- 8 hours ago
Bill Pullman chats with THR's Stacey Wilson Hunt about taking on the lead role in Lifetime's two-part limited series 'Murdaugh Murders: The Movie' during a THR Frontrunners Lifetime Showcase held at San Vicente Bungalows in Los Angeles.
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00:00I was just texting with my mom telling her that I was about to speak to Bill, and I think she
00:09speaks for all of us when she said, I love him, but I don't like knowing that he played a murderer.
00:14It's an uncomfortable experience knowing that the nicest person in Hollywood next to Tom Hanks
00:19played such a complex, scary character, but we'll get to that in a moment. I do want to know what
00:26attracted you to this role, because this is not easy material, and emotionally probably very taxing.
00:34Yeah, this is a quick decision that had to be made because it was on a timeline with reality.
00:44I guess that happens. The real case is happening in real time.
00:50Yeah, so they had the verdicts were delivered in March, and then they knew they had to get
00:59the movie in production before the drop-dead date with the strike.
01:05You had a lot of timelines.
01:08Yeah, which was July 1st, right?
01:12Yeah, so we had to get started at the end of May. I had, I think, I guess I think it's
01:19eight days, but the first two days I was saying no.
01:24Why did you say no?
01:25I was having kind of like a physical reaction to, I thought it was a sign that was so repulsive
01:33that I was, I couldn't do it, but I really ended up being, that was the last shred of
01:40my own morality, you know, and embarrassment and shame and all of that.
01:45Embarrassment about what?
01:47What's that?
01:47You were embarrassed about what?
01:49Sympathetic, simultaneous, similar type of thing, like I was being caught, but I was
01:57still in my kind of moral codes and everything, but more, and then by the time, once you start
02:04working on a part like that, then you kind of walk through a membrane, you know, you move,
02:09it's like a permeable membrane, and you can move through that, and then you're free of that
02:16kind of reaction, you know, and, you know, you start investigating what it is to be on drugs,
02:23always a good job.
02:24Because this is, and that's a great point, this is a story as much of a tragedy and murder
02:29as it is about addiction, so tell me what you learned about that and the state of mind
02:33that this person was in.
02:36Well, I think, you know, chasing a high, everybody knows that, but this is, you know, and it's
02:46amazing to me that I didn't know a lot about oxycodone, oxycodone, and the fact that you
02:52could build up an addiction that would cost you $50,000 a month, and that, you know, that
02:58would be a lot of drugs, and because you start out using, it doesn't take very much to get
03:06you going, and then at a certain point, it just builds up more, and more, and more, and
03:12so, but, you know, when you're on that high, you kind of, like, you're in turbulence or
03:18something, and then you get, you're satisfied, and then you live through the clouds, and, you
03:24know, there is some things about that that were interesting to feel, you know, there's
03:31a kind of freedom you get with that, because I didn't want people to go, oh, that was part
03:37of why I didn't want to do it, because I didn't know about him, and I started asking people
03:42that I knew in my life, and...
03:44So you weren't aware very much of the case before this?
03:47Nobody told me about it.
03:50Well, you clearly and wisely don't watch news, because that is where most of us became familiar
03:56with this person, and it's just terrible.
03:58Everything about it is terrible.
03:59See, and then everybody said, oh, Pete, I hate that guy.
04:03I hate him, and I thought, this is the non-starter of this movie.
04:07I walk in, they go, I hate you, and then they, you know, three and a half hours later, they
04:14haven't changed their minds, so I was talking to Greg Beeman, who is the director, who, you
04:22know, you also have to kind of make a marriage pretty quick when you're on that kind of deadline,
04:27so you have to, you know, and I just wanted to hear what he had to say about what he thought
04:32about things, and he said, you know, I said, what do you think about his feelings about
04:39his wife and child?
04:40He said, oh, I think he loved them, loved them very much, and I think that fact that you love
04:47someone, and then you also kill them is a big paradox.
04:52So this isn't essentially like a Ted Bundy story where someone's wantonly committing numerous
04:57crimes and having no regard for human life.
