Cleopatra Coleman as V. Stiviano in CLIPPED | ©2024 FX Networks

Based on the ESPN 30 FOR 30 documentary podcast THE STERLING AFFAIRS, the six-part miniseries CLIPPED chronicles the 2013-2014 debacle surrounding the Clippers basketball team. This resulted in the Clippers’ then-owner being banned for life from the NBA. The first two episodes premiere on FX on Hulu on Tuesday, June 4, with subsequent episodes dropping on consecutive Tuesdays.

Adapted for Hulu by Gina Welch, CLIPPED follows what happened when racist, adulterous, erratic realty mogul/lawyer/then-Clippers owner Donald Sterling (Ed O’Neill) hired Doc Rivers (Laurence Fishburne) to coach the team. At the same time, Sterling’s wife Shelly (Jacki Weaver) develops a rivalry with Donald’s mistress, V. Stiviano (Cleopatra Coleman), who becomes known for appearing in public on roller skates and wearing a visor.

When Hulu has a Q&A panel for CLIPPED for the Winter 2024 Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour, actress Coleman and executive producer Nina Jacobson both make themselves available together for a follow-up discussion. This interview combines that conversation with statements they made on the panel.

Jacobson was a studio executive, becoming president of Walt Disney Motion Picture Group, before becoming a producer. She has won two Emmy Awards, alongside fellow executive producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk and others, for the miniseries THE PEOPLE V O.J. SIMPSON: AMERICAN CRIME STORY and THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY, and nominated for two seasons of the series POSE. On the feature side, Jacobson’s producing credits include THE HUNGER GAMES franchise, DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, and CRAZY RICH ASIANS.

Coleman has credits that include Parts 1 and 2 of REBEL MOON, COBWEB, INFINITY POOL, IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON, DOPESICK, and THE LAST MAN ON EARTH.

Would Jacobson have wanted to make CLIPPED if had been a fictional rather than fact-based drama?

“I think the fact that it’s true really does lend a power to it,” Jacobson answers, “because it is a mirror to look back at ourselves with. It says a lot about American culture, it says a lot about our relationship to gender, to race, and the power dynamics within that. And so, having such recognizable characters brings it much more power, because it’s much harder to dismiss.”

CLIPPED Key Art | ©2024 FX Networks

Coleman agrees. “I think if this weren’t a true story, I would absolutely still want to make it. It would be one of those things where it’s so unbelievable, if someone wrote it, they’d be like, ‘I don’t believe this’,” she laughs. “Really, truly, when you peel back the layers on this story, it’s a poignant commentary on racism and misogyny and the power structures that our world is based on.”

What did Coleman know about Stiviano before playing her? “I’m Australian. I had just moved to L.A. when this all happened, and I remember it. And something that I’ve really enjoyed about making this show was, I think when all of this happened, everyone kind of made a decision about the content on V.’s character based on what we were all seeing, which was interesting. But it’s been really satisfying to find out more context and understand where she was coming from. I approached playing her with compassion, and I obviously had a lot of fun.

“It’s fun, and absurd as well, but it was mostly in the writing. It was in Gina’s work. I think it was so sophisticated and had such an attention to detail, and an understanding of, you’re a result of your experiences. We all are. V., Donald, everyone, all of us are an example of that. So, yeah, it was a very thrilling, exciting experience to play V. Having lots of YouTube videos to watch also helped. But mostly, Gina’s writing.”

Does CLIPPED get into why Stiviano started appearing on roller skates with a visor?

“Yeah, it does,” Coleman says. “It gets into her psychology and the context, and what we imagined she was thinking at the time, and also some of the research that Gina did on what we know.”

Coleman also had to learn how to roller-skate wearing a visor. She laughs, “I wasn’t very good at it, but I tried. I made an attempt.”

Jacobson elaborates, “Donald was actually a self-made man, a person who was able to move up the ladder in terms of class in a way that is what [Stiviano] wants for herself. She wants to move up the ladder in terms of class. But as a woman of color, the shortcut available to her is fame. She is not going to be able to go and buy a bunch of real estate. And celebrity is her path to power, and she’s trying to play it the best she can to make it permanent.”

