TNT Takes On Shakespeare In Will Trailer

Before he was Shakespeare, he was just Will– or at least, that's what the advertising for TNT's upcoming drama Will tells you. The new series will follow a younger version of the famous playwright, showing his conflicts with the government and the struggles with his personal life he had to face on his way to becoming one of the world's best known historical figures.

The trailer calls the young Shakespeare (Laurie Davidson) a hero, torn between two worlds, two fates, and two women. Young Will is a new figure in the well-established theater world of 1580s London, a time when the theater was, the show's synopsis notes, like rock and roll. Like rock and roll, the theater is also receiving pushback from those in power, with the government determining that theaters must be destroyed once and for all.

Will, of course, doesn't want to let this happen, and although he keeps being told that the danger he is facing is real, he knows he can't stop until he saves the arts. "You all have created a place where a common man can become a king," he tells a group assembled onlookers. "The time has come for us to fight for what we believe in. We are at war and our only weapons are words. I will write plays that question how we love, why we fight, what is human." 

Olivia DeJonge, Mattias Inwood, Jamie Beamish, James Berkery, William Houston, Colm Meaney, Ewen Bremner, Jamie Campbell Bower, William Houston, Max Bennett, Jasmin Savoy Brown, and Lukas Rolfe also star in Will, which is set to premiere on Monday, June 10 at 9 p.m. on TNT. While we wait, set your DVRs for some of the other TV shows that will blow you away this year.