Courtney B. Vance hears a common refrain from American Crime Story viewers who didn’t follow the 1990s double-murder trial of O.J. Simpson.
“It's like, ‘This can’t be happening. They had to write this for television, right?,' ” says Vance, who plays charismatic defense attorney Johnnie Cochran in FX’s The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, which airs its 90-minute finale Tuesday (10 p.m. ET/PT).
Even viewers familiar with the addictive real-life soap opera have been surprised by the back story.
“People are intrigued by the shenanigans between both sides, the drama going on with the Dream Team and with (prosecutors) Gil Garcetti, Marcia Clark and Chris Darden," Vance says. "The real drama was backstage in the offices.”
Jeffrey Toobin’s detailed book, The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson, provided gems for writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who expanded the story with their own research. “We were trying to startle the audience with stuff that nobody knows. That was our personal mandate,” Alexander says.
Some iconic moments, and more obscure details:
The Bronco
Everyone knows the exterior visual, a slow-speed L.A. freeway pursuit, but events inside the white Bronco weren’t revealed until later.
“There were all these phone calls. O.J. was in the backseat with a gun to his head, apologizing to the LAPD for making them work on a Friday night,” Karaszewski says. “It made you understand a little why they weren't shooting out the tires. They didn't want him to kill himself, and they had the sense he was going to passively surrender at some point.”
The Bloody Glove
Cochran’s command to the jury — “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” — may be the trial’s most memorable line, but it was fellow defense attorney Robert Shapiro (John Travolta) who pushed Simpson (Cuba Gooding Jr.) to put on the gloves after trying them on himself during a bizarre evidence examination, according to the miniseries.
“There are multiple sources, including (Lawrence Schiller's) American Tragedy, that say Shapiro tried it on," Karaszewski says, adding that the multitude of post-trial books offer differing accounts of some incidents.
Lawyers Clark (Sarah Paulson), Darden (Sterling K. Brown), Cochran and Shapiro
On the courtroom TV feed, "You really saw just one dimension, (to) a state of parody. … Marcia was the woman who changed her haircut, Chris was kind of the race traitor, Johnnie was the guy in the flashy suit you make fun of on Seinfeld,” Karaszewski says. "We tried to give them back their humanity."
Simpson explores other elements of their lives, as Clark juggled divorce and child custody proceedings with her trial duties; Cochran tried to tamp down controversy regarding his personal relationships; and, as Vance puts it, a "bitter hatred” festered between colleagues Cochran and Shapiro.
The miniseries details an Oakland getaway by Clark and Darden, and hints at a never-consummated mutual attraction.
“In both of their books, they’re very coy about what happened,” Karaszewski says. “We took it as far as we could. They went to the line and didn’t cross it.”
Detective Mark Fuhrman’s racist comments
Many consider the detective's comments key to Simpson's acquittal. Simpson shows defense lawyers traveling to North Carolina to get transcripts of damning comments he made to a screenwriter.
“One of our themes was this trial was the beginning of reality television and 24-hour celebrity infotainment,” Karaszewski says. “One of the major pieces that comes forth is transcripts from a detective who wants to have a movie made.”
For all the craziness, Alexander says Simpson connects with contemporary audiences “with a lot of big ideas about race in America, gender politics and how celebrities get treated differently. There are lot of ideas in there besides the fact that it's the story of an acquittal after two innocent people were killed.”
