American Crime Story: Impeachment was supposed to be made several years ago, but it was shelved because Ryan Murphy and his team had tons of other stuff on their plate, not because it was a terrible idea. Then in 2019, they returned to it and cast everybody and I guess it was filmed last year. It’s the miniseries about the Bill Clinton impeachment drama, with Clive Owen playing Bill Clinton, Beanie Feldstein as Monica Lewisky, Edie Falco as Hillary Clinton and Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp. A teaser trailer came out a week ago, and then yesterday, the first full trailer dropped. We’ll talk about this mess after the jump.
I actually understand why Clive Owen was cast – he has that charisma and pathos, that ability to play a scoundrel husband and a president. But his face prosthetics look so f–king weird. Beanie Feldstein might end up being a good Monica, and the real Monica is a producer on this series, so I guess Beanie was Monica’s choice to play the fictionalized version of herself. Linda Tripp is absolutely “the villain” of the real story and the villain of this account. While I think so highly of Paulson – she’s incredibly talented – this is definitely one these instances where they should have just hired an actress who looks more like the real Tripp. Same with Bill Clinton – the “fat suit” and face prosthetics are just distracting, when really, better casting choices were out there.
Also: you might have caught Billy Eichner playing Matt Drudge, and Cobie Smulders as Ann Coulter. Eichner is great casting, truly. I’m undecided about Cobie.
The new trailer gives viewers their best look yet at Owen’s take on Bill Clinton. https://t.co/TVIcNm53vZ pic.twitter.com/dRT83kDMyQ
— Variety (@Variety) August 12, 2021
Photos courtesy of FX.
I’m just happy that Monica is involved in the project. Too many people took advantage of her at the time.
Same. She was put through hell. If I watch it, it’ll be because she was involved with the production.
Same.
Pass
The hardest pass ever.
Total pass. I can’t believe people aren’t tired of hearing about Clinton’s BJs, ffs.
Seriously. I thought this might be about the International Criminal Also Known as Former Guy. That might have been watchable.
Literally could not pass harder on this. This and the OJ Simpson trial have dominated the culture for the entirety of my conscious life. Sick. Of. It.
Yeah, best of luck to her, but I’m going to have to agree.
I lived through this once, not interested in doing it again.
Exactly how I feel. Just the idea of it exhausts me.
Agreed
Absolutely. Given the raging dumpster fire that is our current political situation, I have ZERO interest in revisiting this 90s scandal.
Hearing the Linda Tripp character just made me want to burn her house down all over again. I recall when this happened. And I am still as disgusted and horrified by her now as I was then. I’m actually surprised by how strong and deep down my feelings go on this.
John Goodman is the only choice to play her. (He played her on SNL back in the day)
Pardon my ignorance ’cause I didn’t really follow this, plus at that time we just had a war end in my country and Clinton was a big factor in political games. So I was more interested in that, as much as I could understand cause I was still a child. I have never heard of Linda Tripp and am only now reading about what went down really so your comment is very intersting and now I’m thinking I’ll watch this.
Linda Tripp pretended to be Monica Lewinsky’s friend (while they worked together in the WH) and recorded all their private conversations – and Monica confessed to having an affair with Bill Clinton. Linda later turned all that over, which had ramifications in the Clinton vs. Jones lawsuit, and the revelation of Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky. What Tripp did was illegal (wiretap someone’s phone) but she avoided all criminal charges by turning over the phone calls. She’s garbage IMO. She claimed she did it for her country, YEAH right. She played a huge role in ruining then 20 something Monica Lewinsky’s life.
What fascinated me at the time was that Linda Tripp actually thought she would be viewed as the hero in this story. She was shocked to find out people thought she was a terrible person for screwing over her friend.
@Mac EXACTLY – she thought she was some patriot!! She illegally wiretapped the phone calls, and betrayed this young girl. Disgusting on all levels. Monica was treated horribly by everyone in this scandal. Taken advantage of by everyone in power, and it is beyond gross. I still feel bad for her – this scandal has followed her forever.
