‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’: Meet the Paula Jones Actor

Annaleigh Ashford never met Paula Jones, the woman who accused President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment in 1994, setting off a chain of events that would lead to the revelation of her affair with Monica Lewinsky, a landmark Supreme Court ruling and a historic impeachment.

But as she prepared to play Jones in Impeachment: American Crime Story, Ashford returned again and again to a from Inside Edition.

In a 1998 interview for the tabloid magazine, host Deborah Norville asks Jones: With all due respect, why would Bill Clinton care about you?

The question triggers an emotional reaction from Jones, which dramatic makeover was in the headlines at the time: It was so rude, Jones replies, raising his hands in a defensive movement. This is exactly what I put up with every day: why should he care? Why am I worth nothing.

The exchange told me more about her than any sitting meeting I could have had, Ashford, 36, said via video chat. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to have been cast in the public eye in a way she was unprepared for and mocked so mercilessly about how she looks, how she speaks and of his education. It must have been unbearable.

From executive producer Ryan Murphy, Impeachment revisits one of the most comprehensive sagas in American political history from the perspective of women whose lives and reputations have been forever changed by scandal.

The FX series gives Jones, once a late-night punching bag, a long-awaited re-examination. Ashford portrays her as an unsophisticated but rightly wronged young woman, treated cynically by both sides in a ruthless partisan battle. His performance is tinged with humor and compassion, making us laugh at the absurdity of Jones’ circumstances without making him the butt of a joke.

She was overwhelmed and pushed into a world she didn’t understand, Ashford said. There is a real childish quality in Paula. And it was always something that was easy for me to access because I’m someone who loves the people in life. I was brought up to make people happy and say yes.

Ashford sits on the floor of her dressing room at B Positive, the CBS sitcom in which she plays another well-meaning woman who finds herself out of her depth, in this case for a laugh: her character, Gina, donates a kidney has a high school acquaintance and must get sober to do so. Although Ashfords is a little groggy, having just returned to Los Angeles after an appearance at the Tony Awards a few nights earlier, her comedic instincts are on display as she offers a virtual tour of her glamorous surroundings.

I’m hiding in the corner of my bathroom next to a trash can, she says, affecting the tone of a smug comedian, one of the many voices she slips into almost unconsciously throughout our conversation. . It’s the quietest place on the set, she explains, though she often hears loud jazz played by her next door neighbor, legend, Hector Elizondo, through a common vent.

While Impeachment and B Positive are surprisingly different in tone and format, the two projects play on Ashford’s ability to be funny and vulnerable in the same breath.

In our biggest dramas, there’s always a beat of relief, and that’s what makes them great. You always laugh louder because you have to release the pressure, she says. Then when you play comedy, if it’s unfounded, if it’s not organic at the core, then it’s not going to be funny.

Raised in the suburbs of Denver, Ashford turned to pop culture inappropriate for her age early on, watching Cheers and making impressions of Saturday Night Live’s Mike Myers character Linda Richman, which were often greeted. with blank stares from his peers. I didn’t understand why my friends didn’t think I was funny, she said.

She found a soul mate when she enrolled in a local dance school run by a woman named Kitt Andre, who wasn’t French but wanted to be, she says, and introduced her to magic. by Bob Fosse. Ashford remembers renting a copy of All That Jazz from Blockbuster so many times the band wore out.

Continuing her precocious streak, Ashford graduated from high school early, moved to New York City, and made her Broadway debut at age 21 in Legally Blonde: The Musical. In 2013, she got her first Tony nomination as a Courageous Factory Worker in Kinky Boots, opposite Billy Porter, and played a sex worker from a fun franchise in the period drama Showtimes Masters of. Sex.

There is a throwback quality to many of Ashford’s iconic performances, including his winning role of Tony in a 2014 revival of Depression-era favorite You Cant Take It With You. (It makes perfect sense that she’s committed to playing Judy Holliday in a biopic about the Oscar-winning Born Yesterday star.)

I vividly remember sitting in the audience when I first saw Kinky Boots and being blown away by her abilities and comedic chops, said Chuck Lorre, executive producer of B Positive. This blonde haired little girl takes over a whole theater when she takes the stage, seemingly effortlessly, and I remember thinking that one day I would like to work with her.

