Julia Roberts on playing Martha Mitchell in Gaslit, TV series about characters from the Watergate scandal that toppled a US president

Starring Sean Penn, Roberts and Betty Gilpin, TV series Gaslit tells lesser known stories from the Watergate scandal that felled US president Richard Nixon

Based on a podcast, it explores the roles of Martha Mitchell (Roberts), wife of the attorney general, and White House counsel John Dean’s wife, Maureen (Gilpin)

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Julia Roberts stars as Martha Mitchell in Gaslit, which delves into lesser-known aspects of the Watergate scandal that brought down a US president, Richard Nixon. Photo: AP

Published: 7:45pm, 22 Apr 2022

Julia Roberts says she was so gleeful at the sight of Sean Penn arriving on the set of their television series Gaslit, she nearly caused a wardrobe malfunction.

“He came in full hair, make-up and costume, and I was so excited I ran to hug him and I was running with such velocity that between my body pad and his body pad, I just kind of bounced off of him. I can’t believe that his head didn’t come off apart from his costume,” says Roberts. “We were laughing so hard.”

Penn plays John Mitchell, attorney general when Richard Nixon was the United States president. Roberts is his wife, Martha Mitchell, known as “the mouth of the south”, a regular on talk shows who would eavesdrop on her husband’s phone conversations and tip off reporters with gossip about Washington’s elite.

Her loose lips were viewed as such a problem that her husband ordered security to keep her in a hotel room for 24 hours after the Watergate hotel break-in that spawned a political scandal and led to Nixon’s resignation in 1974.

Sean Penn, left, and Julia Roberts as John Mitchell and Martha Mitchell in Gaslit. Photo: TNS

Mitchell claimed they removed the phones and television, and that she was assaulted and injected with a tranquilliser to keep her from trying to leave. The ordeal was so traumatising it led to her eventual breakdown and the end of the couple’s marriage.

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