Pam Hupp · Linda Tripp · Elizabeth Holmes
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Is there trouble at The Thing About Pam? The wildly popular, Keith Morrison-hosted podcast was likely destined for the small screen from the start — Dateline’s (and Morrison’s) first-ever attempt at the audio format seemed to have backing from the highest echelons of NBC.
Deadline characterized the six-episode dramatic TV adaptation of the podcast as “one of the highest-profile packages to land on broadcast in quite awhile” when Renee Zellweger was cast as the titular Pam in February, and Jason “Blumhouse” Blum singled showrunner/writer Jessika Borsiczky out for praise, saying via statement that “This opportunity to build a powerful, scripted franchise and work with the incomparable Renée Zellweger in her first starring role on broadcast TV, with a writer as gifted as Jessika Borsiczky and adapting material from the treasure troves of Dateline in partnership with our friends at NBC, is unparalleled.”
But apparently part of that team can be parallelled, if this oddly-fonted Deadline report is to be believed. Per the industry trade pub, Jenny Klein (Jessica Jones, and co-writer of legit catchy song “Toss A Coin To Your Witcher”) will replace Borsiczky after she left the show due to creative differences.” (Borsiczky has already moved on, as she will instead head “a one-hour drama series about millennial nuns,” Variety reports.)
The news comes just days after it was announced that Josh Duhamel will star in the series as Russ Faria, the husband of murder victim Betsy Faria. Thus far, no other casting news or creative shuffles have been reported, nor do we have a proposed release window for the series. — EB
As the premiere date for American Crime Story: Impeachment nears, the promotional cycle is hitting its crest. Here’s my prediction: We’ll see lots of coverage from stars and creatives leading up to the show, but once it drops on September 7 the tenor will switch as publications attempt to slurp up the sweet, sweet google juice from folks searching for the “real” story after each episode appears.
If Heavy.com doesn’t do a “5 Fast Facts About Monica Lewinsky’s Thong” I will fry up and eat my hat; I also assume higher-brown publications (Post, NYT, etc) will do helpful explainers for folks who fail to remember the lines at Club Monaco for “Bare” pencil and “Glaze” gloss, for example, as well as other, more globally significant details from the complicated and troubling presidential misconduct case.
But for the next week or so, we must content ourselves with actors ruminating about their character’s roles in history. My favorite so far has been Sarah Paulson’s take on Linda Tripp presented by Yvonne Villarreal in the LA Times. Paulson “became noticeably agitated by a reporter’s assessment of Tripp’s unlikability in the series” during a media roundtable, Villarreal writes. Paulson explains:
“I think in the initial moment, I thought: ‘Oh, my God, I took a really big swing and I missed,” Paulson says later of the antipathy voiced about Tripp by a couple of reporters at the aforementioned press event. “Not only may it not affect anybody’s assessment of her, it might make people double down. And that is something I never thought of. And I don’t know if that makes me foolish, or it just makes me a person who was so invested in trying to be a person. ... I think Linda was certainly a victim of being caught up in a machine. Don’t get me wrong — she put the gas in the car, she put the keys in the ignition, and then she started driving, put her foot on the pedal. But then it’s like a runaway train — I know I just mixed my vehicle metaphors. I will never think that what she did was right. Far from it. But I do have a greater understanding as to the why.”
Also, some detail on Paulson’s preparation process:
As part of her preparation, Paulson listened to the second season of the “Slow Burn” podcast, which focuses on Clinton’s impeachment, and read several books, including Ken Gormley’s “The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr” and Michael Isikoff’s “Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter’s Story.” (“I still carry it with me with all my page tabs,” she says of Isikoff’s book.) She watched every video sent over by the show’s research team. She listened to the Tripp-Lewinsky recordings. And she also spoke with a man who worked at the Pentagon with Tripp as an intern.
To evoke Tripp, Paulson spent three hours in hair and makeup, being outfitted with prosthetic teeth and a prosthetic nose, as well as a wig modeled after Tripp’s signature ’90s-style helmet of blond hair. Paulson worked with a dialect coach, Carla Meyer, to study Tripp’s voice and trained with a movement specialist, Julia Crockett, to understand Tripp’s mannerisms. Paulson also gained 30 pounds and wore additional padding — weighing roughly 4.5 pounds — to mimic Tripp’s shape, particularly in the upper body.
That leads, inevitably, to the most relentlessly reblogged part of the interview: Paulson’s response to a backlash against her decision to play the role instead of stepping aside to allow an actor of size to play Tripp. You can check out the LAT piece for that bit, as well as for Lewinsky’s reaction to Paulson’s portrayal. (Spoiler: Lewinsky is a producer on the show, so it’s not like she’s going to crap all over it.) — EB
The tone shift around Elizabeth Holmes is becoming more pronounced. We’ve given a lot of ink to Holmes over here, I know, but it’s only because I find her intensely interesting. One of the nice things about this publication is that I don’t have to worry about traffic or clicks, but I assume she generates a lot of that too — likely because I’m not alone in wondering what the disgraced Theranos founder is thinking.
