On February 2, when American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson debuts on FX, O.J. Simpson will not be watching. He'll be inside the Lovelock Correctional Center, a 40,000-square-foot prison complex in the Nevada desert in which inmates are allowed to watch TV. But it does not get FX. So he'll miss Cuba Gooding Jr.'s powerful performance as him. He won't be comparing David Schwimmer to his former best friend and lawyer Rob Kardashian, the patriarch of the Kardashian clan. He will not watch the recreation of his trial and acquittal for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.

"Hopefully he gets ESPN," jokes Larry Karaszewski, who created and produced the series with his longtime writing partner, Scott Alexander. Twenty years, four months and one day after the O.J. Simpson verdict—that'd be tonight—Karaszewski and Alexander's series begins, which re-examines the pervasive racial tensions of Los Angeles, our obsessions with celebrity culture, and the flaws in the American justice system highlighted by the case. After years of research, Karaszewski and Alexander condensed the nearly year-long trial and accompanying media frenzy into 10 hour-long episodes. We spoke to the creators about celebrity culture, true crime, and Gooding Jr.'s performance.

ESQ: What do you think explains the recent explosion in the popularity of true crime stories like Serial and Making a Murderer?

Alexander: I guess the symbiotic analysis would be that these shows reflected a distrust of authority, and whether or not there was justice. That was not on our mind three years ago when Larry and I started the project. We jumped into it and got excited and read Jeff Toobin's book The Run of His Life. The book's thesis is that there's so much evidence he did it, so let's examine why he got off. Which is almost the inverse of what all these other shows are about. Twenty years of hindsight allowed us to step back and see that Jeff was making comments about the beginning of celebrity culture. You have the media world before O.J. and after O.J.

You typically work in fiction. Why tell a true story now?

Karaszewski: You know the films that Scott and I have done, we're attracted to this eccentric alternate history of the last thirty to forty years in the United States. The joy is that the truth is stranger than fiction, and in this story the truth is so outlandish and so absurd that we'd be wrong to not use the real thing.

Did you consult directly with anyone involved?

Alexander: No. We decided early on to not contact any real players. We've found in the past that when you actually start talking to someone, you develop a little bit of a slant. You can't help develop a personal relationship with them, taking their side on things. We wanted to stay neutral observers, and we thought the best way was to not talk to any of the participants.

I was five years old when this happened, so most of the show was news to me. Is one of your intentions to tell the story to young people who might not know about it?

Karaszewski: Absolutely, 100 percent. We both have kids. My daughter is 22 and my son is 19, and they know of O.J. and they sort of know what happened, but they don't totally understand how America got sucked into this. It is definitely about showing a new generation exactly what went down. And that was one of the things we love about casting Cuba Gooding Jr. Our kids only know the O.J. who is locked up and behind bars, and who was accused of killing his wife. They don't know how beloved O.J. was as a personality, as a movie star, as an athlete. I think just by the iconography of Cuba as the good guy, as the Oscar winner, and the friendly celebrity, you can't believe that Cuba Gooding Jr. would kill someone. We're not casting a menacing guy to be O.J. Simpson. He's a charming person and I think Cuba nails it.

And he didn't talk to O.J. either to develop his character?

Karaszewski: He thought that talking to O.J. now wouldn't help him at all. The O.J. in jail is totally different than the O.J. he's playing.

Alexander: As a kid, I ran into O.J. a few times. He was always happy to shake your hand and was always so approachable. He is probably the most famous celebrity ever put up for a double murder. And this is what prosecutor Marcia Clark had to paddle against: The idea of convincing people that this well-liked person could have done it. And that's the two sides of O.J., the celebrity public face and the O.J. whose wife had to call the police to prevent him from beating her up.

You did such a good job of finding O.J.'s humanity.

Alexander: Honestly, we gave O.J. more attention after Cuba was cast. When that happened we all looked each other and thought, we've got Cuba Gooding Jr., let's give him more to do.

I thought the scene with the Kardashian kids was funny.

Karaszewski: It certainly can't be denied that the father of the Kardashian clan is one of our main characters, and we couldn't resist the irony that you could trace the beginning of the celebrity reality culture to this trial and twenty years later Robert's ex wife and kids are the champions of this world. We thought it would be good to sprinkle in a little bit of the kids and Kris to remind the audience of what was going to happen in twenty years .

Matt Miller Culture Editor Matt is the Culture Editor at Esquire where he covers music, movies, books, and TV—with an emphasis on all things Star Wars, Marvel, and Game of Thrones.

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