In recent months there has been a concerted effort to get Andrew Jackson off the $20 bill. Why? Well, he may have been our 7th President, but he was also kind of dick. Just ask Native Americans. Anyway, despite this push to kick him off all of our money, his life is incredibly interesting and the subject of a new HBO miniseries that will find Sean Penn in the White House.
According to Deadline, Penn will play Jackson in American Lion, a 6-hour HBO miniseries based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Jon Meacham. While there is no director on board yet the scripts will be written by Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard, the duo behind Netflix's excellent Narcos series. The story will center on the controversial Jackson's life beginning from his being orphaned during the Revolutionary War to becoming a self-made man and eventual leader of the free world. Jackson was seen as a warrior who notable fought on the battlefield against the British and the Spanish, but his fiery disposition made him a lot of enemies, as well, leaving his career a mixed one at best.
Penn doesn't take on a lot of TV projects and when he does it's usually to guest appear on a sitcom. This will be his first real prestige project, and if it goes like HBO's John Adams series it will be showered with Emmys.