Just to clarify – Tripp WAS indicted in the state of Maryland for wiretapping Lewinsky, bc Maryland requires consent of all parties. Other jurisdictions (like Virginia) only require the consent of one party (at the time, the laws may have changed at the time.) I remember it was a big deal where I grew up bc Linda Tripp bought the wiretapping equipment at the radio shack in the local mall.
She was basically a Republican plant to bring down Clinton over something the lead house GOP prosecutor was also doing (he ended up leaving his wife during her cancer).
Republicans used Monica so badly and ruined her life to bring down a popular president of the other party. Republicans later bowed down to worship a Republican President credibly accused of rape /sexual assault 26 + times.
@WithTheAmerican Couldn’t have said it better myself!! I am not giving Clinton a pass at all here! He used and abused his power/privilege as President to have an affair with a 20-something aged girl, during this time, and deserved what he got. Irony and hypocrisy at the highest level – the GOP then later stood by, and let that Orange POS stand as President for four years, being accused of rape/sexual assault by some 26 women (as you said). AND was on tape before the 2016 election, famously describing his misogynist, rapey attitude towards women – “grab ’em by the pussy” They still voted that garbage human being into office. Impeached twice, never conceded his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, and played a huge role in inciting the Jan 6th attack on the Capital. Thanks a lot you fucking assholes!!
Hell, even the Democrats called for NY Governor Andrew Cuomo (who has been accused, not even tried and convicted of sexual harassment from some 11 plus women) to resign. AS they should have!!!! The GOP can’t even muster the same, with their own leaders in their party.
Of course Linda Tripp thought she was a hero. People are trained to believe they’re always doing something altruistic by exposing or ‘calling out’ women sexually.
Tripp was a grown woman with teen children not that far from Ms. Lewinsky’s age, and she pretended to be her friend and confidant and quasi therapist (like a good friend is when you’re in a weird relationship at a young age) and she was taping her with the 100% intent to betray this woman who was little more than a child.
Seriously, i want to burn her house down.
Not really, but- i feel deeply on this issue.
I mean, imagine a “friend” doing that to you at all- just embarrassing you with sensitive information and your inner most thoughts- that is disgusting and unforgivable, but what the actual consequences to Ms. Lewinsky’s life- Linda Tripp – i have true hate in my heart for her.
Linda Tripp is an ahole no doubt, but I fail to find any sympathy for Monica either. What goes around comes around. Set your sights on a single man next time.
I still remember John Goodman playing Linda Tripp and still one of the best castings of her. She was a snake but it will be interesting to see a different take on this, in that a powerful man took advantage of a very young woman with a huge power imbalance. I still remember the whole thing playing out in real, time and Clinton’s blatant denial. I remember talking with friends about Lewinsky and how a lot of people blamed her ( flashing her thong), but we were totally disgusted with Clinton as well. The whole thing was grubby. I always say I’m going to watch these Ryan Murphy productions, but never actually get around to watching any of them.
I remember the impeachment, I was in high school at the time, but I wasn’t that attuned to the details. I started listening to the “slow burn” podcast about it and I couldn’t get through two episodes, it was so infuriating how Monica was treated (and I don’t think I got past her being questioned in a room at the mall or wherever when they didn’t want her to call her mother.) My impression of it at the time was just that she was this intern who was having an affair with the president and her best friend turned her in and that’s all there was to it. My impression since then has changed a great deal but I still don’t know as much about it as I should. I should go back and finish listening to it, as uncomfortable as it was, because it really was eye opening.
(also the Slow Burn episodes about the Nixon impeachment are also excellent.)
