Peter Coyote, the narrator of this series, has been a frequent narrator in Ken Burns's documentaries since their first collaboration, 1996's The West. In a 2019 New York Magazine interview with Coyote and Burns conducted by Tim Greiving (during the release of Burns's film Country Music), Greiving asked, "Ken, is it project-specific when you choose to use Peter?" and Burns's response was, "Yes it is. I would ask him for every project except those that are subject-wise African-American. There's a process: We would prefer that Peter not see the script and he prefers not to see the script. And we do not run the film while we're recording. We get about 95 percent of the way through editing, and then we say, 'Time for Peter.' An episode might run an hour and 50 minutes. Peter reads it cold. And more often than you could possibly believe, that first take is often terrific. It's usually two, three takes. I'm sure it now drives him insane. I always say, 'Perfect. One more for the insurance company.'"
