Billy the Kid is the latest historical exploration from acclaimed writer Michael Hirst. The mind behind Vikings, The Tudors, and plenty of other historical dramas, Hirst has a long-stated fascination with bringing cultural touchstones to life in a way modern audiences can connect with. In Billy the Kid, he extends this to the dramatic exploration of Billy McCarty as a young man struggling to stay ahead of the law and his own infamy. The Epix series, which boasts an impressive cast, subverts expectations and threads everything through a dramatic lens, in large part due to the deft scripts by Hirst that find the surprising layers of humanity in Billy.
At the red carpet event ahead of Billy the Kid's premiere on April 24 on Epix, CBR spoke with series Showrunner and Writer Michael Hirst to discuss the importance of bringing historical figures to life in shows like this and Vikings. He also spoke about what surprised him the most about bringing the legendary Old West outlaw to modern audiences.
CBR: So much of your work is focused on bringing history to modern audiences. Why is it important to you as a creative to really focus and bring these old stories to the modern day?
Michael Hirst: Well, I'm interested in history anyway, but what I feel my calling is [is] to connect the past to the present. So I'm not interested in doing a dead past. I'm not doing museum pieces. I'm not doing documentaries. I'm actually connecting the past and the people in the past to people today.
So everything I do, it's making the issues that these people in Billy the Kid or Vikings -- what they think about, what they're doing... It has to resonate with contemporary audiences. It has to be about things they care about as well, you know? Usually, as well, it's about life and death. So the stakes are always really, really high.
During your research for the series, what really caught you by surprise about Billy?
When I was doing the research -- and that's my process, I do a lot of research -- I've started to find things out about the real Billy, not the cliché, but the real Billy. I have to say that everything was a surprise. I mean, starting with the fact... Who knew that Billy the Kid had the most beautiful singing voice and played musical instruments and that he loved his mother and that he was very moral?
I mean, all these things are like, "Oh!" Everything I thought I knew about Billy the Kid was wrong. That was really the same with Vikings. It's like, you think you know about the Vikings. You don't. You don't know anything. So I'm not being educational, but I am digging into the reality. I think this is a very authentic portrait. I hope so, anyway.
What was it like working with Epix to bring this series to life?
Great. Michael Wright is wonderful to work with and for. [He] gave me incredible freedom, and it turned out to be a very, very creative and happy production. I mean, genuinely. Everyone was invested. They had a great time in Calgary, the young cast. I mean, imagine these young guys, some of them from the UK, they get to ride with real cowboys. You know, Calgary is full of real cowboys, and they get to ride with them. Along with stampedes and... I mean, it's brilliant.
Catch Billy the Kid streaming April 24 on Epix.