This story will get stranger, although. As soon as Pullman agreed to play the half, the actor solely had about 10 days to familiarize himself with Murdaugh’s sprawling crime saga, together with the 911 name, dashcam footage, and courtroom testimony. Due to the looming SAG-AFTRA strike, the Lifetime manufacturing needed to wrap Pullman’s scenes ASAP.
Pullman dyed his hair the right artificial butterscotch and pored over the tapes of Murdaugh, delighting in the truth that the script’s dialogue hewed so carefully to the precise transcripts. The primary time we see him within the Lifetime film, he’s totally dedicated to Murdaugh, sporting the now notorious white T-shirt and pacing frantically. His voice seesaws in that acquainted Lowcountry dialect whereas delivering the 911 name dialogue.
“I would like police and an ambulance instantly,” Pullman says, recreating the now notorious name Murdaugh positioned on June 7, 2021. “I’ve been as much as it now, it’s dangerous.”
Pullman makes a meal out of Murdaugh’s Lowcountry-isms (Paul turns into “Paw-Paw,” and so on.) and behavioral peculiarities, just like the slight limp Murdaugh walked with. “It modified when he misplaced weight,” Pullman says. “He misplaced in all probability 60 kilos or so” within the lead-up to the trial, based on the actor. When Pullman considered the trial footage, he observed that Murdaugh had a wholly totally different physicality when he took the witness stand. “There’s that one angle that sees him from behind, going towards the chair, and he’s limber—nearly like an athlete going as much as take a penalty shot.”
Whereas finding out physique digital camera footage from the night time of Maggie and Paul’s murders, Pullman was fascinated by the best way Murdaugh shifted from frantic and traumatized (“I’m all caught up on this factor that’s gripping me,” he says, placing on the pressing have an effect on heard throughout Murdaugh’s 911 name) to informal, collected, and nearly useful with police (“Oh, no, that was over there,” he says whereas in calm-Murdaugh mode).
Pullman is from rural New York and spends a variety of time in desolate Montana. “In rural areas, there’s slightly bit extra humility, and generally it’s demonstrative humility that’s sort of like a put-on factor. Typically it’s real, however [you’re] more likely to see any person with affectations in these areas,” says Pullman. “I like the South for that.”
There’s one element that Pullman needs he’d had time to work into his efficiency: the best way Murdaugh, on the night of the murders, stored interrupting dramatic questioning by cops to open a automotive door and spit chew. “In Montana, we name it snus—fine-cut tobacco you set behind your lip,” Pullman tells me. “[Murdaugh] was very discreet about it, however in one of many dashcam recordings, when he’s sitting within the passenger seat up entrance, a pair occasions he opened the door, leaned out, after which got here again in…. I spotted that he was dipping.”
