WILLOUGHBY, Ohio — Mike Makowsky had spent months working on obtaining permission from the government to see the real thing, so perhaps it’s not all that surprising that the new Netflix limited series he’s created, “Death by Lightning,” begins with a re-creation of Charles J. Guiteau’s brain.

Just released, the four-part affair tells the parallel stories of the 20th president of the United States, James A. Garfield — whose Mentor home is now the James A. Garfield National Historic Site, managed by the National Park Service — and Guiteau, the man who, in 1881, assassinated him, bringing Garfield’s stewardship of the country to an early end.

Makowsky adapted the series — starring Michael Shannon (“Man of Steel,” “Take Shelter”), as the principled Garfield, and Matthew Macfadyen (“Pride & Prejudice,” “Succession”), as the deranged Guiteau — from Candice Millard’s well-regarded 2011 book, “Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President.”

The series features other recognizable faces as figures of the day, including Betty Gilpin (“GLOW”) as first lady Lucretia “Crete” Garfield; Shea Whigham (“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning”), as scheming congressman Roscoe Conkling; Nick Offerman (“Parks and Recreation”), as Conkling’s partner in political crime, Chester Arthur; and Bradley Whitford (“The West Wing”), as congressman and eventual Garfield Ally James Blaine.

During the research phase, when he would finally lay eyes on the brain of a killer, small talk with an employee at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring, Maryland, led to Makowsky also getting a peek at some of what else remained of Guiteau, as well as some other notable bones.

“Yeah, I actually did that, too,” says Millard, during a recent joint video interview with Makowsky.

Makowsky (“Bad Education”) and Lexington, Ohio, native Millard (“The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey”) are in northeast Ohio on the morning before the release of the series — shot largely in Budapest and not at all in the Buckeye State — to attend a screening and Q&A at Hiram College in Portage County, where Garfield learned, taught and eventually served as leader.

In a conversation edited for length and clarity, the two writers discuss “Death by Lightning,” which, after a prologue built around Guiteau and his brain — found in 1969 at the Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C., by men who do not recognize his name — shifts to the “Garfield Farm, Mentor, Ohio,” which, during the subsequent presidential campaign conducted largely from it, will come to be known as “Lawnfield.”

Q: Let’s start with your book, Candice. Why was President James A. Garfield and his assassination of such interest to you?

Millard: Actually, like most Americans, unfortunately, I didn’t know much about Garfield beyond the fact that he’d been assassinated. And even though my first book was about a president, I wasn’t thinking, “I want to write about another president.” I wanted (to write about) science, so I was actually researching Alexander Graham Bell, and I stumbled upon this story about him trying to save Garfield after he was shot. And I thought, “I wonder why he would put so much time and energy and all of his talent into this.” So I started researching Garfield, and I was just blown away. And my poor husband — he’s always the victim here because I’m calling him every two seconds: “You would not believe this guy! You know, he was brilliant and brave and kind and decent and progressive!” And I just fell in love with (Garfield).

Q: Mike, how did you become interested in penning an adaptation of her book?

Makowsky: Like Candice, I also knew very little about Garfield beyond loose details of his assassination.

And (turning to Millard) I have no idea how you feel about me continuing to say it, but … it was about seven years ago when I was at the buy-two-get-one-free table at my local Barnes & Noble, and I needed a third book. I picked up this book about the Garfield assassination, and I’m reading the back cover and was just, like, “Wow, I feel like I know embarrassingly little about this, but I should educate myself.”

I wound up reading the book in one sitting. I was really just totally blown away by it. And every detail was crazier than the last. I mean, I knew nothing about Guiteau, this sort of tragicomic assassin who had spent time at a sex cult in upstate New York, or (Garfield’s Vice President) Chester Arthur, who had never held elected office and fell upward to the presidency.

This idea of (the 1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago), this crazy set piece where James Garfield goes to give a speech nominating an entirely different candidate, whose (own) name is not on the ballot; and as soon as he steps up on that stage, the people (there) realized that this is a man possessed of a lot of the raw qualities that they were starving for in a leader in 1880.

As a writer, these are the kinds of stories that, once you find out about them, you kind of just have to do everything in your power to run headlong into them. So that’s when I first got in touch with Candice.

Q: You said you devoured the book, but once you started writing the episodes, were there a million calls to Candice for input?

Makowsky: There were a lot. It was a really, really cool process. Obviously, I relied very heavily on Candice’s book and a number of other (sources).

Millard: He did a lot of his own research, and that’s one of the things I loved about him. When we started talking, he was so young — is still so young to me — but he’s so smart, and he’s really, really passionate. He went to Garfield’s house, and he read everything he could — he read original documents. (It wasn’t) just skipping along the surface. I mean, he got in really, really deep. And that’s something I appreciate as someone who does a lot of research. I admired and I trusted him from the beginning with the story that means a lot to me.

Makowsky: It was a pleasure. I mean, obviously, Candice did a lot of her own research and kind of really lit the path for me, but I read a lot. Candice sent me a … like, over 1,000 pages of trial transcripts.

Millard: Oh yeah (laughs). (Those) were hard to get. I made him promise to send (them) back, not that I’ll ever do anything with all my annotations.

