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Like many people, John Travolta remembers where he was when OJ Simpson was arrested in 1994 and later faced murder charges relating to the deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman.

"I had just returned from the Cannes Film Festival where we won the Palme d'Or for Pulp Fiction. I was on this kind of high with a new career and then this American tragedy was happening," the actor said on Monday at a red carpet for Fox's Upfront, where networks debut their new TV shows for advertisers.

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Travolta, along with Cuba Gooding Jr, David Schwimmer and Sarah Paulson have signed on to star in a new true crime anthology series coming to FX called American Crime Story. Season one will focus on the OJ Simpson trial and is based on a book by Jeffrey Toobin, who covered the trial extensively for The New Yorker.

^{From left: John Travolta, Sarah Paulson, Courtney B Vance, Cuba Gooding Jr and David Schwimmer (Getty Images)}

Travolta, 61, plays Simpson's attorney Robert Shapiro. Ryan Murphy is directing the series, which is one week into the filming schedule.

"That trial sort of gave birth to a new kind of media coverage," Murphy said. "It felt like an origin story of something that was the first and now we're still dealing with the reverberations of that, so it feels very modern to me."

Gooding plays Simpson, the pro-football Hall of Famer and actor. "People keep asking me whether I think he did it or not, and I don't think that's the goal here, to prove his innocence or his guilt," Gooding said. "I think it's more us putting the judicial system under the spotlight.

^{OJ Simpson tries on leather gloves, allegedly worn by the murderer, during his trial (Getty Images)}

"We try to find a truth in the moment so that we can find answers. I think this 10 hours of television is going to be very powerful, and I think a lot of people are going to learn a lot."

David Schwimmer portrays the late Robert Kardashian, an attorney on Simpson's defence team and a loyal defender of the former pro-football player. He says he spoke to Kardashian's ex-wife, Kris Jenner, for insight into the role.

"I was lucky enough to speak to [Jenner] for a few hours. [She] was very generous with her time," he said. "I thought, 'Who better to tell me who Robert was as a husband and a father than her?' and it's been a very exciting process so far."

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Jenner will be portrayed by Selma Blair.

Actress Sarah Paulson, who has already worked with Murphy in American Horror Story, said she's been analysing footage to prepare for her part as prosecutor Marcia Clark.

"I'm just trying to take in her mannerisms, and then at the same time let some of it go. At first I thought, 'Well I have to do her voice.' And then I thought, 'Her voice isn't actually iconic. As long as I'm not doing something weird, you're not going to know it's not her voice.'"

Paulson decided to imitate how Clark "listened a lot with her head to the side" and other mannerisms of the prosecutor.

American Crime Story will premiere on FX in 2016