Why Monica Lewinsky returned to the show’s worst time of her life – The HuffPost

TV SERIES – The opening scene of the series reminds Monica lewinsky “The most terrifying day of [sa] life”. However, the 48-year-old American has agreed to go back to her memories and see her past (again) told, this time in a series in ten episodes, American Crime Story: Impeachment, broadcast from this Thursday, October 28 on Canal +. As an opportunity to regain control of one’s own history.

The series, 3rd part of a saga directed by Ryan murphy on American dramas, traces the events leading up to the impeachment trial conducted by the House of Representatives against the President Bill clinton in 1998.

She focuses in particular on the crucial role played by the women involved in this resounding political story: Paula Jones (Annaleigh Ashford) who sued Bill Clinton for sexual harassment in 1994; Linda Tripp (Sarah Paulson), White House assistant transferred to the Pentagon who gathered much of the evidence in the case; Monica Lewinsky, a former Oval Office intern with whom the Democrat had an adulterous relationship.

Involved “on every word” of the screenplay

Embodied by Beanie Sanders on screen, the latter is one of the producers of the series and was involved throughout the filming. “No one should tell your story except you,” producer Ryan Murphy once told him after acquiring the rights to adapt the book. A Vast Conspiracy by Jeffrey Toobin on the Clinton scandal. Monica Lewinsky tells the New York Times that she would have preferred there was no series about her, but since it was going to take place, she chose to be a part of it.

The 40-year-old native of California was involved in “every word and every page of the script,” assures the actress who plays her role on the screen, during a press conference attended by the specialized site Entertainment Weekly. “By the time the script for the 2nd episode got to me, I was sure she was comfortable with whatever was in it”. And the producers to confirm his intervention throughout the creation process.

Monica Lewinsky thus ensured that her former friend Linda Tripp, who recorded her confidences without her knowing it, is represented with nuance, even if it means accepting some inaccuracies with reality for “the dramatization” of the story. And to give herself “no privilege”, she wanted to add a particularly difficult and humiliating scene for her, when she takes a picture of her underwear to send it to Bill Clinton.

“As a human being, I was incredibly grateful when I saw that this scene was not [dans le scénario]. But then I realized as a producer, because I was involved, that the credibility of the series would have been severely affected and that it was not fair to everyone else, ”she explained on the show plateau Today. Even though this scene made her cry.

“I must continue to define who I am”

The co-producer does not hide it: while she was happy to be involved in the creation of the series, the process was not so pleasant. At New York Times, she also recounts the video appointments with her therapist as the screenplay reads, she who was diagnosed with post-traumatic syndrome after the events of 1998. At the premiere of the series in New York during the summer, Monica Lewinsky preferred to arrive after the screening: “No need to see the most humiliating period of her life in a room full of strangers.”

“To move forward, I need to take risks. I need to try things. I must continue to define who I am, ”says the one who had recounted in a TED Talk in 2015 the public humiliation she endured after the media coverage of her agreed affair with Bill Clinton. Today, she sees this series as an exercise in “integrating” her past with her present and “assembling the fragments of her identity”.

“After being silenced and truly culturally banned for 20 years, it was out of the question to make this series without giving it a voice. It would have been really completely unfair ”, abounds the producer Nina Jacobson. “It wasn’t easy for her, and it wasn’t always easy for us. But it was worth every one of those moments. ”

Already broadcast on FX channel in the United States, the series American Crime Story: Impeachment is broadcast every Thursday on Canal + from October 28. Carried by a convincing cast, she portrays three women involved in what will remain one of the most resounding and most publicized crises in the political history of the United States.

And while Monica Lewinsky is hoping this is “the last time” she’s telling her story, she isn’t convinced it ends there. “The reality is, this story has been part of the collective conversation for 20 years, and as I evolve, as the world evolves, it takes on different meanings.”

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