‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’: Monica Lewinsky Says 1 Moment Told Her She Was Working ‘With the Right People’
In Impeachment: American Crime Story, Monica Lewinsky’s story becomes clearer than the way it played out in the media back in the late ’90. The FX series from Ryan Murphy depicts how the young intern’s life changed forever while working for the Bill Clinton administration. With Lewinsky herself involved as a producer, she explained why she agreed to come on board the project.
Monica Lewinsky is finally having her moment
After her affair with then-President Bill Clinton, things went downhill for Lewinsky. The bright, intelligent White House intern’s promising career disappeared. Once the truth broke about her affair, that was all over. Despite Clinton’s impeachment, he remained relatively popular with the public. The same could not be said for Lewinsky, even though the two were equally involved in the affair.
Now, Lewinsky gets to tell her side of the story. She told the Hollywood Reporter that this is an “emotional” retelling. Her interview with THR clearly reveals that she’s thinking of this in a larger context. It could also reveal what her life was like post-scandal. She wants people to know that “just because I was not on the news every night for 20 years in the same way that I was in 1998, doesn’t mean this story had ended. This has a very, very long tail.”
Lewinsky worked with Ryan Murphy on the project
Lewinsky worked closely with producers on the set of Impeachment: American Crime Story. She had to adapt to this type of storytelling. After all, as Lewinsky points out, she’s told the story hundreds, if not thousands of times. She’s spoken to the FBI and testified in an official capacity.
But Lewinsky realized early on that the producers were the “right people.” She could tell that they didn’t just want to tell about the scandal. They wanted to get beyond the cold, hard details of Lewinsky’s FBI interviews.
According to Lewinsky, she knew she was working with “the right people” when “they said that what they had been thinking was that they really didn’t ever want to show any of the sex, and that it would come later in the season.” Although the public remembers the scandal as explicitly sexual, there was more to it for Lewinsky.
Additionally, Beanie Feldstein, who portrays Lewinsky, took the process seriously. She read Lewinsky’s authorized biography, which she took with her “every single day” to set. “It’s the thing that I always go back to because it’s as close as I had to you at that time,” Feldstein told Lewinsky in their joint interview.
‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’ promises to tell the whole story
Impeachment: American Crime Story isn’t an exact documentary retelling. Lewinsky’s story reveals itself through a dramatic lens, which means some parts of the story may be exaggerated, and others left out. The public has never had a chance to connect with the story in a personal way. For Lewinsky and many others involved, it is a deeply personal story.
Lewinsky didn’t feel comfortable being involved in all aspects of the story. Although she knows how she felt in certain moments, she butted out when the situation didn’t directly involve her. For instance, Lewinsky didn’t contribute to scenes about the Clintons. Although the Clintons were obviously not involved in this production, the public is dying to see what their reactions may have been to this devastating scandal.
