American Crime Story Season 3 to Focus on Monica Lewinsky Scandal; Booksmart‘s Beanie Feldstein to Star
They had us at “Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp.”
FX announced Tuesday that American Crime Story‘s third season will focus on the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, with Paulson playing Lewinsky’s infamous “confidante” Tripp. The role of Lewinsky, meanwhile, will be played by Booksmart breakout Beanie Feldstein. Rounding out the principal cast will be Masters of Sex‘s Annaleigh Ashford as Paula Jones.
Titled Impeachment: American Crime Story, the third chapter of Ryan Murphy’s Emmy-winning franchise will begin production in February ahead of a Sept. 27, 2020 premiere date. Impeachment will be written by Sarah Burgess, based on 
Jeffrey Toobin’s bestselling book A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President.
Lewinsky will serve as a producer on the project.
“FX’s American Crime Story franchise has become a cultural touchstone, providing greater context for stories that deserve greater understanding like the O.J. Simpson trial and saga, and Andrew Cunanan’s tragic crime spree which concluded with the assassination of Gianni Versace,” said FX Chairman John Landgraf in a statement. “This franchise re-examines some of the most complicated, polarizing stories in recent history in a way that is relevant, nuanced and entertaining. Impeachment: American Crime Story will likewise explore the overlooked dimensions of the women who found themselves caught up in the scandal and political war that cast a long shadow over the Clinton Presidency.”
American Crime Story‘s third season was initially going to revolve around Hurricane Katrina, but Landgraf confirmed last winter that “Katrina is not still in the mix.” The Lewinsky scandal had been discussed for Season 4, but last year Murphy announced that those plans had been dropped. “I told [Monica], ‘Nobody should tell your story but you,’” Murphy related to THR at the time. “‘If you want to produce it with me, I would love that…. [Y]ou should make all the goddamn money.’”
The only thing is if this is airing next fall, I can’t help but wonder if there might be some kind of weird backlash during the presidential election. It’s going to be so close to the election.
I think that’s actually intentional and sort of genius… I don’t think ACS is the type of show Trump supporters watch so I doubt it’ll have much backlash. And the liberals who do watch it will be more fired up to go vote after all the injustices and hypocrisies are aired. If it starts in September it should be finishing up by November so I’m sure it’s more planned than not
I watch and I’m conservative.
I guess I’m just worried that some people might get turned off by it and stay home or become apathetic, especially if they draw parallels to the current political climate.
Valid point. I would think, by the time it airs, people will mostly have made up their minds to vote or not, and whom to vote for.
fingers crossed. lol
They should have gotten John Goodman for Linda Tripp.
That is funny!
Can’t wait!
I can’t say no to this.
It’s Beanie! This is amazing! I night be freaking out about this!
This is horrible! I wish they would leave her and the situation alone. People have moved on and they should let Monica move on as well.
Maybe you should tell her that since she’s going to be a producer on this and reap some kind of financial reward. As long as “the situation” brings in the dough for I highly doubt that’s going to happen though.
Hopefully this isn’t a case of FX saying “we’re going to do this with or without you, so you might as well sign on and get some money and maybe a tiny bit of control”. I can’t imagine this is something she really wants.
Riiiight.
Hopefully there’ll be another real-life impeachment before this airs.
Holy crap WOW. I’m looking forward to the new season now that Beanie is in it! She was amazing in Lady Bird and amazing in Booksmart. Maybe she’ll be the three-peat in the ACS lead actor sweep in 2020/2021
Glad to finally have some news about this show although I’m sure there are more interesting topics or cases they could have done. Hasn’t the Lewinsky story been done enough. Nevertheless, the first two seasons were great so I will still watch this.
Although, I’m more interested to hear about whether or not there will be a second season of Feud and what it would cover after they scrapped the whole Charles vs. Diana story.
Brilliant!
Monica L story??? Really people? GET OVER IT!!
Does anyone honestly still care about this? The Katrina one would have so much more interesting.
The good thing is she’ll gain financially from this project. But I wish she had managed to reinvent herself into something else not associated to this scandal.
Men manage to bounce back and leave their scandals behind all the time, watch while Kevin Spacey does it.
Even Kim Kardashian is now a beauty mogul and is using whatever influence she has to get prisoners out of jail.
All interviews I’ve seen of ML always relate back to the scandal. Even her anti-bullying campaign always goes back to that scandal.
The John Oliver segment seemed counterproductive to the image of moving on that she tries to portray. All I did was feel sorry for her..and I am tired of feeling sorry for her..I wish we could all just move on and more importantly I wish she would too and tell the whole world to sod off!
Who do we want to see a Bill? im thinking maybe Dennis Quaid since he was attached to Katrina before it was cancelled and played Bill before in other projects… anyone have any other casting ideas
I hate to typecast but Cherry Jones would be a good Hillary.
Nope no interest. Been there done that, no need to relive it.
*yawn*
An in depth look at a pig and a boar [boor]?