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Hillary Clinton sat serenely before me, as if she didnt have a care in the world. That was my first surprise as I was ushered into a room at a Pasadena hotel to talk to the former Secretary of State and the woman who won the popular vote in the 2016 election about Hulus four-part documentary series, Hillary (premieres March 6). Although shes been accused of being plodding and dour, Clinton exuded buoyant warmth. And then there was her laugh. At first I was convinced that it was deployed for effect. (Politicians get media training; is laughter training a thing?) But gales of it tumbled out so regularly and recklessly that it seemed clear Clinton was just relaxedmaybe for the first time ever?

Sure, sometimes her laughter sounded rueful, but a lot of us feel rueful these days. And while she has stopped ascending the political ladder, Clintons name still sparks both adoration and loathing, as well as generalized post-traumatic stress. Some people wish she would withdraw into media exile rather than shadow the current election like the ghost of campaigns past. That gave some pause to Nanette Burstein, the documentary filmmaker behind The Kid Stays in the Picture and American Teen who took on this project in 2018. Burstein knew the Clinton defeat was still a raw wound for liberal America. But it was a cross she was willing to bear, given the complete editorial control and 35 hours of interviews with her subject she was granted, along with leeway to pose any questions she wanted.

I started to ask Clinton how it felt to participate in this legacy-defining project after so many years of having her lifes narrative framed by others, but the word framed triggered an explosive howl of laughter. By all definitions of that word! she said, eyes flashing, before collecting herself again.

I decided to do it because Im not running for anything and I think my life and my story has parallels with womens lives and stories and whats going on in politics, Clinton told me resolutely. (This was several weeks before the rumor circulated that Mike Bloomberg was considering asking Clinton to be his running mate.) Thirty-five hours sitting in a chair answering questions is grueling but I felt like if I didnt tell my side of the story, who would? she added with a shrug. At least therell be a baseline: Heres what actually happened in my life. Heres what I actually said about it.

That led to some very uncomfortable conversations about the many scandals that engulfed the Clintons, including her husbands affair with Monica Lewinsky. (It was awful what I did, Bill Clinton tells Burstein, barely able to look at the camera. I feel terrible about the fact that Monica Lewinskys life was defined by it.) I had to ask the ex-president of the United States about the most personal thing in his life and why he would make such a decision, Burstein recalled. It was very intimidating! But it was about: How did this affect Hillary and her marriage and the repercussions of that, which followed her 20 years later, into this last election.

The series flickers back and forth between Hillary Clintons youth and the present, weaving together a complicated and flattering (if not quite hagiographic) portrait of a woman whos provoked admiration and abhorrence for much of her life. Sometimes she seems like a real-life Zelig, popping up near the center of American culture for the last half century. But Zelig was a bystander, whereas Hillary got right in the thick of the action, sometimes changing the course of events and others times being swept along by them.

Clinton came of age at the exact moment that the womens liberation movement was rising, and her 1969 Wellesley commencement speech landed her a spot in Life magazine. As a young lawyer, she wrote briefs as part of the staff for Nixons impeachment hearings (decades later, in a savage irony, she saw the process from another angle when her own husband was impeached). After following Bill to Arkansas, she confronted good old boy sexism, encountering judges who thought women shouldnt be lawyers and constituents who felt the first lady of Arkansas should take her husbands name. When Bill cheated on her in the White House, some women were furious with Hillary for standing by him. Conversely, when Bill entrusted her with the daunting task of devising a universal health care plan 16 years before Obamacare, right-wing rage, and revulsion boiled over. Footage in the Hulu series features protesters brandishing posters with slogans like Hillary makes me sick and Heil Hillary. At a Kentucky rally, they even burned her in effigy.

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Hillary Clinton on Her Surreal Life and New Hulu Doc: Im Not the President, and I Got More Votes! - Vanity Fair