Regarding CLIPPED’s multiple themes, Coleman relates, “For me, I think this whole story, like I was just saying, it’s an amazing commentary on misogyny and racism. Everyone wants to play a character like V. She insists upon her own value, despite her environment saying otherwise. It’s not necessarily about right or wrong, it’s about why, and it’s about peeling back the layers of these people’s humanity, and really finding out what was going on, and what the context was. Honestly, I had a lot of compassion for V. She was quite easy to understand. I remember when this all happened, and we all judged her – I judged her, too. ‘Who is she?’ But then to find out from where she was coming from, I was like, ‘Oh, that totally makes sense. I think there’s some pain there.’ So, yeah, it’s very compelling to me.”

Jacobson concurs. “Yes. I was here for all of the events themselves, but it was in the reporting of [journalist Ramona Shelburne, one of CLIPPED’s executive producers, who appears as herself in the miniseries] – for one, this incredible dynamic between a wife and a mistress-ish, right? And the way that Shelly reacts to her sense that V has broken the ‘Mistress Code’ – ‘You’re not supposed to make me look bad, you’re not supposed to go to the stores I go to, you’re not supposed to want too much. You’re supposed to take what you’ve got. And I’ll tolerate that. But I won’t tolerate you wanting more.’”

Jacobson continues, “The thing that ultimately rocks this male institution of professional basketball and powerful, powerful men who are owners and head of the League, the players. These are people who walk as giants in the world. And it’s the fact that the struggle between these two women is ultimately what brings it all down was really compelling to me. And then I think that there was an approach that Gina brought, which I loved, which is that you could have ended up telling this story as really being about how Shelly gets the last laugh. But that would be letting so many people off the hook, and ultimately, by telling it from the story of people who lose – in his own way, Don loses – and not the people who win was really compelling to me.”

Professional basketball players generally have healthy egos, and in Rivers, they had an excellent coach. How was Sterling’s poor management of the team able to so adversely affect the play on the court?

Jacobson responds. “I think one of the things from the very beginning, as [writer/producer] Rembert [Browne] was just saying, Gina’s take involved what it feels like for anybody who’s ever worked for an unjust, prejudiced, chauvinistic, frequently cruel, unpredictable, mercurial boss, who has all the power in the world over you, and what it does to you as a person to be in a workplace that is so infected from the top. And we try to address in the show the way that it causes people to feel like they have to look out for themselves and protect themselves and the playing of favorites, the pitting of players against each other, and that kind of current of cruelty that runs under it, that the defense mechanisms needed really do undermine what’s necessary for a team to come together. And I think what’s so poignant is to see how hard Doc is working to overcome that history and overcome those barriers. And just as it feels like it’s coming together, this tape [of Sterling engaging in a racist rant] comes and blows it all up.”

Why does Jacobson think Sterling behaved as he did? “[Almost] everybody has a boss, but in the case of the owners, they don’t have a boss. Their fate is in the hands of their fellow owners, and even this whole notion of – I mean, they’re not even really called owners anymore, and that is part of why now some of these changes in the culture of the NBA came from this moment in history, and of the players starting to really chafe under the confines of ownership, and what an owner could get away with, and that they would allow each other to get away with, so that no judgment would ever fall to them.

“It’s part of why the choice that [NBA commissioner] Adam Silver makes is so stunning, because it has been tolerated and known up until this time, and they’re just forced to deal with it, because of the releasing of the tape. They’re forced to deal with something that they have accepted and tolerated up until then.”

What’s the difference in dynamics for Jacobson in producing a streaming miniseries outside of her TV collaborations with exec producer Murphy?

“With the Ryan shows, they all work differently. POSE we did one way with Ryan, whereas CRIME STORY, we’ve done differently with him, in terms of who’s doing what. Ryan’s a wonderful partner. He really functions as a creative guy on a lot of style decisions, he’s directed the first episode of all of our AMERICAN CRIME STORY [seasons], so it’s a very different dynamic than something like this, where I have a classic writer/showrunner in Gina, a great partner for her in [CLIPPED executive producer/director] Kevin [Bray]. So, it’s different, but it’s also the same.”

What do Jacobson and Coleman most want people to know about CLIPPED?

Coleman answers, “I think it’s a poignant commentary on these really important subjects. I think it’s all the things – it’s funny, and it’s touching, it’s sad, it’s absurd.”

Jacobson replies, “I would say, yeah. I hope people will pay attention, because I do think that, on the one hand, it’s incredibly fun, and I also think it also has quite a bit to say for itself. So, I hope people get a healthy but also junky meal at the same time.”

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Article:  CLIPPED: Executive producer Nina Jacobson and actress Cleopatra Coleman on new Clippers miniseries documentary

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