How Ken Burns got stars like Tom Hanks and Maya Hawke for ‘The American Revolution’

American history has never sounded so cool — or so A-list.

Everyone’s favorite documentary filmmaker Ken Burns returns to PBS Nov. 16 with “The American Revolution.” It’s a six-part, 12-hour treatise on the creation myth of the United States, co-directed with Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, airing over six consecutive nights. The series boasts the same gold standard of research, meticulousness and gravitas to our country’s founding that Burns applied to previous epic documentaries like “The Civil War” (1990), “The Vietnam War” (2017) and “Country Music” (2019). And he has some help in his effort to bring colonial history to life.

“Revolution” is narrated by longtime Burns collaborator, TV/movie veteran Peter Coyote, but for the voices of George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Abigail Adams, Phyllis Wheatley and more historical figures, Burns enlisted a laundry list of Hollywood heavyweights.

Tom Hanks, Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein at the New York premiere of “The American Revolution.”

“It’s a very, very interesting, complex story that we’re telling, brought to life by 400 first-person quotes read by 50 of the world’s greatest actors,” Burns said in a recent USA TODAY interview in Philadelphia. The actors’ powerful readings “complement years and years of research on the actual narrative.”

What’s in the documentary? What Ken Burns wants you to know about ‘The American Revolution’ will shock you

Will you be able to recognize the voices behind the oil paintings? We thinks so: Josh Brolin gives General Washington a deep-voiced respectability. Jeff Daniels is Thomas Jefferson. Samuel L. Jackson, Morgan Freeman, Meryl Streep, Edward Norton and Matthew Rhys all show up. But this is not simply stunt casting − each actor reading a quote helps bring the history to life, which is what Burns does best in his work.

How do you get 50 different, famous actors — many Oscar, Emmy, and Tony winners among them — to jump into reading old-timey quotes for a 12-hour documentary? Well, it helps to be Burns, who has long called on A-listers to help create his award-winning films.

“Well, I’ve been doing this for, I guess the first actors that I started recording were in the late ’70s,” Burns says. “Tom Hanks has read for me for nearly 25 years, Meryl Streep for more than a dozen. It’s just the people we use.”

The Declaration of Independence painting by John Trumbull, as used in PBS’s “The American Revolution.”

“Revolution” even has some Easter eggs for history buffs: Paul Giamatti reads the words of John Adams, a sort of reprise of his performance as America’s second president in the acclaimed 2008 HBO miniseries of the same name, although Burns gave the role of Adams’ wife to someone else.

“Paul Giamatti did John, but Claire Danes did Abigail,” Burns explains. “But Laura Linney, who played Abigail in the HBO miniseries, is several voices, including Sarah Fisher, who is a Quaker loyalist here in Philadelphia and undergoes great tribulation in a number of ways.”

The director got a new generation of actors involved in the documentary, up-and-coming names like Lucas Hedges, Alden Ehrenreich and Maya Hawke. Oh, and Hawke’s dad.

“Maya Hawke reads the journal of a girl who was 10 years old when the war began,” Burns says, adding “and Ethan Hawke, Maya’s dad, reads General Anthony Wayne.”

Ethan Hawke and Maya Hawke in April 2024.

A complete list of the actors in Ken Burns’ ‘The American Revolution’

PBS lists the following few dozen actors in the official description of the documentary:

How to watch ‘The American Revolution’

“Revolution” will air on PBS starting Sunday, Nov. 16 at 8 ET/PT and continue over six consecutive nights through Friday, Nov. 21 (check your local listings for the most accurate information). Each installment in the series is two-hours long.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How Ken Burns got stars like Hanks, Streep for ‘American Revolution