I listened to the entirety of Slow Burn and I was absolutely horrified how Monica was treated. When this was actually happening, I was a preteen and didn’t know anything more than the media told me to think about it. But when I look at it now, it makes me nauseated to think that this young woman was blamed, shamed, mistreated, misrepresented and bullied relentlessly. She never deserved one millisecond of that. Monica is a strong woman and I’m glad she has made a life but holy fuck everyone needs to offer her a handwritten apology, and the media needs to bend over backwards, grovel at her feet for what they did to her. It was an abuse of power, plain and simple.
I was in high school during the Watergate years & we had a lot of discussions about it in class. Did the Clinton impeachment get discussed in any of your classes?
It was discussed, but not the details surrounding Lewinsky. It was a more delicate subject to discuss in high school than Nixon I think. I definitely remember discussing the impeachment process, the roles of the House and the Senate, what perjury is, etc – but no, we didn’t get into details. I didn’t understand the references to the blue dress etc for a long time.
I was in high school at this time. I remember that the news and public opinion weren’t really about Bill Clinton cheating on his wife. All animosity and vitriol were directed at Lewinsky for “seducing” the president and at HRC for standing by her husband after it came out he’d been cheating on her. I can still hear my mother saying she can’t respect a woman who stays with her husband after he cheats. She clung to that and brought it up again in 2016. It was eye opening for me (who was raised by my mom to be a strong woman) to hear her drag down another woman (especially one so accomplished) like that. But at this point, societal misogyny is basically stamped into our dna. Men have spent millennia attempting to keep women “in their place,” and one of the strongest tools is to pit the oppressed against each other. I feel like the internet and social media have opened up the world and amplified women’s voices, so younger generations aren’t falling for that trick so easily. I’m happy to see it.
I do remember clearly how much vitriol Hillary got for standing by Bill and how villified she was in general in the 90s.
I was in highschool too and my dad loved late night talk shows and man, they would not shut up about Monica. They didn’t even need a joke, just say her name. Nothing bad about Bill, nothing bad about power dynamics, only about Monica’s promiscuousness and the size and shape of her body. I felt sick back then about it. Ditto about them focusing on Hillary as well instead of Bill. I’m so glad Monica is involved in this project.
Damn the video is not available in my country! Anyone has a link accessible outside the US?
Try YouTube directly.
Hard pass.
I agree with the above posts, lived thru it, zero interest in a rehash.
Why is Clive Owen involved in this? A few years back he was rumored to be in the running for Bond. His career seems to have lost steam and several of his project choices have been very meh, IMO.
I thought great! Clive Owen! Then saw what they did to his face; they could have just left all the prosthetics off & let him act.
Part of me saw him, with all the prosthetics and thought
“What? Was Jared Leto not available?”
I honestly don’t care about this at all.
Yep. I also lived through this, so it’s a pass for me. I had no interest in the other ACS installments for the same reason.
I’m glad Monica is getting a chance to tell her story and also profit off of it since it drastically changed her life.
And while I love Sarah Paulson, I’m almost convinced he’s going to edit her into the background of Glee at some point. Or has she been there all along? Seriously. There’s other actresses out there looking for opportunities to work that would have been a better fit.
I lived through this- but i also lived through OJ, and though i don’t care for any of murphy’s other things- the OJ series was incredibly well done. It was so damn good.
I am hoping, with Lewinsky on board as producer, this one isn’t total garbage.
Please tell me when she hasn’t told her story? It’s been 25 years. She has done books, Barbara, HBO, numerous specials, Today show, Vanity Fair, Ted Talks. Now she is producing this to tell her story once again. The great tragedy is that unlike Paris and Kim this beautiful, smart, and talented girl wants her life defined by Bill Clinton and seems unable to move on. So many people are rooting for her and want her to succeed but she has never learned the beauty of mystery or silence and denigrates her own value. The enigma of what made Bill Clinton, the most powerful man in the world as the GOP trolls remind us spend so much of his time with her just talking and sharing his world is so much more interesting than all the salacious details.
Will it go into Monica’s decision to store THAT blue dress in her freezer?
