Clipped (TV Program)

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    ‘Clipped’ Is a Juicy Sports Docudrama

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    The latest gossipy sports show, it recreates the scandal surrounding Donald Sterling, the former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers who was banned from the N.B.A. for life in 2014.“Clipped,” which begins Tuesday, on Hulu, is the latest gossipy sports docudrama, this time about the scandal surrounding Donald Sterling, the former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers who was banned from the N.B.A. for life in 2014 after recordings of him making racist comments became public. Remember? The lady who wore the face visor?I’m not sure if “Clipped” hopes you know the details of this story or hopes you don’t, but vague familiarity is baked into its very being: The show itself seems familiar because of the glut of sports shows that followed in the documentary and scripted footsteps of “O.J.: Made in America” and “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” and basketball stories in particular had a surge after “The Last Dance,” including the recent, similar “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.” Sports-related series aside, “Clipped” also resembles fellow mildly prestigious podcast-to-TV shows like “Gaslit” or “The Dropout,” and it has a similar behind-the-headlines premise to “Pam & Tommy.” (“Clipped” is based on the ESPN 30 for 30 podcast “The Sterling Affairs.”)“This story has a girl, a tape, sports, racism, money,” says a crisis public relations manager in Episode 5. “There is something in it for everyone.” Fair enough! “Clipped” does indeed have those things going for it, as well as strong, anchoring performances from Laurence Fishburne as Coach Doc Rivers, Cleopatra Coleman as V. Stiviano, Ed O’Neill as Sterling and Jacki Weaver as Shelly Sterling.At the show’s highs, you can practically hear a coach reminding his players to focus on the fundamentals: voice, stakes, heightening, details. It nails those aspects (and in some cases fingernails them — manicures get a lot of screen time), giving everything an admirable, almost hygienic momentum. The characters here are either smart, savvy, gifted or cruel, and they say what they mean. That’s a rarity in current dramas, lending “Clipped” a refreshing clarity. But it can also ring a little immature, and what the show gains in aerodynamics it loses in nuance and texture.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In ‘Clipped,’ Cleopatra Coleman Spreads Her Wings

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      The actor’s versatility has allowed her to stay relatively anonymous, but that may change with her new docudrama about an N.B.A. scandal.Cleopatra Coleman began with red, swirling it toward pink with a fine-tipped brush. An oval appeared on the paper, and then smaller marks joined it — ears, eyebrows, a line for a nose. “I always draw this woman,” Coleman said. “I don’t know why.”This was on a bright May morning and Coleman, a star of the FX limited series “Clipped,” premiering Tuesday on Hulu, was at Happy Medium, an art cafe around the corner from her temporary apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. She had passed it on walks with her dog, George, a rescue Yorkiepoo, and had often felt jealous of the customers there at night, on dates. So this morning, on a day off from filming a new series, “Black Rabbit,” she had taken herself on a date. She had even dressed for the occasion, in a thrift-store T-shirt with a New York State Summer School for the Arts logo. Charcoal and pottery tempted her, but she settled on watercolor.To the picture, Coleman, 36, added a long neck, small breasts, two teeth. More colors came — purple, sunset orange, hints of green — all representing different emotions. Then she took a fresh sheet and began again, painting the same figure in different shades. Since the early days of the pandemic, she has drawn and painted this woman hundreds of times.“It’s always the same woman,” she said.In her professional life, Coleman is almost never the same woman. An actress since her teens, she has bounded among genres and forms. Though her look is distinct — high forehead, full lips, limpid brown eyes — she is often nearly unrecognizable from one role (“The Last Man on Earth,” say, or “Dopesick”) to the next (“Infinity Pool,” “Rebel Moon”). It’s a versatility that has allowed her to stay relatively anonymous. But given her audacious performance in “Clipped,” as V. Stiviano, the personal assistant to Donald Sterling, the disgraced former owner of the N.B.A.’s Los Angeles Clippers, and the promise of “Black Rabbit,” a starry drama set in the world of Manhattan nightlife due out next year, Coleman’s name and face are about to become much better known.That’s what her colleagues want for her. “I hope she breaks the [expletive] out,” Gina Welch, who created “Clipped,” said in an interview. “She’s such a star.”In “Clipped,” Coleman plays the woman who triggered a scandal that led to Donald Sterling (Ed O’Neill), the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, being banned from the N.B.A. (With Jacki Weaver.)Kelsey McNeal/FXWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More