Makowsky: I got to go to the Library of Congress. I (went) to Ohio for the first time in my life. I took a trip out in 2019 when I first wrote the pilot, got to tour Lawnfield, Garfield’s home, and visit the crypts at Lake View (Cemetery in Cleveland).

Q: Would today’s visit here have involved the James A. Garfield National Historic Site if not for the shutdown of the federal government?

Makowsky: Absolutely. Initially, we had hoped to screen the show there.

Q: That’s a bummer.

Millard: We owe so much, such a deep debt of gratitude, to the keepers of our history, to archivists, to park rangers, to all of these librarians. They do such a wonderful job.

Q: Candice, do you have any Garfield fun facts that perhaps people wouldn’t know or that connect to his time in Mentor?

Millard: What I love about Lawnfield — if you want to understand who Garfield was, that’s where you need to go because that’s what he loved the most. He loved being there with his family, with his children, working on his farm, reading his books. I mean, that’s the person he was, and that’s what you really get a sense of, I think, in Mike’s series. (Garfield) knows everybody else is so excited for him that he’s going to be president of the United States, and he knows what he’s about to lose. So if anybody has a chance, if they can visit Mentor, you really get a sense of who he was and what he lost — and then what we lost as a nation when he was murdered.

Q: It seems the series is designed largely to leave viewers with this sense of what might have been if not for Guiteau.

Millard: You can’t see this story in any way without feeling that. And the thing is, they understood that at the time. … And it’s through Crete that you get that sense that it’s an additional tragedy: It’s a loss of him at the time, but (it’s also knowing) that he will not be remembered.

She kind of laughs about this stern portrait of him; that was not who he was at all. He was big, boisterous. He loved life. He loved people. He loved learning. And he was just always in (motion) and laughing. He was just full of personality and joy and hope for this young country.

Q: Of course, this is also Guiteau’s story, and if he’s not a household name, more people will know of him after this series. Can you talk about the performances of Shannon and Macfadyen as Garfield and Guiteau, respectively?

Makowsky: I think they’re two of the greatest actors of their generation and just intellectually curious and dedicated, passionate. You know, Mike Shannon — who I think mainstream audiences are probably more used to playing the villain or sort of more sinister characters — possesses such an integrity about him and carries himself with so much strength. And from the moment that he gets up on stage at the convention and delivers that speech — I just remember being on set that day. I think we were all just so stunned by his ability to command a crowd.

And Matthew MacFadyen is just so great. Obviously, we can talk about (his “Succession” character) Tom Wambsgans forever, but he’s very good at playing characters whom you feel for in spite of themselves, right? And he is very much an actor and a human being who wears his heart on his sleeve. And with Guiteau, obviously, there’s an element of mental illness at play. He’s delusional. He does really, really destructive and awful things over the course of the show … but I think there’s something empathetic about a man who faces so much rejection, who cares so deeply and has (been) spurned at every turn but genuinely tries to put his best foot forward and continues getting denied by society and eventually falls through the cracks. I think Matthew really accesses the humanity in that character, which I’m not sure that history books have ever really captured — or sorry, that… Candice’s book captures (she laughs).

But the textbooks (haven’t conveyed) the lore of who people assume Charles Guiteau is versus the human being that he actually was. He was by no means perfect. He was far from perfect. The series is not a celebration of Guiteau, by any means, but I do think it’s worth trying to excavate whatever humanity was in him.

Q: We also have to ask you about Nick Offerman’s colorful portrayal of Chester Arthur, who goes on a personal journey over the course of “Death by Lightning.”

Makowsky: There was no other actor (for the role). When I was writing, as soon as I got to Chester Arthur, it was immediately Nick’s voice that I was hearing in my head. I just imagined him the entire time. And we’re incredibly fortunate that when the time came to cast that role, he immediately said yes. (He’s) also a history enthusiast. He was the only cast member that Candice knew. (Turning to her) you guys had known each other and kept up correspondence over the years?

Millard: Yeah. He’s a writer. He’s an excellent writer.

Makowsky: He had read “River of Doubt,” Candice’s book about Theodore Roosevelt. He’s a huge Roosevelt guy.

All of these actors just really threw themselves completely into the material. And watching Nick play Chester Arthur is just so delicious. It was fun to be able to portray a United States president that nobody knows anything about.

Q: Well, lastly, is there anything you want viewers to keep in mind as they watch “Death by Lightning” — perhaps how the politics of that time relate to those of today?

Millard: One of our favorite things (about Garfield) — we like to quote him — is he used to say that he was a “poor hater.” And that comes out in the series, you know, because he would be attacked by journalists or by other congressmen. If you’re a politician, you’re going to be attacked. And I think a lot of politicians are very thin-skinned. We see that today. We’ve seen that throughout history. And they usually hold grudges. He was incapable of holding a grudge, and you see that. You see his decency, which I think is very fundamental to who he was. He was a poor hater, which is a very good thing to be.

Makowsky: And he believed in civil service as a meritocracy. I think that the politics of the day were governed by a lot of pettiness and feuds, and it was represented by the Roscoe Conklings and James Blaines of the world. Garfield didn’t hold those same grudges and really considered people’s humanity.

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All four hourlong episodes of “Death by Lightning,” rated TV-MA, are available now on Netflix.

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