I’m so tired of the recent infantilization of this woman. I just don’t find Monica a sympathetic character in all of this. But I do enjoy Beanie Feldstein so I’m torn.
This. I don’t find ML all that sympathetic. She was having an affair with a married man. I know she was young but not too young to know blowing a married man is wrong. She was victimized by Linda Tripp and the media, but she’s not some innocent child in all of this.
I agree Ann. Yes she was young but not too young to not know better. BC was the biggest shit for doing what he did but not the only shit. I admit to being fascinated by all the twists and turns and salaciousness of this saga while it was happening but no desire to relive it. That or 9/11. Too soon for both.
She also went to Washington with the intent to have an affair with Clinton. She was no innocent in that regard although that doesn’t excuse him for taking advantage of the power imbalance and cheating on his wife. Where Lewinsky was innocent was in terms of Tripp’s betrayal and the conduct of Lindsey Graham, Henry Hyde, Ken Starr, Bob Barr, Asa Hutchinson, and Jim Sensenbrenner. And I don’t see those pigs being addressed in the trailer, just more attempts to portray Hillary in a negative light.
Same. The biggest victim in all this was Hillary and now this stupid show rehashes all that pain and humiliation over again. ML has been living off of this for years. Enough.
Agreed. The number of women who were groupies of a president surely is in the hundreds if not thousands. Young women are groupies to musicians, athletes, politicians and rich men and it’s JUST ANOTHER DAY. Was she under age? Did he give away state secrets? Nope. A husband lied so he didnt catch heat from his wife and job…yawn. Conservatives are so in love with interpreting law through the original intent of the constitution, the founding fathers would have wondered where the crime was.
She’s made a pretty good living off it too. Every couple of years she’ll turn up and remind everyone of her achievement of blowing a married man. He wouldn’t even have intercourse with her- she has no shame. Won’t be watching.
People also forget she had an affair with her married college professor before her relationship with Clinton and when she got her internship, she told him she was going to Washington to get her “presidential knee pads”.
As much as I adore Clive Owen, I can’t bring myself to watch him playing Clinton.
I can’t believe what a bad person Linda Tripp is. What a strange woman. That’s what I got from this trailer.
This looks …. horrible. It’s like they went out of their way to cast people that look nothing like their counterparts beyond an initial glance. Ironically, I actually think Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp was the best casting!
Does Ryan Murphy have some clause with Sarah, she seems to be in Evertything of his. She was fantastic in OJ though,i guess she is his muse.
Has she worked with any other directors, producers lately?
This whole thing was so exhausting and awful the first time around. But! I am totally watching it because I’m interested in Monica’s side (post MeToo). I’m also interested in how it makes that pompous self-righteous jerk Kenneth Starr, who is just NOW being outed as a big old cheater, look in retrospect. Also, that shot of Edie Falco/Hilary throwing that vase at Bill’s head? Magic!
Edie Falco would have been a better Tripp.
I mean it’s like people still don’t acknowledge how beautiful young Hillary was. She was propagandized against by the GOP as a harridan and a feminazi. It really worked even decades later. Amazing. Falco is homely, period. So was Tripp, so yeah, that would have been accurate casting. This is ludicrous casting. Ludicrous. But I notice they made “producer” Monica an awful lot thinner than she actually was in the 90’s. Hmmm….
I don’t think Falco is homely. I just think she has a stronger facial structure and doesn’t suit Clinton’s look IMO.
Hope Davis played Hillary in the HBO film The Special Relationship. I guess the producers forgot to ask her again.
I’m going to do for this one…the same thang I did for the O.J. one…which is to ignore it.
Not sure I can buy Beanie as Monica. Or Clive as Bill, so odd the choices. Sarah Paulson can play anyone, even the odious Linda Tripp.
Yeah the casting doesn’t seem great. I will give it a watch though.
