Sarah Paulson has the difficult task of bringing former prosecutor Marcia Clark to life in the new FX drama, "The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story." The actress stopped by "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" on Tuesday and opened up to the host about the first time she met Clark, which involved a lot of tequila.
"I drank a lot of tequila with her," Paulson told DeGeneres. "It was really fun. It was like the mole kept moving all over her face in my mind. It was like: 'Is that you? Oh, now it's on your forehead!'"
Paulson said that going into the meeting with the woman she was playing on television, she was so excited after reading "The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson" by Jeffrey Toobin, the book that the series is based off of.
"I made a lot of weird sort of squealy pig noises because I was so excited," she said. "I had spent so much time with my nose sort of in a book about her that when I saw her it was like seeing someone I'd idolized or had a terrible crush on for my whole life. And she walked into the restaurant and I was like 'Ah!' and she looked around like this was a sort of terrifying experience for her."
During her interview with DeGeneres, Paulson said that she was glad the show was giving Clark, 62, the positive attention and recognition that she deserved after being treated unfairly by the media during Simpson's "Trial of the Century." During the trial, Clark was targeted for the way she wore her curly hair and about her divorce - there was even a topless picture of her that was leaked to the National Enquirer at the time.
"People were really believing what was being fed to them: that she was a kind of shrew, ambitious bitch," Paulson said. "All of the words that you would use to describe Marcia, if you described a man that way that would be positive, and if you described a woman that way it's pejorative."
"Could you imagine someone trying to put someone away for what they believe is a double homicide and you're having to deal with naked pictures?" Paulson added.
"American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson" airs Tuesdays (10 p.m. ET) on FX.
Check out DeGeneres' interview with Paulson below:
