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In the classic sci-fi action flick “Aliens,” Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley initially has a hard time trusting Bishop, an android played by Lance Henriksen. Would she have had an easier time believing him if she’d known that he would go on to play Honest Abe? Though best known for sci-fi roles like “Aliens” and “Millennium,” Henriksen played Abraham Lincoln in the 1998 TV movie “The Day Lincoln Was Shot.”
Based on Jim Bishop’s nonfiction book by the same name, “The Day Lincoln Was Shot” chronicles the assassination of the 16th president by John Wilkes Booth in the aftermath of the Civil War. The story had already been adapted for the screen once before; in 1956, it aired as a live television play with actor Raymond Massey in the title role. Massey had already been nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Lincoln in the 1940 film “Abe Lincoln in Illinois,” so Henriksen had big shoes to fill. (Or should that be a big top hat to fill?)
Premiering on TNT on April 12, 1998, “The Day Lincoln Was Shot” co-starred “Northern Exposure” lead Rob Morrow as Booth. Other notable actors in the cast included Wil Wheaton as Lincoln’s eldest son Robert, Jeremy Sisto as Frederick W. Seward, and Titus Welliver as Lewis Paine. Variety’s review of the movie when it premiered was mixed, praising Henriksen’s look and performance but knocking Morrow’s Booth and a script that didn’t offer any real insight into the assassin’s psyche.
The Day Lincoln Was Shot is riddled with historical inaccuracies
While Variety might have liked Lance Henriksen’s take on Abraham Lincoln, some more historically minded viewers had other thoughts. In the book, “Abraham Lincoln on Screen: Live-Action Portrayals on Film and Television,” author and Abe aficionado Mark S. Reinhart notes that while Henriksen looks the part, his very grim performance doesn’t match the evidence that the president was in a notably brighter mood nearing the Civil War’s conclusion — and that’s just the least of the film’s inaccuracies.
While Jim Bishop’s original book and the 1956 TV adaptation were fairly accurate, the ’98 version takes several liberties with history. These include shortening the timeframe for John Wilkes Booth’s attempts to kidnap and eventually kill Lincoln, spending a lot of time on speculative love scenes between Booth and Lucy Hale (Jean Louisa Kelly), and a cabinet meeting where the Secretary of War angrily tries to convince Lincoln to hang Confederate leaders only for the president to demur.
All that said, to the average viewer who isn’t a student of history, these changes probably don’t come off as a big deal. It’s hard to find an adaptation that doesn’t take some liberties with the truth for the benefit of the narrative. “Manhunt,” the Apple TV+ series about the search for Booth starring Tobias Menzies, fiddles with historical fact a bit, too. Most of the best historical TV shows do.
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