Did you catch the first two episodes of CLIPPED on FX Networks this week?
BOSSIP’s Sr. Content Director Janeé Bolden sat down this week with the stars of CLIPPED, Ed O’Neill, Jacki Weaver and Cleopatra Coleman, who play Donald Sterling, Shelly Sterling and V. Stiviano respectively, and discussed the 2014 sports scandal and challenges of playing their unique and very real roles.
“I followed it religiously in the newspapers and on the television,” Jacki Weaver told BOSSIP. “I was shocked and appalled and fascinated it was riveting, yeah I remember it very well.”
“I was living in Los Angeles, so I of course heard about it,” Ed O’Neill recalled. “Everybody in Los Angeles heard about it on the news and the newspapers. I wasn’t a huge basketball fan, although peripherally I would watch the the good teams, the highlights and that sort of thing. So yeah I thought, ‘Where is this going go? It was just crazy crazy.”
“I had kind of just moved to LA I think,” Cleopatra Coleman, who hails from Australia added. “Still kind of getting my bearings and I do remember it and I remember a lot of the talk about V and just how fascinating the whole thing was and bizarre and shocking. But it’s been really cool to unpack V as a human being you know I think there’s like a surface idea of who she is, but there’s so much to her.”
We remember the time the world was riveted by V. Stiviano! Donald Sterling and his racial remarks also serve as a powerful timestamp for the moment the NBA refused to tolerate ignorance at its highest ranks. The actors weighed in about the challenges of playing real people, some of whom had very distasteful habits — such as nude sunbathing — something Ed O’Neill had to portray onscreen as part of the series.
“I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed those scenes, I did not but you know I it was part of the thing and I went I went through it,” O’Neill told BOSSIP. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, what next?’ That was probably the hardest thing I had to do for me.”
Apart from playing a racist of course! O’Neill chalked up the lines he delivers in character as Sterling as just part of the job.
“It’s hard to explain, you’re doing a script,” O’Neill detailed. “It’s like doing a play. It’s like doing anything else, it’s part of the story. You’re not really living it, you’re pretending — as long as you’re not crazy. You know when you start to believe that you’re actually this person.”
“I’ve seen things where actors have to play racist and they are visibly shy about it and it’s not doing anyone any favors and so to have that guilt in this moment you’re stopping the story being told which is the whole point, to be of service to the story,” Cleopatra Coleman added.
“When I was doing Married with Children I used to have a lot of trouble arguing with the heavy set women that would come in the shoe store — and I would make fun of their weight and that used to drive me crazy,” Ed O’Neill told BOSSIP. “I really did not like doing that and I would always have a conversation with them. They were actresses and I would say, ‘You know I don’t like this.’ I didn’t like that part of the show. So that was hard. Even though we were pretending, I was saying something to them that was real.”
“Thankfully, with Ed and I there was just such a feeling of safety,” Cleopatra Coleman added. “I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been watching him my whole life, or what. But I think it’s just us – we just have this familial bond, like right away and so when you have that safe space you can explore.”
While most of the media coverage of the Sterling scandal focused primarily on V.Stiviano and Donald Sterling’s relationship, CLIPPED really shines a light on the Sterling marriage and how Shelly Sterling played a role in escalating the leak, thanks to her tension with Stiviano.
“It was such a great story to tell and that’s what I loved most about it, to to help tell this story,” Jacki Weaver added. “I didn’t identify with Shelly at all. I’m a little just a bit under her generation. I’ve been a feminist all my life and if I had been her I’d have left him years before, or killed him, you know. It’s always good for you to get into someone else’s psyche and try and work out what makes them work. I think Shelly had loved him since she was a teenager and they had this huge real estate empire together so there was loyalty there and and I think a certain amount of affection, but she tolerated all these humiliations but she had strength she was the strength behind it and in the end she’s the one who won because sheinherited the basketball team even though they tried to take it away from her and sold it for $2 billion. I do think also it’s a story about people having too much money.
“It’s definitely an LA story and it’s an intersection of so many large themes like racism and misogyny,” Cleopatra Coleman told BOSSIP. “For V she’s such an intersection of those themes as well and you know for Shelly there’s a lot of misogyny going on and she’s struggling and for V same thing and then you know the larger themes of the power structures that be and the patriarchy and all of these things it’s definitely a story for the times.”
The first two episodes of CLIPPED are streaming now on HULU. New episodes air Tuesdays on FX and HULU.