B Positive relies heavily on Ashford’s skillful skills as a physical comedian in the pilot, she falls drunk out of the window and her knack for playing adorable eccentrics. Due to the pandemic, the multi-camera sitcom had to record without the usual live audience, and Ashford says it feels like an old friend was missing.

Ahead of Season 2, which begins this month, the series has been revamped to focus on her character, who uses an unexpected financial windfall to help the residents of the retirement home where she works.

In any TV series you hope to find actors who are able to grow with the role and the role can evolve to encompass all of their abilities, says Lorre, who compares Ashford to Christine Baranski, another theater veteran who masters both. Sondheim’s lyrics and sitcom beats.

Jake Gyllenhaal appeared with Ashford in an acclaimed 2017 revival of Sunday in the Park with George, shortly after giving birth to his now 5-year-old son. The actor was struck by the way she first approached the material body, as a dancer.

It was as if she came from a whole different country that I had not yet explored, he said. Much has been said about the pelvic floor after pregnancy. I had the privilege of being in small, very intimate spaces, before, after and during the show, so I learned a lot about it and how it connects to the ground.

Ashford’s performance as Jones was also rooted in physical detail. She wore a prosthetic nose, braces, and an array of wigs, spending about three hours in the makeup chair each morning before the shed uttered a single line of dialogue. The production tracked down and purchased the exact ensemble Jones wore to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1994.

It was so important to the narrative because his physical appearance was pushed and changed by the people around him, says Ashford, who worked with dialect trainer Amy Jo Jackson to master Jones’ feminine timbre and vocals. hanging out from Arkansas.

Ashford is the only person I imagined in the role and the only person who could play it, showrunner Sarah Burgess said in an email. I felt I could go as far as I wanted in writing and that she would pursue it with humanity.

Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, claimed that Clinton, then governor, summoned her to a Little Rock hotel room in 1991, exposed his penis to him and pressured him for it. oral sex. The girl from a small town in Arkansas suddenly found herself on the cover of Newsweek.

Like Monica Lewinsky, Linda Tripp, and other women embroiled in the scandal, Jones has become an object of misogynistic ridicule. On tonight’s show she was mercilessly caricatured as a long-haired trailer with a fake Muppet-like nose. Even Jones’ lawyers treated her with open contempt. Paula doesn’t even know how to spell politics, one of them told the New York Times.

Paula’s lack of control over her case and the political and personal motivations of those around her allowed many to unfairly reject her claim, Burgess says. I wanted to clearly describe the ways Paula never got the chance to be taken seriously, challenge our audience to have the same reaction to her, and question that reaction at a time when we constantly reassure ourselves that we have exchange.

Ashford, who was a teenager at the time of impeachment, says the project forced her to consider the role she played as a keen observer of the media circus. I experienced this story through the lens of late night comedy because I watched Jay Leno and Conan OBrien. And I laughed at those women a lot because I was told that’s what you were supposed to do.

Because many of the real-life situations depicted in Impeachment border on a farce, Burgess needed someone who could find the emotional truth under the tabloid spectacle.

The tone of the show is so absurd and the kaleidoscope of characters around Paula so bizarre at times that I feel like I handed Annaleigh scripts that might sound like a Jenna Maroney vehicle, Burgess says, referring to to the narcissistic actress played by Jane Krakowski in 30 Rock. She plays comedy in Paula’s scenes without losing Paula’s almost unbearable vulnerability at every moment.

When Ashford, as Jones, explains that Clinton’s penis takes a turn, it’s impossible not to laugh. But when Clinton’s lawyers aggressively question him about his sexual history, you feel humiliated in his favor. During this scene everything about me as a woman cringed, was uncomfortable, felt small, Ashford said.

Jones recently spoke out against impeachment, calling him inaccurate and caricature, and criticized its creators for not consulting it.

Ashford isn’t surprised by Jones’ negative reaction to the show. It’s probably so uncomfortable to have your story told while you’re still here to tell it yourself, she says, but I hope she can see how much love we really gave her.