Marcia Clark On How ‘People v. OJ’ Changed Her Life, Why She Never Serves on Juries, and the ‘CSI Effect’ —Turn It On Podcast
Marcia Clark can’t get on a jury. The famed O.J. Simpson prosecutor, who left the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office after the accused murderer was acquitted, has spent the last 20 years writing scripts and novels, plus developing TV shows. But she can’t escape her Simpson trial notoriety.
That may explain why she hasn’t been asked to serve on a jury. “And I actually could be fair!” she laments. “I spent as much time on the defense side of things as I have on the prosecution side. But no one’s ever going to put me on a jury. I do think I get weeded out pretty fast. And my friends are also ruined. When they’re asked if they know any lawyers, they say ‘yes’ and my name, and then it’s like, ‘bye, see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya!’ I’m Typhoid Mary. If you don’t want to be on a jury, just say you’re my buddy.”
Clark admits, however, that the world now sees her, and treats her, in a much different light thanks to “The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story.” The limited-run series depicted Clark in a much more nuanced and sympathetic light, thanks in large part to the actress who played her, Sarah Paulson.
“I was miserable about it,” Clark said of initially learning about the show. “Somehow Sarah Paulson, she really got it right… [but] it made it more painful to watch. Because it made me experience everything all over again. But I think as a result people adjusted their view of us in general, all of us in the case to see what we were up against.”
