The new sports drama series Clipped debuted Tuesday, and the FX on Hulu show is another potential star turn for veteran actor Ed O’Neill, best known for his iconic roles on Married…with Children and Modern Family.
But in an appearance Tuesday on The Rich Eisen Show, O’Neill said he was extremely reluctant to play the role of disgraced former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. The six-episode series covers Sterling’s turbulent reign with the Clippers, including his racist statements and behavior that resulted in the NBA forcing him to sell the team.
“I’ll be honest with you; you look just like the guy, and you sound like him,” Eisen said. “How much were you watching Donald Sterling tapes and things of that nature?”
“First of all, I was a little hesitant to do it,” O’Neill said. “I remembered when it happened … When the tapes came out, I thought, ‘This is not going to go well.’ And then, when I got the call that they said they wanted me to play Sterling … I thought, ‘Geez, I don’t know about this one.'”
But O’Neill said he had second thoughts after reading the script by executive producer Gina Welch, who also serves as the series creator and showrunner.
“Even then, though, I said, ‘I think I’m going to pass,'” O’Neill said. “They said, ‘Would you have lunch with her?’ I thought I don’t want to go down that road because I know where that leads.”
Even on the way to the restaurant, O’Neill said in his mind he was “already writing my exit speech.”
Then he sat down with Welch.
“She said something like, ‘I really hope that you’re considering it.’ And I said, ‘Oh, I’m doing it.’ I said it, and … my brain is saying, ‘What did you just say?'”
In all seriousness, O’Neill said he viewed the role as a huge challenge.
“I think I wanted to challenge myself,” O’Neill said. “I think sometimes … certain roles, you don’t really use a whole lot of your engine, it’s more or less 70 percent … I thought, ‘This one is going to a 100, all the way through.'”
While Eisen and O’Neill had fun recounting his hesitation to accept the role, there was nothing funny about Sterling himself.
“He’s a real SOB,” Eisen commented.
“There’s no other roles like this, very few like Donald Sterling,” O’Neill said. “That was obviously my hesitation.”
[The Rich Eisen Show]