Tom Blyth plays the Wild West legend in the eight-episode series premiering April 24.
And now for something completely different from the executive producer of Vikings, The Tudors and Vikings: Valhalla: Billy the Kid, a new take on the notorious Wild West legend. British TV/film producer-writer Michael Hirst is the guiding force behind the series, which kicks off an eight-episode run April 24 on the Epix cable network, and he describes it as a “pre-Western that starts just before the West we’ve seen before.”
Featuring British actor Tom Blyth (The Gilded Age) in the title role, Billy the Kid traces the outlaw also known as William H. Bonney from his humble Irish roots to his early days as a cowboy and gunslinger in the American frontier, to his pivotal role in the Lincoln County War and beyond. Daniel Webber (Netflix’s The Punisher) co-stars as Jesse Evans, another famous outlaw and leader of the Seven Rivers Gang. When they meet, Jesse has already embraced a life of crime by robbing stores and cattle rustling. Billy is attracted to this wild and reckless character, who becomes Billy’s doppelganger of sorts — his shadow self, forever inviting him over to the dark side of life.
As reported by the showbiz website Deadline, Hirst promoted Billy the Kid earlier this week at the Series Mania international television exposition in France. “People think they know something about Billy,” he said, “but they don’t know he was a sensitive guy and someone who took his moral compass from his mum. So the drama is about immigration, Americans kicking out Mexicans from their land and all sorts of things. But above all it’s a human story and Billy is at the core of it.
“I’ve loved this deeply,” Hirst added, “and I’ve loved Billy since I was seven so I’ve redeemed my childhood.”
Here is a trailer for Billy the Kid.
