david benioff, Death by Lightning, Destiny Of The Republic, netflix, nick offerman

Death By Lightning: Offerman, Gilpin in Garfield Assassination Series

Nick Offerman (The Last of Us) & Betty Gilpin (Three Women) have joined the cast of Netflix's historical drama series Death by Lightning.

Published Mon, 04 Mar 2024 10:43:18 -0600

by Tom Chang

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Article Summary

Nick Offerman and Betty Gilpin have been cast in Netflix's "Death by Lightning".
The series will dramatize the 1881 assassination of President Garfield.
Offerman to portray VP Chester A. Arthur, Gilpin as First Lady.
The upcoming series stems from Candice Millard's book.

Netflix cast a couple of powerhouses in Nick Offerman (The Great North) and Betty Gilpin (Three Women) for their historical drama series Death by Lightning, which chronicles the 1881 assassination of 20th U.S. President James A. Garfield by Charles Guiteau, respectively played by Michael Shannon (The Bikeriders) and Matthew Macfadyen (Succession). Offerman will play Chester A. Arthur, Garfield's vice president and eventual successor, and Gilpin will play First Lady Crete Garfield, the wife of James Garfield – with the series based on Candice Millard's novel Destiny Of The Republic.

Nick Offerman and Betty Gilpin Joining Netflix's Historical Drama Series Death by Lightning

Offerman gained critical acclaim for his role as Bill in HBO's The Last of Us winning Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series and winning the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series. The actor has been one of the busiest and most successful alums of NBC's Parks and Recreation with a variety of comedic and dramatic roles. Recently he's appeared in FX's Fargo and Pam & Tommy, Fox's Bob's Burgers, Prime Video's Good Omens and A League of Their Own, NBC's The Good Place, Hulu's Devs, Starz! Party Down, and ABC's The Connors. He'll appear in the final season of Netflix's The Umbrella Academy, A24's Civil War, and Paramount's Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two. Gilpin, who stars in the Starz! series Three Women, was also in Netflix's GLOW and Skull Island, Peacock's Mrs. Davis, and Starz! Gaslit, and Prime Video's The Tomorrow War. She's currently filming Netflix's American Primeval.

Death By Lightning: Offerman, Gilpin in Garfield Assassination Series — Editorial credit: Featureflash Photo Agency / Shutterstock.com

Death By Lighting comes courtesy of creator Mike Makowsky, who also serves as executive producer alongside Game of Thrones and 3 Body Problem creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss via Bighead Littlehead Productions with Bernie Caulfield. Joining them as EPs are Duncan Muggoch and Matt Ross, who will direct all the episodes. Garfield, who ran as a Republican, was elected in 1880, defeating Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock. He assembled a cabinet appointing James G. Blaine as Secretary of State, William Windom as Secretary of the Treasury, Robert Todd Lincoln as Secretary of War, Wayne MacVeagh as Attorney General, Thomas Lemuel James as Postmaster General, William H. Hunt as Secretary of the Navy, and Samuel J. Kirkwood as Secretary of the Interior. Garfield's time would be brief as Guiteau's deranged ambitions as a Republican seeking office within the Garfield administration proved to be his undoing. Shannon and Macfadyen were both confirmed to lead Death by Lightning last month.