Beanie Feldstein to Star as Monica Lewinsky in 'American Crime Story'

Say what you will about Ryan Murphy shows, but he does have a penchant for casting queer actors, and we gotta love it.

The latest member of the LGBTQ community to be joining a Murphy show is none other than Booksmart’s Beanie Feldstein. The role? Monica Lewinsky.

That’s right, the next season of American Crime Story is subtitled Impeachment, and it follows the trial of then-President Bill Clinton after he was accused of engaging in an affair with Lewinsky while she was working as an intern at the White House. The season will also see out actress and Murphy fave Sarah Paulson return as Linda Tripp.

It’s an interesting story to tackle, considering how much attitudes have changed since the 1990s. The misogynistic blowback that plagued 25-year-old Lewinsky at the time would undoubtedly still exist today, but would receive a lot more scrutiny under the current wave of feminism and the #MeToo era.

And Murphy seems to be aware that this mistreatment is part of the heart of the real story that needs to be told in Impeachment.

The producer optioned the book A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Sex Scandal that Nearly Brought Down a President over a year ago, but he wasn’t sold on the idea of actually going through with retelling the story on his show. Until, he says, he ran into Lewinsky at a party.

“I told her, ‘Nobody should tell your story but you, and it’s kind of gross if they do,’” Murphy told The Hollywood Reporter last year. “‘If you want to produce it with me, I would love that; but you should be the producer and you should make all the goddamn money.’”

And Lewinsky is on board. Twenty years later, she’ll finally have some say in how her story is told.