For Meredith Markworth-Pollack, Linda Tripp (Sarah Paulson) proved to be the hardest character to design costumes for on the FX limited series, “Impeachment: American Crime Story.” “She was almost six feet, which is very tall for a woman and she had these very broad shoulders and so I think that was the hardest part of the project,” she tells Gold Derby during our recent webchat (watch the exclusive video interview above). She also described how it was more than just a padding that gave Paulson the look of the character. “It was really about changing her whole demeanor because if you’re that tall and your shoulders are like this, you have a presence whether you want to or not.”
“Impeachment,” which can currently be streamed on FX on Hulu, explores the affair between President Bill Clinton (Clive Owen) and White House intern Monica Lewinsky (Beanie Feldstein), how Tripp taped conversations between her and Lewinsky when they worked at the Pentagon and Ken Starr’s investigation that led to the titular punishment. The series also stars Edie Falco, Judith Light, Annaleigh Ashford, Billy Eichner and Fred Melamed. Prior to working on “Impeachment,” Markworth-Pollack had been costume designer for “Heart of Dixie,” “Reign” and the reboot of “Dynasty.”
One part that she had a lot of fun designing costumes for is the scene when Susan Carpenter-McMillan (Light) takes Paula Jones (Ashford) to Nordstroms to update her wardrobe. “It was fun to portray that because Susan was a very wealthy philanthropist from Pasadena and Paula Jones, growing up in Arkansas, didn’t have the best style.” Ashford made it fun for Markworth-Pollack with the way she approached everything. “Annaleigh was just so open to try new things and so game to go big for everything. We had a great time with that.”
Despite what it may look like, there was a lot more to designing the costumes for Bill Clinton than just having Owen wear a suit. Clinton wore Armani suits at that time with very broad shoulders, padding and a boxy fit to them. “We had all his suits custom made. We played around with levels of boxiness and levels of shoulder pads and sometimes it’s those really fine, minute details that can make or break the whole thing.” They also had to make sure that the suits would compliment the way Clinton carried himself at that point in his presidency. “He’s in a suit, he’s wearing the tie, but the way he wore them was very casual at times and had that kind of approachable feeling to him. So we wanted to make sure that it didn’t feel too stiff or too done up.”
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