Starring Julia Roberts, the eight-part drama “Gaslit” on Starz zeros in on the crimes that would ultimately take down Richard Nixon’s presidency, specifically the Watergate break-in that was conceived by former FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy, played by Shea Whigham as a man unhinged as they come.
After serving a prison sentence, Liddy later remade himself as something of a media personality, though his over-the-top personality remained intact. The series, of course, precedes all of that. “I was interested in who he was from ‘71 to ‘72 and how do we get that right, and not bring whatever I feel about him into it,” said Whigham. “You have to really start almost naively, I find, and then start to build. I’m really looking for the human being in there.”
Whigham first came to notice playing Eli Thompson for five seasons on HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” and his resume since has spanned the gamut with roles in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “American Hustle,” “Kong: Skull Island” and ”Joker.”
