Julia Roberts is Watergate whistleblower Martha Mitchell in teaser for Starz's Gaslit

The teaser trailer for Starz’s Watergate drama, Gaslit, is here. The series, based on the first season of the Slate-produced podcast Slow Burn by Leon Neyfakh, stars Julia Roberts as Martha Mitchell, a socialite and wife of then-President Nixon’s attorney general, John N. Mitchell. Martha, who was mostly seen as an unserious, ditzy wife, became the first person to blow the whistle on Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate scandal.

Gaslit’s showrunner and creator Robbie Pickering says that his goal for the series “has always been to bring a real humanity to this subject, which yields a far richer and more relatable story than the standard male-driven political dramas about the period.” He describes the upcoming series as a “thrilling, stranger-than-fiction tale of marriage, love, betrayal, and ultimately, hope.”

Roberts, herself is, of course, no stranger to stories of whistleblowing. In the film Erin Brockovich (2000), she plays the title character who, in real life, fought against the energy corporation PG&E for the Hinkley groundwater contamination incident. The role scored Roberts a Best Actress award at the 73rd Academy Awards.

Gaslit also stars Sean Penn as the attorney general, Dan Stevens as White House counsel John Dean, Betty Gilpin as Mo Dean, and Shea Whigham as G. Gordon Liddy. The show is executive produced by Sam Esmail, who previously worked with Roberts on Homecoming and is also teaming up with her for the thriller Leave The World Behind for Netflix.

Gaslit filmed last summer and made headlines because of Sean Penn’s insistence that the entire cast and crew be vaccinated. The production had already mandated that the entire cast and crew members who dealt directly with them were vaccinated, but Penn didn’t think it was enough. According to Deadline, it was the first time someone at Penn’s level had made that demand. He said in August that he preferred if unvaccinated people didn’t see his movies.