Almost a year after news first broke that Greg Kinnear would play then Senator Joe Biden in the HBO television movie about the “Anita Hill hearings” during Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ confirmation proceedings, the first teaser for Confirmation is finally here. Starring Scandal‘s Kerry Washington as Hill and The Wire‘s Wendell Pierce as Thomas, the film will likely provide a rather unflattering look at the controversial hearings and everyone involved — especially Biden.
That’s because many who took part in the investigation, both directly and in the background, believe that the current vice president is responsible for purposefully botching things up so that Thomas’ confirmation could proceed without further hindrance. (For instance, additional female witnesses literally waiting in the wings to corroborate Hill’s claims were not called on because of a privately brokered deal.) Whether or not any of this is actually true remains to be seen, though Hill has long maintained that Biden had a hand in the investigation’s many purported failures.
Regardless, the HBO production looks fantastic per its first teaser above. Washington plays Hill, then a professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, with an uncompromising resolution that doesn’t intend to back down from either Pierce’s resolute Thomas or Kinnear’s confused Biden.
Confirmation premieres Saturday, April 16 at 8 p.m. ET on HBO.
