Clipped
Summary
Clippedis establish on Ramona Shelburne ’s podcast , The Sterling Affairs , which was released in August 2019 . The podcast was the first gradation to something bigger , as Shelburne believed that Donald Sterling ’s true - to - life-time downfall provided ample creative chance . She attributes its possible tothe dirt ’s key player , submit that they were each complicated enough to have story in and of themselves .
The next-to-last episode of Clipped feature reenactments of both Shelly Sterling & V. Stiviano ’s ill-famed baby-sit - down consultation with Barbara Walters .
Ramona Shelburne chats withScreen Rantabout turningThe Sterling Affairspodcast into alimited seriesand explain howClippedshowcases the power of the internet .
Shelburne Says That The Donald Sterling Scandal Is “More Than A Sports Story”
Screen Rant : To start off , I would love to go back to the commencement and know what first inspired you to createThe Sterling Affairspodcast .
Ramona Shelburne : When I was cover the tale , it always felt larger than living . It was more than a sports account . It was more than a scandal . There were these playfulness , interesting , complicated , tortured characters . Each one of them could have been a story in and of themselves . You start with Shelly Sterling or Donald Sterling , and they ’re just fascinating and contradictory and amazing and endearing . Obviously , I ’m a sports writer , but I do a wad of feature story . I do a lot of narrative .
While I was just living in it , everyone you would meet connected to the story . We just had all of these moments . You could n’t make them up . You literally could n’t be in a room with a bunch of writers in Hollywood and come up with this clobber better than what go on in real life . I add up into it from a hoops diarist point of sentiment of breed the clipper ship .
Custom Image by Simone Ashmoore.
somewhat quickly in reporting this , I suppose , " This is about a luck more than that . It ’s about race and form and power in the NBA and power in the world . It ’s about this misogynism that he has towards his wife and mistress . It ’s about all the complicated relationship . " Why do they remain married for six twelvemonth when he treats her like that ? Why is V. in this position to take them down ? It just had everything . When I sink my tooth into a story , I just keep die . I could have put it down at some level and just cover the news story , but it felt bigger than that . The podcast was the first step , obviously , into have what we have today .
Even though this is based on dead on target events , what aspects did you want to expand upon and fictionalize to sour this into a limited series ?
Ramona Shelburne : It ’s interesting . I remember it was really just the quality and the whole chronicle electric discharge of everything . I wrote a twain of powder magazine stories , and I captured a lot of it . I was a fan of The People v. O.J. I watched every moment of that serial publication . I determine everything FX and Color Force did in that limited serial genre , and I just call back , " Would n’t this be peachy ? Who would play Donald Sterling ? Who would play Shelly ? These are larger than animation people . "
“Clipped” takes viewers inside the Los Angeles Clippers' organization during one of its most controversial periods. The series follows Coach Doc Rivers, portrayed by Laurence Fishburne, as he navigates the fallout from owner Donald Sterling’s racist remarks. The scandal, captured on tape and broadcast globally, sparks a fierce power struggle involving Sterling, his wife Shelly, and his ambitious assistant V. Stiviano. As Rivers works to keep his team united and focused on winning, the show explores the broader implications of Sterling’s actions and the quest for accountability and change within the sports world.
Usually when you cover a tarradiddle like this , 20 years ago , the journalist would have written a book . Jeffrey Toobin write the rule book that The People v. O.J. is based off of . today , when you have a story like this that feels giving than life , or feel gravid than the news as it happened , you do a podcast afterwards . It just had so many elements to it about how Los Angeles works , how power works , how human like Donald Sterling arise to the top of the world and see to it people and controlled their team .
I felt like it had all the component to be a big , jumbo story . I do radio in Los Angeles . I ’m comfortable in that medium . I feel like the podcast would be a groovy vehicle to recount that story in a different means , rather than just write those character of stories in substantial time . You ca n’t capture the depth and the absurdity and all the different levels of it in one powder store story . There ’s just too much to it , as you see now as you watch time .
Doc Rivers Wasn’t Involved In The Sterling Affairs Podcast
Doc Rivers is onboard as a consultant , so how was form with him ? Did you get to have conversations with anyone else who hold up through this ?
Ramona Shelburne : That ’s an interesting chronicle . Doc was n’t involved in the podcast at all . I interviewed him for the podcast , but he had no idea that it would ever be made into anything like this . I ’m obviously an executive manufacturer and consultant , so they would ask me a lot of questions about Doc ’s part . They understand how of import he was to the taradiddle . There were a lot of detail of , like , " What incisively did he say in those meeting ? When did he eff this ? When did he hump that ? " It was all these background , matter that , candidly , I did n’t have it away .
I go , " Look , I make out a hatful of the story . I ’ve talked to Doc , and I ’ve talked to a great deal of the player . But if you ’re fail to center so much of the story on Doc , you probably want to call him and involve him yourself . " Journalistically , I sense like I had to get out of the way there . I ’m covering him as a coach of the Sixers , so I ca n’t be involved in the brokering of that relationship . I would tell apart them as much as I know , and I collapse them as much information that I had from speak to thespian and him , but I give that credit to Nina Jacobson and Nellie Reed of Color Force .
Theysaid , " We call for more access to Doc than what was in the podcast . " The person who worked with Doc was Gina Welch , the writer . I think she did tons of speech sound calls with him just ask the writerly type of motion that she want . I would n’t have had those answers . I think she really valued his position . We apparently talked to a lot of masses for the show , but I think for the spirit level of interest they had in Doc , they had to set up that up themselves . You ’d have to ask her more about how it was working with him . I sort of stayed out of that lane .
Donald Sterling ’s remarks were made public because of social media . speak creatively , how did you and theClippedteam go about showcasing the power of the cyberspace ?
