Sarah Paulson dedicates Emmy win to 'whip-smart' Marcia Clark

(Image credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

last updated 19 September 2016

As Sarah Paulson accepted her Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Miniseries or Movie on Sunday night for her portrayal of Marcia Clark in The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, she spoke about the "enormous" responsibility of playing a real person.

Clark, the lead prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson murder trial, accompanied Paulson to the Sunday night ceremony, and listened intently as Paulson said she wanted her performance to be accurate not for her sake, but for Clark's. As she studied Clark, Paulson said, she realized she wasn't the "two-dimensional cardboard cutout I saw on the news," but rather a "complicated, whip-smart, giant-hearted mother of two who woke up every day, put both feet on the floor, and dedicated herself to righting an unconscionable wrong — the loss of two innocents, Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown." Paulson admitted that she had to "recognize that I, along with the rest of the world, had been superficial and careless in my judgment," and she was ready to "stand here today in front of everyone and say, 'I'm sorry.'"

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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