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Seven years before his life was chronicled in a Broadway musical phenomenon, Alexander Hamilton was depicted alongside America’s other Founding Fathers in HBO’s 2008 miniseries John Adams. But unlike creator/star Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony-winning stage show, which casts Hamilton in a complex but favorable light, this Tom Hanks-produced TV miniseries made Hamilton one of its antagonists.
To drive home their point that Alexander Hamilton was shady, HBO cast Rufus Sewell — perhaps best known to American audiences at that time for playing the dastardly villains in The Legend of Zorro and A Knight’s Tale — as Hamilton. In HBO’s John Adams, Hamilton serves as the first Secretary of the Treasury under President George Washington and is introduced in the episode “Part V: Unite or Die (1788–1797),” which explores the growing political and philosophical divide between the Founders over the scale and role of their newly won government.
As Treasury Secretary, Hamilton set President Washington’s economic policies and established a central bank that dealt with states’ debts and, as the founder of the Federalist Party, he was a believer in a strong central government. This put him at odds with Adams’ friend Thomas Jefferson, a leader of the Democratic-Republican Party. In the HBO series, these political disagreements are dramatized in a dinner scene where Sewell’s urbane Hamilton cooly clashes with Stephen Dillane’s Jefferson. Adams’ vision of the role of government is more in line with Hamilton’s despite his closer relationship with Jefferson, although it must be noted that Hamilton was no real fan of Adams’ (played by Paul Giamatti) and thought him temperamentally unsuited to be President. (Watch the scene here.)
This dinner scene casts Sewell’s Hamilton in a more potentially authoritarian light than Miranda’s Broadway musical, having the cruelly handsome Sewell deliver the line, “If men were angels then no government would be necessary.” Meanwhile, Adams, as a character, barely factors in Miranda’s Hamilton. And Hamilton’s exchange with Jefferson over a national bank is realized via a rap battle — clearly a far more inventive and exciting way to explore civics and fiscal policy than a mere dialogue scene, even a well-acted one, can muster.
HBO’s John Adams saves its most outright damning portrayal of Alexander Hamilton for the next episode, “Part VI: Unnecessary War (1797–1801),” which chronicles Adams’ term as the second President of the United States. In this episode, Hamilton serves as the Commanding General of the U.S. Army under Adams. As the rift between Hamilton’s Federalists and Jefferson’s Republicans widens, Adams finds himself increasingly at odds with both men. Hamilton is wary of French imperialist goals and lobbies Adams that the U.S. must stand ready to seize the French and Spanish territories on their side of the Mississippi River should the French make moves against them. Hamilton also warns Adams that there are those within their own union who speak of secession and must be brought into the fold by force if necessary. Adams berates Hamilton and questions his sanity in the scene (watch here), bellowing, “You dream of empire, Mr. Hamilton!”
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This is the last episode of HBO’s John Adams that Alexander Hamilton appears in so the show doesn’t chronicle his fatal duel with Aaron Burr as Miranda’s musical does. Sewell himself voiced his disappointment in only appearing in two episodes of John Adams in a 2015 interview. (At the time that interview was published Sewell was aware of Miranda’s Hamilton but hadn’t been able to see the Broadway show.)
“I was a little jealous that I couldn’t have played more of Alexander Hamilton in John Adams! When I accepted the part, I didn’t know how small the part was going to be,” Sewell told Decider. Sewell said he over-prepared for the role by reading everything he could only to later learn he was only in a handful of scenes in all of two episodes. The actor said the HBO series offered a “misrepresentation” of Hamilton, whom he called “a fascinating character.” As Sewell recalled at the time, “I went off like a fool and read everything I could about Alexander Hamilton and I had all this stuff! ‘Could you put this in? Could you put that in? Could you put this in!?!’ Because he was a fascinating character!”
If you want to see a fuller and more flattering depiction of Alexander Hamilton’s life, career, and the complexities of his character, then Miranda’s Hamilton is definitely for you (just as HBO’s miniseries is for those seeking out the definitive depiction of John Adams). In our Hamilton review, we praised Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “mocking, mirthful, wounded, and wrathful” turn as the eponymous hero and deemed Disney+’s Hamilton “an extraordinary gift to Hamilfans and anyone aching to go back to Broadway.” However, we also faulted the recording as feeling less than cinematic in its execution: “Hamilton the stage musical may be a 10/10. But this filmed version falls short by repeatedly reminding the audience of what we missed by not being there.”
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Source: IGN.com That Time HBO and Tom Hanks Made Hamilton the Bad Guy