White House Plumbers Star Kathleen Turner on the Enduring Allure of Watergate
“Those that fail to learn from history,” Winston Churchill so famously said, “are doomed to repeat it.” Kathleen Turner hasn’t failed to learn her history, but she seems thrilled to repeat it—or at least portray one of its most memorable characters.
In the new HBO series White House Plumbers, which tells a stylized, darkly humorous version of how the Watergate break-in came to occur, the Oscar-nominated actress plays Dita Beard, the infamous lobbyist who wrote a memo that, upon being leaked, linked the Republican National Convention with a donation by the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation that was said to be quid pro quo for President Nixon’s Justice Department settling an antitrust suit. It’s a complicated moment in American history, but one that Turner seems to delight in revisiting.
Here, the actress explains why Watergate never gets old, how her own history helped inform her performance, and the worst parts of revisiting the 1970s.
What about playing Dita Beard appealed to you?
What a character! There were times when we were working when I said, stop me if I go too far, and the director was like, no, it’s fine! Part of the fun is that she’s the only one who made it out of this thing; she ended up on a horse farm instead of in jail. There’s this insane arrogance of these people, who thought they could do whatever without any consequences. I don’t know about you, but I certainly see some parallels today. That’s why you laugh, of course—until you remember it’s all true.
The series covers a serious topic, but it has a sense of humor. How do you balance the two?
The stupidity at times, the Three Stooges aspect makes you laugh. But they thought this would work!
And they were almost right. We’re about 50 years out from Watergate…
I just hope we have the perspective in another 50 years to keep laughing.
All The President’s Men just had an anniversary, there have been other series looking at this time. What about this story keeps us fascinated?
The unbelievable arrogance!
There’s also something about an era when crooks weren’t caught digitally, but by other people.
At the same time, these people had unbelievable layers of protection that we thankfully don’t have now. I was in high school in London in 1972, and us American students marched down Oxford Street when Nixon went into Cambodia. We cheered when all of this was happening. I was back in the states when Nixon resigned, in Springfield, Missouri, and I was one of the very few rejoicing.
When you get a part like this, do you research or do you rely on those memories?
I did of course check out what we know about Dita Beard, but to me it was more important that she was the trigger who opened up the bribery scandal to John Mitchell. I don’t know that she was the kind of patriot that Woody [Harrelson, who plays E. Howard Hunt] and Justin [Theroux, who plays G. Gordon Liddy] are portraying, but somehow it seems to me that her interest was more to benefit herself at the time.
Does delving back into this period give you a new perspective on the era?
The clothes are hideous! And they’re uncomfortable.
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You’re making the series in the modern day, with a whole new slew of politicians making public mistakes. Is there a sense of déjà vu?
It would appear that they have fantasies that they’re above or outside the system that they’re sworn to protect. For more than 40 years, I’ve served on the board of People for the American Way, and I don’t accept this shit—no way.
Are there other historical characters you’d like to play?
Oh, hell. I don’t know. I don’t think like that.
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