I also find the casting choices odd. I won’t watch it but I’m guessing there is some value for the younger people who didn’t live through these events. My son could not believe how bonkers the whole OJ story was. No amount of trying to describe it to him was as effective as the show’s portrayal. For him, anyway.
Nope.
Holy sh*t…
This casting isn’t great and I love Clive and Edie Falco. I don’t think the Beanie Feldstein or the Paulson casting is good at all.
Like many here said, I lived through this and won’t be watching.
None of the castings seems to make a bit of sense. Why is Edie playing a 1990s Hillary? I can sorta kinda see Clive as Bill if I squit, and no whoever is playing Monica doesn’t have a right look. Monica was put through the fire, so I don’t have a lot even though I have basic empathy for her. She was an adult who willingly wanted to have an affair with a married man, with the President, because that was her jam. That’s deplorable. Clinton and the details of their affair being linked were just ugly. I remember thinking at the time….what does knowing what he did with that cigar and how he climaxed impact policy? Why is he being impeached over this? Why are they using this to muddy the waters as evidence in an impeachment? The whole thing was gross, and I thought it was unAmerican because it was clear that Republicans were just mad and hated Clinton. Now looking back, they could have accused him of actual crappy policy, but instead, they focused on a consensual affair with Lewinsky.
And this seems more geared to portraying Hillary in a bad way than shining any light on the evil that was Ken Starr, Lindsey Graham, Henry Hyde, Bob Barr, Asa Hutchinson, Bill McCollum and Jim Sensenbrenner. Hillary Clinton didn’t lock Monica in a hotel room and interrogate her about her sex life for 48 hours; Ken Starr and Lindsey Graham did.
One time around with this in the 90’s was enough. Always felt that Monica got a raw deal and took 85% of the blame when they were both consenting adults. It really showed that men can philander around and be seen as studs but the women they philander around with are seen as tramps. Unfair.
I won’t be watching. Especially not as the trailer seems to portray Hillary in a bad light while ignoring the evil that was Lindsey Graham.
The casting seems off. I’m on Team Monica, even though I hated my name for a while.
Dude playing Clinton looks just like the Mayor of NYC, DeBlasio.
Beanie doesn’t come across as believable as Monica. I think Jessica Brown Findlay of Downton Abbey and Harlots fame would’ve been better as Monica.
Edie is WAY too old to play a young and very attractive Hillary. This just makes me mad. Hillary went through all of this again and again.
Yes Bill totally abused his power but Monica pursued him. She was a fan girl and groupie. That doesn’t excuse him and it was outright stupid of him.
Since when is Monica Lewinsky a great person? She was a grown-up who had an affair with a married man with kids. What part of that makes her a victim? The only victim I see in this sordid story is Hilary who seems to be over it and has zero interest in making money off of sexual exploits.
What do people who have a problem with her profiting off the situation think her other options are, besides changing her identity? This is what she is and will always be known for in the history books, long after she’s dead and gone. It’s probably part coping mechanism, part survival for her at this point.
I think it’s fascinating to revisit this story through the lens of #MeToo. At the time, Monica was so thoroughly vilified, but in 2021 it’s so emphatically clear that she was groomed and made a scapegoat. I can’t wait to see this for that reason. I’ve met Bill Clinton and he is indescribably magnetic. When he’s in the room, it’s like the temperature changes. It’s very easy to see how literally anyone could want to have a connection to him, and how his enemies would have jumped on that.
I’m the same age as Monica and totally understand thinking this older woman was your freind and confidant. When in reality she was manipulating and using Monica for her own advantage. Time was not kind to Linda and she isn’t here anymore to defend herself. It’s a brutal betrayal of the scared connection women have with each other. That’s the bigger story to me not the Bubba BJ’s. Also, I work with a woman something similar happened. She was confiding to a work friend about work issues. Who turned around and used what she said in a lawsuit against the company. My freind was devastated she realized she was just a pawn for her the entire time and not the friend she thought she was. She still isn’t over it.