Following its critically acclaimed, award-winning Broadway run, ALL THE WAY, a riveting behind-the-scenes look at President Lyndon B. Johnson’s tumultuous first year in office in the wake of President Kennedy’s assassination, premieres same time as the US this May on HBO and HBO GO.
Bryan Cranston (four-time Emmy® winner for “Breaking Bad”) reprises his Tony Award-winning role for the HBO Original Movie, which is directed by Jay Roach (Emmy® winner for HBO’s “Game Change”) from a screenplay by Robert Schenkkan (two-time Emmy® nominee and Writers Guild Award winner for HBO’s “The Pacific”), who has adapted his Tony Award-winning play of the same name.
Co-starring with Cranston are Anthony Mackie (Martin Luther King), Melissa Leo (Lady Bird Johnson), Bradley Whitford (Hubert Humphrey) and Frank Langella (Sen. Richard Russell). Additional cast members include Joe Morton (Roy Wilkins), Stephen Root (J. Edgar Hoover), Marque Richardson (Bob Moses), Aisha Hinds (Fanny Lou Hamer), Todd Weeks (Walter Jenkins), Mo McRae (Stokely Carmichael) and Spencer Garrett (Walter Reuther).
The HBO Original Movie follows Johnson during his early administration, as he sacrifices his past, his ties with the South and all that brought him to power in order to pass the landmark Civil Rights Act, and focuses on his efforts to secure his legacy, control his demons of insecurity and win the presidency on his own terms.
ALL THE WAY is produced for HBO by Amblin Television, Tale Told Productions, Moonshot Entertainment and Everyman Pictures, with Steven Spielberg, Robert Schenkkan, Bryan Cranston, Jay Roach, Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey (“The Americans”) executive producing, and James Degus (“Sneaky Pete”) co-executive producing.
“I am pleased that, thanks to HBO, Robert Schenkkan’s Tony Award-winning play will now reach television,” says executive producer Steven Spielberg. “With Jay Roach directing and Bryan Cranston’s brilliant portrayal of LBJ, audiences will be able to share in this larger-than-life president’s role in a crucial turning point in American history.”
The 2014 Broadway production of “All the Way,” starring Cranston, swept the awards season, winning Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League and Tony awards, as well as the Steinberg/American Theater Critics Award, the inaugural Edward M. Kennedy Award and Boston’s Elliot Norton Award. The play also set Broadway box-office records twice for biggest weekly gross of a new play (non-musical).
ALL THE WAY was filmed in Los Angeles on sets designed by Mark Ricker, with costumes designed by Daniel Orlandi. Jim Denault is director of photography. Carol Littleton is editor. The striking physical transformations of the actors into their characters were designed and supervised by Bill Corso along with Frank Perez.