04:59This is someone who completely lost sense of who he is, went probably insane, and did the
05:04most horrible thing a person can do.
05:06Yeah.
05:06So there's that incredible journey in that, that you can explore as an actor that probably
05:11felt, like, scary, but also rewarding.
05:14Well, no, I think there's a little, maybe it's wrong to say it, but there is some kind
05:22of weird, the producer of this movie is a guy who, Tim, who makes a ton of movies in Canada
05:30all the time.
05:31Ding, pow, pow, pow.
05:32This was filmed in B.C., right?
05:34Yeah.
05:35And he said, you know, I never thought that I'd actually, I wouldn't say felt sorry for
05:41the guy, but I empathized with him.
05:45And I think that was, my thought was, it's not like you have to really approve of what
05:52he's doing, but if you feel that some little bit of his, you know, the chase and his circumstances
06:01before you really shut down on him, you know, you suspend that as long as you can so that
06:10the character has some, you know, he's still in play with him and not just in judgment of
06:15him.
06:16And did you research, like, the 911 call and the police documents, did you have access
06:20to those materials?
06:22Finally, I got to see what everybody else saw, you know.
06:27You had a crash course in this terrible event.
06:30I, I'm a junkie for verbatim dialogue, you know.
06:34It's just, I see what, when it's actually printed, the way people talk, it's, it's incredible,
06:41you know, the crazy syntax, you know, throwing, you know, starts with talking about that dog.
06:50He, they always, they come around, you know, where they're changing.
06:54Well, he's Southern, but he's also really intelligent.
06:57He's an attorney.
06:58So he has, like, kind of jargon and sort of local folksiness, but he's also very smart.
07:03Yeah.
07:04Interesting thing.
07:04Yeah.
07:05He's intelligent.
07:07Like a heat-seeking missile, he can start a sentence and he knows what's going to, where
07:12he has to go to kind of get the most rewards.
07:15Kind of like the red-haired, orange-haired guy, you know.
07:20You, you look at that syntax.
07:22I'm sorry, what orange-haired person are you speaking of?
07:24There's an orange-haired guy.
07:26Ronald McDonald?
07:26In our culture, yeah.
07:28But, you know, there was a period where they fixed his grammar.
07:32And then, you know, I think up until 2016, they were, they were fixing that.
07:36And then they said, no, we're not doing that anymore.
07:39And then you go, whoa.
07:40And you can feel the intelligence.
07:42Well, I saw a lot of parallels with that individual in this story.
07:45Yeah.
07:45Yeah.
07:46There's a certain uncanny, and you could call it like a feral intelligence about, you know,
07:53if you're starting some sentence and that's starting to get boring to you, go to a whole
07:58new sentence in the middle of it.
08:00It's an interesting campaign vibe.
08:03It really is.
08:05But Vickerman, Michael Vickerman, wrote the script.
08:07And, you know, he, there, there is the verbatim text from the 911 call and the, you know,
08:14the dash cam and the first deposition that happens in the car with the sled officers.
08:19And there's endless courtroom because South Carolina, you know, allows the TV in the courtroom.
08:25And so there's a lot of data, but, you know, when you, when you hear what he actually was
08:35saying in that 911 call, it's, it's kind of like, some of it's like, ah, there's too much
08:43information.
08:44Yeah.
08:44He doth protesteth too much, I think I said.
08:47Yeah, he doth protesteth, you know, a little bit too, you know, my son, I think, you know,
08:53I'll tell you what, I think somebody's mad about that, you know, and just like.
08:59Tell me about, you have a great, I'm married to a Southerner who's very sensitive about terrible
09:03Southern accent when he, and he hears them.
09:05Yours was very good.
09:06So tell me about how you prepared.
09:08Did you listen to not only this person you're playing, but did you listen to that local dialect?
09:12Like, it's a very specific Southern accent.
09:14It's not Texas.
09:15It's not Florida.
09:16It's very specific to that region.
09:18Yeah.
09:18South Carolina, North Carolina.
09:19I love the South.
