American Crime Story‘s third FX anthology iteration will focus on the events pertaining to the U.S. House of Representatives’ October 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton for “high crimes and misdemeanors”; a bellwether media moment in which the serious news cycle merged with pop-culture-proliferated tabloid stories.
Titled Impeachment: American Crime Story, the season – initially planned back in 2017, but temporarily shelved – is now set to arrive in September 2020, showcasing the sordid affair through the eyes of Monica Lewinsky, the young former White House intern who bore the brunt of the media’s scorn as one-half of President Clinton’s Oval Office infidelity. Indeed, now over 20 years removed from the news cycle heyday of the scandal, Impeachment will see Lewinsky involved as a producer, telling her tale in a (post-#MeToo) cultural climate that’s more understanding of the way she was publicly excoriated – both by Clinton’s rivals and defenders – and was essentially silenced.
Impeachment: American Crime Story Cast
Clive Owen, the esteemed Warwickshire, England-hailing actor, will need to work on an Arkansas accent, since he’s been cast to play the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, in Impeachment: American Crime Story, reports Deadline. The role of Clinton will, of course, serve as the fulcrum on which the salacious story will hinge. Owen, a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee in 2005 for Closer, is coming off a role in director Ang Lee’s Will Smith-starring clone actioner, Gemini Man, and will next be seen in director François Girard’s December-scheduled WWII-era drama, The Song of Names, followed by director Andrea Di Stefano’s January 2020 crime drama, The Informer.
Back in August, FX has revealed the initial cast members, and one would not have lost money on the surefire bet that perennial Ryan Murphy cast member Sarah Paulson is playing a key role here. The first main cast trio (pictured below left-to-right,) breaks down as such:
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Beanie Feldstein is starring as Monica Lewinsky. The actress has seen her stock rise significantly as part of the co-starring duo – with Kaitlyn Dever – in the recent acclaimed comedy, Booksmart. She also fielded a TV run on FX’s What We Do in the Shadows, and appeared in recent films like Lady Bird and Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising.
Sarah Paulson is playing Linda Tripp, a friend of Lewinsky who surreptitiously recorded their conversations, which became key evidence in the scandal. Paulson, who has appeared in every iteration of Murphy’s “American” anthology series, recently appeared in films such as Glass, Ocean’s Eight, The Post and Bird Box. She’ll next be seen in the September-scheduled drama The Goldfinch. Interestingly, her role in September’s American Horror Story: 1984 will be unprecedentedly minor for a Murphy offering.
Annaleigh Ashford is playing Paula Jones, who became another key component in the scandal due to her 1994 lawsuit against the President for sexual harassment. Ashford is probably best known from her 2013-2016 TV run on Showtime’s Masters of Sex, but also happens to be an American Crime Story alumna, having appeared in 2018’s second season, The Assassination of Gianni Versace. She recently appeared in Woody Allen’s A Rainy Day in New York, and will next be seen in the September-scheduled Hugh Jackman comedy, Bad Education.
Impeachment: American Crime Story Details
With this iteration of Ryan Murphy’s nine-Emmy-winning American Crime Story anthology series being preceded by 2016’s The People v. O.J. Simpson and 2018’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Impeachment is keeping the series in the arena of covering the major scandals of the 1990s.
Impeachment is an adaptation of Jeffrey Toobin’s bestselling book, A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President, adapted for TV by writer Sarah Burgess, who will also serve as executive producer, joined in the latter capacity by franchise maestro Ryan Murphy, along with Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Brad Falchuk, Larry Karaszewski, Scott Alexander, Alexis Martin Woodall and co-star Sarah Paulson. As mentioned, Monica Lewinsky will have crucial creative input as a producer, joined in that same capacity by Henrietta Conrad and Jemima Kahn.
As Lewinsky explains of Impeachment’s direction in a statement to Vanity Fair:
“People have been co-opting and telling my part in this story for decades. In fact, it wasn’t until the past few years that I’ve been able to fully reclaim my narrative; almost 20 years later.” She adds, “But, I’m so grateful for the growth we’ve made as a society that allows people like me who have been historically silenced to finally reintroduce my voice to the conversation. This isn’t just a me problem. Powerful people, often men, take advantage of those subordinate to them in myriad ways all the time. Many people will see this as such a story and for that reason, this narrative is one that is, regretfully, evergreen.”
Impeachment: American Crime Story Release Date
Impeachment: American Crime Story is scheduled to premiere Sunday, September 27, 2020 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on FX.
The release window is controversial in its own right, since it puts the season’s run right in the middle of the 2020 Presidential Election season; a concept exacerbated by the fact that the word “impeachment” is currently dominating the news cycle in regard to the current occupant of the Oval Office, albeit for different reasons than the show’s focus. Indeed, FX chairman John Landgraf addressed this notion at TCAs, stating (via THR):
“Let me just say something about the current environment. So, this person knows what the show is, knows how the audience is going to respond to it, knows how it’s going to impact history, right? This certainty that says, ‘We can’t have conversations, we can’t make art, we can’t have nuance, I won’t even wait to pronounce judgment on it,’ is toxic in the media environment.”
Landgraf adds that he “believes very, very strongly” in the project, continuing to say, “I’ve read it, I think it’s great. I don’t believe it’s going to determine who is the next president of the United States.” He also dismisses any potential influence on the 2020 election stating, “I think that’s a little hysterical, from my standpoint.”
The series, a production of Fox 21 Television Studios and FX, is scheduled to begin rolling cameras in February 2020.
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Joseph Baxter is a contributor for Den of Geek and Syfy Wire. You can find his work here. Follow him on Twitter @josbaxter.