New Movie News – Copperhead
Posted on Feb 20, 2013
My movie from last summer, COPPERHEAD, is opening domestically June 28. Directed by Ron Maxwell (Gettysburg, Gods and Generals) and starring Billy Campbell, and Angus MacFadyen. The younger actors were quite remarkable and inspiring and I applaud them for their fine performances. The story is about the “peace Democrats” called Copperheads by other democrats and republicans during the civil war. At that time of Abraham Lincoln, the basic two party system came into the main political arena. Lincoln was my father’s political hero in his early years. Sometime ago, a friend sent me an old billfold of dad’s. In it was an un-cashed check from my maternal grandmother and his first voter registration card. My sister, Jane, refused to believe that he had registered as a Republican, until I reminded her that dad was a Lincoln freak before he became an FDR freak. Dad had a block of early Lincoln stamps framed in his study and had played Honest Abe in John Ford’s “Young Mister Lincoln”. Ron’s film dealt with a small community’s reaction to the Civil War, and it did not engage in the war itself (he had done that in “Gods and Generals” and “Gettysburg”). I think it is a wonderful movie and am proud to be a part of it. I play the community blacksmith and farrier. The three most important positions in a small town of the 1860’s were the veterinary, the preacher, and the blacksmith. The vet took care of the farm animals, the preacher took care of the souls, and the blacksmith took care of all the metal needs such as hinges, door handles, wagon wheel rims, plows and shears, and horse shoes. My part is a Lincoln republican, and Billy Campbell is a copperhead, or “peace democrat”.