Sarah Paulson embodies Linda Tripp in series
Actor has a greater understanding of the why behind actions
‘I’m still wearing her ring, by the way,” Sarah Paulson says. The actor has been untangling the emotional weight of portraying Linda Tripp, the former White House secretary who exposed the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair, for the FX series “Impeachment: American Crime Story.” Filming had wrapped less than 24 hours ago, so it was little wonder Tripp’s gravitational pull hadn’t eased. Not that Paulson expected it to anytime soon. “It feels almost like she’s stuck to me,” she says.
Her prep work began in earnest in fall 2019, after completing back-to-back TV projects: first as one of fiction’s most unforgettable villains, Nurse Ratched, in Netflix’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” origin story, “Ratched”; then as Alice Macray, a composite character in FX on Hulu’s “Mrs. America,” a limited series about the battle to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. Filming was slated to begin on “Impeachment” in March 2020, before the pandemic stymied Hollywood productions. With five months of initial preparation, eight months of delays and 10 months shooting, Paulson has spent nearly two years immersed in Tripp.
The ring is a replica of Tripp’s — a textured gold band so wide it dwarfs the pear-shaped diamond it showcases. With her right thumb, Paulson had been rotating it along her ring finger. It became clear that she was in mourning. And she was well aware that will provoke some ridicule.
Paulson has good reason to expect it. In the late ’90s, Tripp became one of the most hated women in America and lived on in infamy as the worst friend ever. A career civil servant, Tripp was thrust into the spotlight over her role in one of the biggest political scandals in American history. She turned over evidence central to Clinton’s 1998 impeachment: 20 hours of secret recordings of her phone conversations with Lewinsky, a former White House intern Tripp befriended when they both worked at the Pentagon, that detailed Lewinsky’s affair with the president. Tripp, who long contended that she felt it was her moral duty to expose the abuse of power by the president, was alternately cast as hero, villain and joke in the ensuing media whirlwind — a legacy that was rehashed after her death in April 2020 at age 70.
Paulson hopes to shed light on Tripp, of whom she has become protective. Paulson became noticeably agitated recently by a reporter’s assessment of Tripp’s unlikability in the series — and in life. It turns out that Paulson’s performance might not prompt all viewers to reconsider their judgments of Tripp.
“I think in the initial moment, I thought: ‘Oh, my God, I took a really big swing and I missed,’ ” Paulson says later of the antipathy voiced about Tripp by reporters. “Not only may it not affect anybody’s assessment of her, it might make people double down. And that is something I never thought of. ... I think Linda was certainly a victim of being caught up in a machine. Don’t get me wrong — she put the gas in the car, she put the keys in the ignition, and then she started driving, put her foot on the pedal. But then it’s like a runaway train — I know I just mixed my vehicle metaphors. I will never think that what she did was right. Far from it. But I do have a greater understanding as to the why.”
Viewers can make their own assessments during the latest season of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series, now airing Tuesdays. Shepherded by head writer and executive producer Sarah Burgess, the 10-episode series revolves around the sex scandals that engulfed Clinton’s presidency — the sexual harassment lawsuit Paula Jones (Annaleigh Ashford) filed against the president (Clive Owen), as well as Clinton’s sexual relationship with Lewinsky (Beanie Feldstein) and the key figures, like Tripp, who became forever linked to it. (Lewinsky is a producer on the series.)
During the Clinton years, Paulson was at the start of her on-screen career, trying to make a name for herself with roles in TV series like “American Gothic” and “Jack & Jill” and movies like “The Other Sister.”
Now, Paulson, 46, has been carving a new career path: On “Impeachment,” as with “Ratched,” she is an executive producer as well as the star. She’s developing a project with actor Emmy Rossum. She’s especially eager to produce something she’s not starring in so she doesn’t have to split her focus. Because when building a character, Paulson studies hard.
As part of her preparation, Paulson listened to the second season of the “Slow Burn” podcast, which focuses on Clinton’s impeachment, and read several books, including Ken Gormley’s “The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr” and Michael Isikoff’s “Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter’s Story.” She watched every video sent over by the show’s research team. She listened to the Tripp-Lewinsky recordings.
Paulson spent three hours in hair and makeup, being outfitted with prosthetic teeth and a prosthetic nose, as well as a wig modeled after Tripp’s signature ’90s-style helmet of blond hair. Paulson worked with a dialect coach to study Tripp’s voice and trained with a movement specialist to understand Tripp’s mannerisms.
Paulson says it had been her “deepest, deepest hope” to meet Tripp. But she did connect with the woman whom Tripp betrayed. Paulson and Lewinsky first met for dinner early in the process, and they talked on the phone or via FaceTime during the making of the series.
“She’s always incredibly gracious,” Lewinsky says of Paulson’s approach, although she admits being “severely triggered” by the uncanniness of the performance. “She’ll say, ‘I know this must be weird for you. This is what I’m feeling. I know that might be hard to understand.’ I can understand she sees Linda and experiences Linda in a different way than I did. She has embodied her. She has championed her and what she thinks her narrative is. Sure, that’s hard for me at times.”
Lewinsky jokes that she and Feldstein have promised Paulson to “be Monica to her Tripp if she misses her too much,” and like most jokes, it contains an element of truth: Paulson has soaked in the character so long that Tripp reached into her subconscious.
A few weeks earlier, Paulson took a break from rehearsing a scene, fully made up as Tripp, and revealed that she’d recently had her first dream about her complicated quarry.
“I couldn’t tell you what it was now; I don’t remember,” she said. “But in the moment, I was like, ‘I’ll never forget that.’ ”