LOOKING BACK AT O.J.
Actors say there’s plenty to learn about Simpson saga as Hollywood revisits the controversial trial,
NEW YORK—“Why O.J., why now?”
The question was pre-emptively raised by John Solberg, savvy communications boss of FX Networks, before a December screening in Manhattan of the first two hours of American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson. The 10-part series premieres Tuesday at 10 p.m. on FX Canada.
Nobody was asking the question after the screening; they just wanted to see more.
It has been nearly 22 years since former football star-turned-actor Simpson was charged with murdering ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. In June 1994, Simpson and A.C. Cowlings arguably invented reality television as news helicopters tracked every mile of their futile getaway drive across several freeways in a boxy white Bronco.
Millions watched that police chase unfold live and followed the yearlong trial afterwards as if it were a daily soap opera. Tabloids feasted on impossible-to-make-up characters such as lead counsel Johnnie Cochran, hippie house guest Kato Kaelin, Judge Lance Ito and even the occasional Kardashian.
In an age before iPhones and viral videos, O.J. was everywhere.
“I think people were oversaturated,” executive producer Nina Jacobson said at the recent TV critics press tour in Pasadena, Calif. “We needed time and distance to be able to come back and look at it.”
Author Jeffrey Toobin, who wrote the book the limited series is based on (1997’s The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson), never had any doubt the story would someday make for compelling TV.
“This is the story about everything that obsesses the American people,” says Toobin, a consultant on the series. “This is the story about race, sex, violence, sports, Hollywood and the only eyewitness is a dog.”
Ryan Murphy, the TV showrunner behind such hits as American Horror Story and Glee, read the early scripts by writers and executive producers Scott Alexander and Larry Karas- zewski, and deemed the project a thriller. “It was paced with such urgency that it kept you involved.”
In the audience at the screening was Cuba Gooding Jr., who put on 10 kilograms to play the former running back. The 48-year-old actor says he had no hesitation when asked to play Simpson.
“Absolutely not. My agents called and said, ‘Ryan Murphy wants to meet with you,’ and I was, like, ‘I am in.’ ”
More reluctant to sign on, at first, was John Travolta.
“It took four months for me to decide to do this project,” says the 61year-old actor, hidden behind bushy eyebrows and a wig as O.J. attorney Robert Shapiro.
Producers Murphy and Jacobson wooed the movie star with a production credit. Travolta says he wanted to ensure the project wouldn’t be done in “a sensationalist way.”
As soon as the actors read the scripts, they were hooked, Murphy says. Once on board, Travolta “decided to tackle it with a full-court press.”
Travolta said he’s known men like Shapiro “my whole life. He’s so familiar. For 40 years of my career all I did was watch these kind of guys operate.” The actor drew on agents, too, as well as film producers, admitting there’s a little bit of 1980s Paramount kingpin Robert Evans in his Shapiro.
Besides Travolta and Gooding, The People v. O.J. boasts an all-star cast, with Sarah Paulson as prosecutor Marcia Clark, David Schwimmer as O.J.’s friend Robert Kardashian, Courtney B. Vance as lawyer Cochran, Sterling Brown as prosecutor Christopher Darden and Malcolm-Jamal Warner as Cowlings. Canadian Bruce Greenwood plays Gil Garcetti, the Los Angeles County district attorney during the O.J. murder trial.
Vance hopes viewers born after the trial will discover it through the series. “I kind of think that it’s for them,” he says. “I think that that’s our
“We were both an audience and actors in the revelation of discovering what’s next. As much as you learn we were learning.” JOHN TRAVOLTA
job, to tell the stories (for the) people who weren’t there.”
Even if you do remember it, says Travolta, be prepared to have your memories jarred.
“Every week . . . we’d look at that script and we were dumbfounded,” he says. “We were both an audience and actors in the revelation of discovering what’s next. As much as you learn we were learning. That’s really what you hope for it at the end of it, is people understand how it ended up that way.
“You know how they say the Oscar is won for the wrong performance?” adds Travolta. “You had O.J. win this when it should have been Rodney King. It’s the aftermath of a bigger picture. This had to happen because of bigger things.”