09:22I love the sound of those voices.
09:24I used to listen to old Smithsonian folkways records of, you know, Appalachian people talking,
09:31telling jet tales and stuff like that, because I just love that deep, you know, and Piedmont's
09:37one thing.
09:38There's lots of different shades.
09:39There's also where, you know, because Murdoch pitches it pretty high, so back up in here,
09:45you know, it's not down low, it's not in that low part.
09:49So, you know, and there's this range that happens where he's fast talking, you know,
09:54so you got to kind of find the cadence.
09:57It's a lot of theatrics.
09:58Yep.
09:59Yeah.
09:59Yep.
10:00Yeah.
10:00So I'm going to come back to Alex in a minute and this incredible performance, but I do want
10:04to go back a little bit to 1987, Spaceballs, an amazing major film debut on your part.
10:14You've done some smaller parts, but I would say this is your breakup movie.
10:18What do you remember about working with Mel Brooks and how did that movie change your life?
10:22Yeah, that was, you know, I thought they were all going to be like that and I just landed
10:30in heaven, you know, because it was so much a movie movie, you know, it was MGM, the last
10:37MGM movie shot on the MGM lot when it was owned by MGM and, you know, you go into the lot
10:45and the head of makeup was a guy who had a blazer and a tie, you know.
10:53Good old days.
10:53Well, the good old days, yeah.
10:56And there was, you know, the costumer was this flamboyant guy, just one name, Don Feld.
11:06I said, isn't it Don Feld?
11:08Oh, no, Don Feld.
11:10And he was so, you know, wonderful and he took care of me and he, you know, just all
11:19those things that you...
11:20Kind of like classic movie star treatment.
11:22Classic movie, yeah.
11:23He said, you know how you're going to be a movie star?
11:26No, Don Feld, don't you?
11:27And he said, you know, there's a little, when you try on a pair of pants, it's a little extra
11:32fabric and then he took his hand and he gathered it up and goes, get rid of that.
11:38And you'll be a star.
11:43You're like, this is going well.
11:45The wise words of Don Feld.
11:48If you haven't had a chance to see Spaceballs recently, I watched it during COVID.
11:51It is magic.
11:52It's like a gift from the gods, so please watch it.
11:55So after that, of course, Bill perfected the role of the nice guy in Singles, A League
12:01of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, While You Were Sleeping, Independence Day, and so many
12:04other movies.
12:05And I've always wanted to ask you, did you feel like you were sort of trapped in nice
12:09guy jail for a long time?
12:11And I think Tom Hanks and Hugh Grant had similar trajectories where they got so good at playing
12:16these guys we're rooting for, that after a while, did you kind of wish, I just want
12:20to play an asshole.
12:21I want to play someone who isn't good or doing the right thing.
12:24Or were you happy with the work you were getting, because clearly you're a very gracious person?
12:29Well, you know, yeah, because I came out of the theater, so the whole idea wasn't to be
12:34a persona of one thing.
12:38And yeah, so I was really restless about all that.
12:43You know, and sometimes just wouldn't do things and wait for something eccentric and weird,
12:49you know, and then I did a lot of it in the theater and been doing it.
12:53That was kind of your place to exercise your weird demons and then you'd do your film.
12:57Yeah, but then I did some movies that people just don't seem to register, you know, Lost
13:03Highway or, you know, maybe there are people like your mom that go, I don't want to see
13:08that.
13:08She doesn't want to see you in a David Lynch movie.
13:10No.
13:11Or Jennifer Lynch's movie that David produced, Surveillance.
13:15She shouldn't watch that.
13:16That's not good for mom.
13:17That's not good for mom, no.
13:20And, you know, I remember shooting scenes from Surveillance.
13:23We were in Canada and, you know, I liked the Canadian crews a lot.
13:27And they like me.
13:28I think they think I'm Canadian.
13:30You know, I'm a nice guy.
13:31You have a very Canadian vibe.
13:33I grew up close to Canada and Western New York State, but, you know, it's, you know,
13:38around the craft service and everything and talking to them, get to know their names coming
13:42into the, you know, production studio.
