Monday, November 9, 2026
Home / Entertainment / Ken Burns on ‘Waking the Dead,’ Cutting Trump-Era ...
Entertainment

Ken Burns on ‘Waking the Dead,’ Cutting Trump-Era Echoes and Why His Obama Film Can Wait

CN
CitrixNews Staff
·
Ken Burns on ‘Waking the Dead,’ Cutting Trump-Era Echoes and Why His Obama Film Can Wait
Aug 14, 2026 11:00am PT Ken Burns on ‘Waking the Dead,’ Cutting Trump-Era Echoes and Why His Obama Film Can Wait

Plus Icon

Callum McLennan

See All Ken Burns Variety Cover Story Benedict Evans for Variety

“You wake the dead.”

Ken Burns offered that succinct description of his filmmaking at the Edinburgh Intl. Film Festival on Friday, where the veteran documentarian dug into the craft behind bringing history to life and made a claim for the ensemble assembled for his latest epic, “The American Revolution.”

“I think this film is the best cast in cinema. Period,” Burns said with a smile, describing the six-part, 12-hour series, which draws on some 400 first-person accounts voiced by 61 actors, including Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Damian Lewis, Tobias Menzies and Matthew Rhys.

Related Stories

NEW YORK CITY - JUNE 29: People walk by the Comcast building which houses NBC Studios in Manhattan on June 29, 2026 in New York City. Comcast announced Monday that it will spin off NBCUniversal and Sky next year, creating a new publicly traded company that would be separate from Comcast’s broadband distribution business. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

NBC Prepares for Spin-Off By Hiring Christopher Halpin as CFO

Originally reported by Variety. Read the full story at the original source.