“We Talked About Who Is The American Version Of David Attenborough”: Inside NBC Wildlife Series ‘The Americas’
deadline.comExecs on NBC‘s The Americas were seeking “the American version of David Attenborough” when booking Tom Hanks for the upcoming epic wildlife series.
BBC Studios‘ Mike Gunton, a storied natural history exec who has worked on the likes of Planet Earth and Dynasties, said he had “written down who I wanted to do the music and who I wanted to be the narrator” when embarking on making the show nearly five years ago, and had scribbled “‘Tom Hanks?’.” “That’s who I wanted,” he added at MIPTV. “He had such curiosity and his talent is so immense.
He can turn his voice and delivery to every single nuance to the sorts of tone we see in all these stories.” Toby Gorman, who runs Universal Television Alternative Studio, labeled the show “the most expensive unscripted project in NBCUniversal’s history.” He said “we talked about who is the American version of David Attenborough” before settling on the double Oscar-winner. “When we embarked on this we wanted to go as big as possible and after some conversations we said internally that there was a list of one,” he added. “We wanted Tom, it just felt right.
What we didn’t know is whether he would want to do it.” Hanks joins a growing line of Hollywood stars who have narrated big natural history shows, following in the footsteps of the likes of Paul Rudd and Benedict Cumberbatch.
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