Foundation star Lee Pace was fascinated by a surprising side of Isaac Asimov’s writing

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The Apple TV show “Foundation,” based on Isaac Asimov’s seminal science fiction novels, takes a long view of history. The first season of “Foundation” takes place in the year 12,067 A.E. (Imperial Era), or 12,067 years after the founding of a vast galactic empire. Through careful research, fans have noted that the empire only came into existence over 18,000 years ago from the present day. The “Foundation” book series also features massive time jumps, spanning centuries, between installations and provides a glimpse into a future so distant – perhaps 100 billion years later – that the mind can barely handle it. By then, all of humanity will have evolved toward a singular intelligence.

In the TV show “Foundation,” Lee Pace plays a series of cloned emperors who have overseen the Galactic Empire for millennia, including Cleon I, Cleon XII, Cleon XIII, Cleon XVII, and Cleon XXIV. He also plays a clone named Brother Day who, along with Brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton) and Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann), swap roles as the different Cleons. The mythology and plot of “Foundation” are far too complex to cover here, and summarizing them would take more time than trying to explain Frank Herbert’s “Dune” universe. Needless to say, it deals with vast and heady ideas involving foundations, empires, evolution, religion and politics. This is normal for Asimov.

When Pace was preparing to star in “Foundation,” he naturally did his Asimovian research. However, he soon discovered that Asimov, for all his science fiction fame, had an entirely separate literary niche that the actor was unaware of. In an interview with WiredPace explained that he had just discovered the glory of the 1970s sourcebook “Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare.”

Before taking the “Foundation” job, Pace was already a fan of Asimov and had read the “Foundation” novels. However, when he started doing his homework for the series, he heard about Asimov’s analysis of Shakespeare and was hooked again. And while reading Asimov’s work, he discovered some unlikely connections:

“But really, what I read about Isaac Asimov very early on – and this is totally a diversion – is his analysis of Shakespeare’s plays. He has this incredible volume where he goes into detail about the history behind them and what Shakespeare might have meant. Some of the most interesting things he writes about are the relationship of robots and humans with technology. So I feel like at the end of season 3 we kind of unlock some of the richest things that Isaac Asimov created within the “Foundation”.

For those unfamiliar with “Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare,” the author’s book reviews each of William Shakespeare’s plays successively (for 849 pages), annotating important passages and providing elements of historical context. Asimov does not analyze the meaning or the poetry of the bard’s text; instead, he looks to recordable details such as geography, commerce, and politics to place Shakespeare’s words on a broader humanist platter. Asimov also groups Shakespeare’s plays not by genre but by geographic region, essentially serving as a Shakespearean tour guide. There are Greek, Roman, Italian and English plays, while “Hamlet” and “Macbeth” are presented as being English (perhaps frustratingly for Shakespeare heads).

Through the book, one can see that Asimov, despite being a science fiction author, is concerned with the warp and weft of human history, tracing how things interconnect. And that, as Pace observed, is also the central theme of “Foundation.”

“Foundation” is streaming on Apple TV.