Pistol, an FX limited series from Danny Boyle about the Sex Pistols, premieres on Hulu May 31. The series is based on Steve Jones’s 2017 memoir, Lonely Boy. Jones played guitar in the punk band, alongside Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious.
Boyle seeks to capture “how incredibly dull” England was in the ’70s, he said during a press event. “I can remember trying to explain, because your lives are so full now, there’s so many opportunities … there’s so much in the world, and there was so little then.”
Boyle added, “You felt like you were young and then you were old, and there was nothing in between.”
Anson Boon plays Johnny Rotten, Toby Wallace portrays Steve Jones, and Louis Partridge is Sid Vicious. Malcolm McLaren, Chrissie Hynde and Nancy Spungen are also characters in the series.
All six episodes drop on premiere day.
Boyle said the Pistols, in true punk fashion, shook up dismal England to its core. “They were the fountainhead that changed it for so many other people coming after them,” he said. Working-class kids no longer felt they had to follow their father into the factory. “You could do whatever the f--k you want,” Boyle noted.
Wallace spent time with Steve Jones to get the right context into his character. “At the heart of him and at the heart of our story was this traumatic experience that he had gone through that birthed that type of anger that I think he shares with Malcolm,” Wallace said, “and out of the anger was birthed the Pistols.”
Also premiering May 31 is Tom Swift on The CW. Played by Tian Richards, Swift is a wealthy inventor with boundless charm. His father disappears, and Swift is thrust “into a breathtaking adventure full of mysterious conspiracies and unexplained phenomena,” according to The CW.
The character was introduced in season two of Nancy Drew. Like Nancy Drew — and The Hardy Boys, for that matter — Tom Swift is a vintage book series from Stratemeyer Syndicate.
The show was co-created by Melinda Hsu Taylor, Noga Landau and Cameron Johnson. Johnson likens the main character to “a Black, gay Iron Man,” and mentioned how infrequently a gay, Black male is the main character on broadcast TV.
“He’s funny, he’s smart, he’s acerbic — a lovely SAT word for kind of bitchy,” Johnson said. “He’s incredibly fashionable.”
Ashleigh Murray and Marquise Vilsón are also in the cast, and LeVar Burton is the voice of Barclay, Tom’s AI.
Taylor described the show as “relentlessly optimistic.”
“After 42 minutes, you feel better about humanity,” she said. “Ya know what, we could pull together and save the world.” ▪️
