Impeachment aims to cast Lewinsky in different light
Actor Beanie Feldstein admits that she took on an extra layer of responsibility when she accepted the lead role in Impeachment: American Crime Story, the starstudded dramatic retelling of an explosive political scandal.
Not only did she have to portray Monica Lewinsky, she had to protect her.
“I made it very clear to her when we started filming that I saw myself as her bodyguard,” Feldstein said. “I was like: ‘I’m putting my body in for you. I’m going to protect you. I have your back. I know your heart.’ And that’s my job.”
Long before Donald Trump was impeached twice, Bill Clinton faced a fierce battle in the late 1990s to retain his presidency after engaging in a sexual relationship with Lewinsky, then a 22-year-old unpaid White House intern. Impeachment
(10 p.m tonight, FX) the latest instalment in producer Ryan Murphy’s anthology series, meticulously recalls the sordid chapter of U.S. history over 10 compelling episodes.
It does so not through the perspective of Clinton and the male power players of that era, but the women at the centre of the events: Lewinsky, Linda Tripp (Sarah Paulson) and Paula Jones (Annaleigh Ashford). It’s this reframing that gives the series some extra resonance amid the #MeToo movement of today.
Tripp, who died last year, was the whistleblower who secretly recorded Lewinsky’s confidential phone calls about her relationship with the president. Jones sued Clinton for sexual harassment over an incident that occurred when he was governor of Arkansas.
“We were fascinated with these women who exist in the margins of power,” said executive producer Nina Jacobson. “They are not in the driver’s seat of their own careers or lives. … They are all trapped in their proximity to power.”
The filmmakers especially wanted to do right by Lewinsky — so much so that Murphy brought her on as a consultant with input on scripts.
“Monica did not have a voice during this entire, really, unbelievably overwhelming series of events that happened to her,” Jacobson said. “She was literally muzzled by [special counsel] Ken Starr, by her own lawyer, and told: ‘You can’t even talk to your friends, because they could be subpoenaed.’ And so to have been silenced and culturally banished for 20 years, there was no way we could make this show and not give her a voice.”
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Murphy was confident that viewers will see Lewinsky in a new light once all 10 episodes air. Lewinsky certainly hopes he’s right, but told THR: “I’m nervous about being misunderstood again.”
The producers insist that Lewinsky’s contributions to the series were “invaluable,” though they also point out that she was wise enough to stay in her lane — especially when it came to the private interactions of Bill Clinton (Clive Owen) and first lady Hillary Clinton (Edie Falco).
Said Jacobson: “Monica was actually incredibly mindful of not wanting to speak to rooms she had not been in. She had a smart and sophisticated understanding of what felt right to her or not. And that was an area where she [said] ‘I can’t speak to anything that happens to them that I don’t have access to.’ ”