Ramona Shelburne : It ’s really interesting . You have to go back to 2014 to understand how new internet culture was at the clock time . We all were just catch on Twitter and Instagram . It was n’t brand fresh , but the power of it was still coming online . The idea of something go viral was fairly fresh — particularly this idea of an audio transcription or tapeline that you made of somebody . I off on this in The Sterling Affairs , but Donald had had other mistresses . He had had other girlfriend or assistants . There was one in particular , Alexandra Castro , who had a very similar cause to the one that Shelly filed against V. Stiviano that sort of kicks off the activeness here .
V. had audio recording that she could make on her cell phone , whereas when Castro tried to record him , they had VHS . You did n’t have a cell telephone back then . You did n’t have the right spiritualist . For me , a big paper of the show , and a stem of this story is how the world has changed . Why was V. Stiviano the mistress that took him down ? Well , she had a cellphone phone . Nobody else had a cell sound that could record thing like this . You also had internet culture where it was n’t just a one twenty-four hours story in The Times . I think Gina write this fit really perfectly when Andy Roeser comes to him and first says , " V. send a recording , " and Donald is very unconcerned because it ’s a vox transcription . He thought it ’d be a one - day story in the newspaper . He did n’t understand the powerfulness of the cyberspace at that time .
Also , you had TMZ , which is a fairly raw entity in the celebrity world . It ’s an retail store that would take a tape like that and just turn tail it . If they leaked that to ABC News , or CNN or something later , would it have been as big of a floor ten twelvemonth earlier ? Would that have come out the same way ? I do n’t jazz . I conceive it ’s a merging of how the world had vary pretty quickly and dramatically in 2014 from the macrocosm that Donald Sterling had owned . He uses this line a lot in the show : " It ’s my world . " It had been his public . He had a just savvy of how to control that existence , but after a while , he did n’t keep up with how chop-chop things had change .
The Clipped Creatives Wanted V. Stiviano To Be Played By A Lesser-Known Actor
You have an incredible cast here . What did they get to these characters that surprise you ?
Ramona Shelburne : All of them are just so phenomenal . They ’re all so respectable . I was n’t as involved in the cast as Gina was , but she would enjoin me how things were going . They really looked tenacious and strong for somebody to play V. They really wanted this to be a breakout theatrical role for somebody . V. was an strange . She just became V. Stiviano . They wanted to recover somebody who also mate that . I finger like with Cleo , she brought V. Stiviano to life in a way that I do n’t think I was able to do in the podcast . V. and I have afterward talked in the last few month , but she did n’t do the podcast . She was n’t interested in double down and explaining herself .
We had a match of interviews she gave at the time , and she did a podcast a few years later where she explained things , but there really was n’t a lot for us to go off of with V. other than just research . She was the one major fibre that did n’t really participate . I flesh her out in the podcast , but not virtually as well as Gina did in the show . Cleo just get this other dimension to V. that I recall is unbelievable . To me , Cleo is just this breakout adept . I hope this launches her career into the stratosphere . She just did such an awing job with this profoundly uncanny but fascinating character .
What do you desire citizenry take away from this after learning about what pass on the Clippers team ?
Ramona Shelburne : This is one of the first scandals that deepen our cosmos and [ record ] how powerful people can be bring down by masses who are not powerful . That ’s the opening actor’s line V. gives in the show . There ’s this estimate that , especially when you have money , that you’re able to ascertain the great unwashed , that you’re able to command the existence . We ’ve see a numeration with that over the last 15–20 years where there is a limit on how much you could check and treat multitude really poorly and deport in that manner . There is a recourse now . That ’s one of the manner of speaking that Donald gives . It ’s one of the things he enounce : " This is just the mode the world is . "
That ’s how he would describe it to be in that tapeline , and I do n’t call up that ’s how the world has to be . We ’ve seen powerful people hang who ’ve said bad things or done bad things in the last 15–20 years . I remember people are just now start to understand . Having pass over the NBA very deeply for most of my career , we went through this in a bubble . The players actually walked out . There was a protest where they did n’t play playoff games , they did n’t play game . I call back cover the Milwaukee Bucks — they were the first squad to do that — and babble out to some of the mass with the Bucks and the player on the team , and they arrange this boycott after Jacob Blake was assaulted .
It was like , " What are we expect for with this protest ? How are we trying to practice our tycoon to effectuate alteration ? " We have to name specific goal . Now there are mechanisms to create modification , but a lot of people who have teach how to use those mechanisms have to figure out what they want to do with that power now . When you take some of the power back , now you have to count on out what to do with it . I remember that ’s a real fascinating point where we are in our journeying as a country and specially in professional sportswoman .
About Clipped
FX ’s Clipped takes you behind the scenes of a notorious NBA owner ’s anti-Semite input , captured on a tape heard around the world . Based on the hit ESPN 30 for 30 podcast The Sterling Affairs , this limited series graph the collision between a dysfunctional basketball organization and even less functional matrimony , and the precipitating tape ’s impact on an supporting players of characters endeavour to deliver the goods against the backcloth of the most doomed team in the league .
check out out our other interview with theClippedcast and gang :
All episodes ofClippedare now usable to stream on Hulu .
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Cast
" Clipped " withdraw viewing audience inside the Los Angeles Clippers ' organisation during one of its most controversial periods . The serial publication follows Coach Doc Rivers , impersonate by Laurence Fishburne , as he navigate the fallout from possessor Donald Sterling ’s racist remark . The malicious gossip , captured on tape and broadcast globally , sparks a fierce king conflict involve Sterling , his wife Shelly , and his ambitious supporter V. Stiviano . As Rivers works to keep his team united and concentre on winning , the show explores the broader deduction of Sterling ’s action and the quest for answerability and change within the sports domain .
