Miniseries revisits JFK shooting

TORONTO — Sarah Gadon is far too young to have been around when former U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, but it wasn’t hard for the 28-year-old to become fascinated with the conspiracy theories that still live on.

The Toronto-bred actress plays a 1960s librarian drawn into one of the most controversial tragedies in 11.22.63, an eight-part time-travelling miniseries executive produced by Star Wars director J.J. Abrams and based on the 2011 Stephen King novel of the same name.

James Franco plays Jake Epping, a modern-day high school teacher who goes back in time to try to stop the shooting and change the course of history. Things quickly become complicated as he falls in love with Sadie, the librarian Gadon plays.

The whole operation is also threatened by the presence of Lee Harvey Oswald, not to mention the fact that the past itself doesn’t seem to want to be changed.

The period drama was shot in Toronto and Dallas, and Gadon said filming in the very city that witnessed these events had a palpable effect.

“When we went to Dallas to shoot the series I went to the JFK museum and I learned a lot about the different conspiracies and it was incredible,” Gadon says.

“We re-created the motorcade and it was actually really intense to be there.”