We are likely to get more of an insight (albeit, a highly vetted one) into what Holmes is thinking as her long-delayed trial begins in San Jose this week. (Pause with me for a moment to mourn Sarah’s and my plans to cover this event in person, a dream thwarted in multiple ways by the pandemic.)
In advance of the felony fraud trial, I’ve noted more and more tweets like the one above (helpfully tagged for us by Best Evidence bestie sinnerforhire), humorously repackaging Holmes as a potentially sympathetic thief from the rich. It’s not a terrible take, in my opinion: if we think about Theranos along the lines of other VC-funded startups like Juicero or Quibi, why not enjoy a bit of schadenfreude and lionize Holmes a bit in the process? It’s not like we’re talking about Enron,* the arguably criminal collapse of which had a crushing impact on the savings and pensions of regular working folks.
And now we have the news that — per the Bay Area News Group’s Ethan Baron — Holmes’s defense team plans to argue that “she will claim her former lover and the company’s president Sunny Balwani abused and coerced her” into the crimes of which she has been accused.
The revelation came after the judge in the case released previously sealed documents this weekend. One filing, from Holmes’s defense, says that
“For over a decade, Ms. Holmes and Mr. Balwani had an abusive intimate-partner relationship, in which Mr. Balwani exercised psychological, emotional, and (redacted) over Ms. Holmes …This pattern of abuse and coercive control continued … during the period of the charged conspiracies.”
It appears that Balwani’s team knew this was coming. From his side:
A 2020 filing from Balwani’s team that was released Saturday also indicates Holmes will make “allegations of sexual abuse” against him. Another Balwani filing said Holmes plans to claim before the jury that Balwani disparaged her, “withdrew affection if she displeased him,” and controlled what she ate, how she dressed, how much money she spent and whom she interacted with, “erasing her capacity” for decision making. Holmes will claim Balwani monitored her movements, calls, text messages and emails; committed “physical violence” such as throwing hard, sharp objects at her; and restricted her sleep, the filing said.
According to prosecutors, “The only evidence supporting Holmes’ allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of Balwani are her own statements,” which is a tough position to take — it’s likely that some of these same prosecutors have, over the course of their careers, prosecuted abuse cases that rely on the testimony of the victim.
A lot of this has come up as both prosecutors and Balwani’s team have argued against the inclusion of Dr. Mindy Mechanic in the trial. Mechanic is a relationship-trauma specialist called upon the Holmes team to testify on her behalf, apparently about “the developmental, historical and psychological factors that made Ms. Holmes particularly vulnerable to the trauma that she suffered” (this, from a note from a Holmes lawyer to a Balwani lawyer) and “the abusive tactics used by Mr. Balwani that allowed him to exert control over her, and the psychological impact of the relationship on Ms. Holmes during the time period of the relationship and in connection with the charged conspiracy.”
Details, for folks following the trial: It is open to the public, and “electronic devices will be permitted for note-taking or live text reporting,” which means you can expect a lot of livetweeting from the courtroom. As far as I can tell, however, it won’t be broadcast live — if I’m wrong, please correct me in the comments. Court will be in session Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays through mid-December, with jury selection starting Tuesday.
And if you want to have a real laugh, check out the juror questionnaire. It’s safe to say that all of us here would be handily dismissed, as it asks questions like
Received any form of medical treatment, vaccine, test or diagnosis in a pharmacy and/or grocery store. (Well, I’m out)
Have you commented on, “liked,” posted or, tweeted anything on social media about or relating to Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, or Theranos?
Have you read, watched, listened to, or been told of any book, story, magazine article, television program or documentary that touched on or talked about this case?
That’s right, Best Evidence just got you out of jury duty! I can think of one way you can thank us…
Anyway, as with R Kelly, we won’t be providing beat-by-beat coverage, but we will point you to especially interesting analysis and coverage. As always, we encourage you to point us to stuff you see via email (editorial@bestevidence.fyi) or in the comments. — EB
*Yes, I know her dad, Christian Rasmus Holmes IV, was a VP at Enron.
Scottish criminologist David Wilson is living my dream. Sure, his career as a prison governor (what we’d call a warden in the U.S.) is interesting, especially as it ended when he resigned in protest over poor carceral conditions in the U.K.
But what I envy, as a person who insists on pausing The Good Fight and Brooklyn Nine Nine to helpfully explain “why this makes no sense” to my long-suffering husband, is that Vanity Fair is asking Wilson to do that shit. In the video above, he calls out fictional/dramatic killers from shows like Dexter, American Psycho, and Riverdale. It’s a lot of fun, and it a little bit educational. And, just think, the next time you watch Silence of the Lambs you can hit pause and say “well, actually, criminologist David Wilson says that…” — EB
Tuesday on Best Evidence: White collar crime!
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