The Sexiness of Our Third President- Thomas Jefferson as Stephen Dillane

Stephen Dillane as Thomas Jefferson

I have to confess this now; ever since seeing John Adams in my U.S. History class three years ago, Jefferson is moving up on my list of favorite presidents from eight to three. He's moved FDR from three down to four, and he's right behind Kennedy, who's two. And he's moved up for one simple reason:

Stephen Dillane's portrayal of Jefferson is amazing- and by amazing, I mean amazingly hot. Yes, I'm the giddy schoolgirl- I watched episodes of JA all the way through, and I just love how he portrays him. Dillane portrays Jefferson as this.... this introverted, brooding, intelligent, soft-spoken, eloquently forward-thinking, nonchalant in some cases, and even radical inventor, writer and Congressman. I've seen men portray Jefferson as Chautauquans, and they portray him as egotistical and extroverted with little thinking as to what he says. And that's not how Jefferson was at all.

Dillane gives Jefferson an almost.... relaxed air in his portrayal. As he discusses his reasons for the phrases he uses in the Declaration, he seems almost disintersted in the work and more in the opinions of Franklin and Adams about said document. It seems to be at this point, that his true introverted personality comes out. He has no true confidence in himself as an orater, nor as a writer of such a document. No surprise, since like Washington- who did not want the presidency- after him, he did not want to write the Declaration.



 His relaxed "Well, it's what I believe." shows that he obviously gave great thought and time to the Declaration, has heard the opinions of Franklin and Adams, and accepts it with reserved thought. He gives the same manner of speech when he mentions that "Slavery is an abomination and must be loudly proclaimed as such. And I own that neither I nor any man has any yet immediate solution to the problem."


Of course, Jefferson couldn't have known that eighty-nine years after, Abraham Lincoln would be the man that has the "immediate solution to the problem." If only he had lived long enough to see Lincoln sign the Emancipation Proclamation.

 Dillane gives Jefferson an almost soft approach to everything in this performance. He shows the soft-spoken, intelligent writer of the Declaration as a man who was so forward-thinking, that he almost seemed to predict the future. Case in point: In one episode, Jefferson foreshadows against civil war.

Nearly eighty-five years later, the United States would indeed splinter apart and break into civil war. A war in which the South would lose. Dillane shows the conflicts with which Jefferson struggled through his soft-spoken speech and- often intense- brooding when others are around.

It is a rarity to see a smile grace the Virginian's lips in this series, and with such conflicts- from writing the Declaration to being Vice-President, to becoming President- I doubt you yourself would want to smile. The most we get from Jefferson is a quick, fleeting little half-smile or the even rarer smirk.

 

Plus, in Unite or Die, Jefferson looks absolutely hot reclining against the divan after he's discussed his time in Paris. But what gets me is the dimple when he smiles.

Stills from http://home.earthlink.net/~stephendillane/index.html

~ Bridget Aine