13:44You're going to get to, and then we did the nasty scene.
13:49You'll have to see this movie to understand, yes.
13:51It's a big surprise.
13:53And I came out, you know, I'm still in my head and everything, but I came out and I realized
13:59all those Canadian guys are, like, looking away.
14:03Didn't want to see Bill Pullman doing that.
14:05Didn't want to see me that way.
14:07Oh, well.
14:08So even those guys had a hard time with your transitioning to difficult parts.
14:12Because I think we get used to, we get comforted by people like you, sort of good guys.
14:16We want to see that people like you still exist in the world.
14:18At least that's how I feel.
14:20How'd you feel about that scene in The Sinner when she was stepping on my fingers and I enjoyed it?
14:26It was a little uncomfortable.
14:28For me, I feel like The Sinner was a major turning point for seeing you in a different light.
14:32An amazing limited series, which is now, it's actually an anthology on Netflix, but was made
14:36for USA.
14:37And then how did that role in The Sinner prepare you for playing this character in this Lifetime
14:44series?
14:45Were you able to access that darkness a little bit more easily, having done numerous seasons
14:49of that series, which is super dark and super psychologically taxing?
14:54Yeah.
14:54I think that in The Sinner, Derek Simons was the creator and the showrunner and everything,
15:03and he's a Jungian.
15:04And so, you know, there was a lot of shadow self.
15:09And, you know, this Harry Avaros is this detective who, you know, his superpower is empathetic
15:17connection to the criminals, people who killed or done bad things.
15:23So he's also, you know, that membrane between them and him was a little porous.
15:30And, you know, there's, he was kind of a, for four seasons had an arc going through that
15:37more and more and then kind of coming away from it.
15:39But I was always feeling, you know, that I would return to my side of the membrane.
15:45And, but suddenly with Murdoch, I could go to the other side, you know.
15:53It's like a training session.
15:55All those, that prep for those four years to try to, you know, detect, see the tells of
16:02so much behavior and then to actually walk in there and be the one given the tells, you
16:07know.
16:08Yeah, that was it.
16:09That's very interesting.
16:11And in closing, what do you feel is the most valuable part of this series artistically in
16:16terms of what we can take away from this performance?
16:19Because it is sort of the ultimate cautionary tale.
16:22But I think there's also just a lot to mine about it's very American.
16:25It's centered on greed.
16:26It's centered on status.
16:28That's a lot of what I took away.
16:29But tell me what you think is the biggest artistic value of this series.
16:34Well, you know, I think that there is, it is amazing how long it takes to get on to a
16:43good con man.
16:45You know, we know this nationally.
16:49You know, it's really, I don't, I think it's just like you will not allow yourself to
16:57totally, you know, maybe that's a good thing for the human race that you, but there, people
17:03all around him never suspected him of it.
17:07And that was part of the phenomenon of reading about it and everything was, you know, how it
17:13kept on peeling like an onion, you know.
17:16And I said, my friend Connie, who said, you know, old Satan must have taken a look at
17:22Murdoch.
17:23I'm like, whoa, dude, you're bad.
17:27You know, and then I think it's still, you feel that and, you know, maybe that's why
17:33people say, I hate that guy because they suddenly realize how a con man, but they're probably
17:39the most susceptible to con men.
17:41I think those people that say, I hate that guy, I can't watch that guy, they're probably
17:45the most susceptible.
17:46Or maybe they don't like to think that people can exist in plain sight in the way that it
17:51did in this story.
17:53And sort of, this guy was a friend, a neighbor, and a dad, and a colleague, and that's what's
17:56so disturbing is it could be anyone, really.
17:59Yeah, yeah.
18:01And, yeah, we're all the sheep and they're the wolf.
18:04Well, on that note, Bill, amazing performance as always.
18:08You're very gracious and very kind, and we're so honored to have you here tonight.
18:11Congratulations.
18:12Thank you so much.
18:12Thank you all.
18:14Thank you so much.
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