A Conversation With Ken Burns About Prohibition

If you’ve ever caught a documentary on PBS, you’re probably already familiar with the work of Ken Burns. For more than 30 years, the filmmaker has tackled topics ranging from the Civil War to baseball to jazz, earning multiple Emmy and Oscar nominations along the way. His most recent film, Prohibition, takes on the temperance movement, and with stunning archival footage and the voices of actors like Tom Hanks, Samuel L. Jackson and Patricia Clarkson, Burns breathes new life into the era. Here he chats with us about what he was most surprised to learn about the time period, whether or not he thinks he would have been tempted to tipple, and what he sees as Prohibition’s most lasting impact on society today. Be sure to tune into PBS October 2-4 to catch the three-part series.