This text accommodates spoilers for the finale of “Murdaugh: Dying within the Household.”
Jason Clarke insists he’s not a technique actor, however to tackle the function of Alex Murdaugh, he turned so immersed on the earth of the disgraced lawyer and convicted killer that he usually dreamed about him.
The function of Alex in Hulu’s “Murdaugh: Dying within the Household” demanded a variety of Clarke — mastery of a South Carolinian accent, adoption of Southern attraction, vital weight achieve and the emotional stamina to faucet into the psyche of a person who killed his spouse and baby.
Clarke reveled within the problem. “Like a Sherlock Holmes sleuth,” he stated, “you’ve obtained to crack it.”
That meant Clarke spent hours desirous about Alex’s perspective on the crumbling of his household’s authorized dynasty, the investigations into his funds, the murders of his spouse Maggie and son Paul, and his eventual trial.
“It simply began to sit down inside me,” he stated on a Zoom name from New York in October. As Clarke was creating his model of Alex, his intensive work led him “to dream about it, to consider it, to justify him, to take heed to that court docket case, to argue his manner out of it, to seek out the errors or the injustices that he suffered within the trial that I assumed I heard or noticed.”
His goals primarily revolved across the trial — arguments between Alex and his authorized crew, proof that was contested and Alex’s fixation on justification for his actions.
“Murdaugh: Dying within the Household,” which launched its finale Wednesday, dramatizes the years-long mysteries surrounding the household, together with a lethal boat crash, the sudden loss of life of the household’s housekeeper, critical monetary crimes and the murders of Maggie and Paul. Co-starring with Clarke are Patricia Arquette as Maggie, Johnny Berchtold as Paul and Will Harrison as Alex’s eldest son, Buster.
Past the emotional character work Clarke did, which included finding out the recordings of the trial, studying books on psychology, and dealing with dialect coach Tim Monich, Clarke underwent a bodily transformation to grow to be Alex. He gained about 40 kilos, wore a wig and dyed his eyebrows since he didn’t need to depend on prosthetics. The physicality of the character helped all the things click on into place.
Clarke spent months making ready to play the disgraced Murdaugh household patriarch.
(Rick Wenner / For The Occasions)
“I’m not a technique actor, however you’re permitting it to creep into you, you already know what I imply? You’re permitting your self to creep into it,” he stated. “Impulsively, you grow to be the reflection you see, with the lenses on, with the hair, with the make-up, with the load, the go well with, with the garments, that impulsively, grasp on. I’m what I’m. And there’s nowhere I gained’t or can’t go.”
Clarke is not any stranger to taking part in characters based mostly on real-life folks — he portrayed Sen. Ted Kennedy within the 2017 movie “Chappaquiddick,” Lakers common supervisor Jerry West within the HBO sequence “Profitable Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,” mountaineer Rob Corridor in 2015’s “Everest” and lawyer Roger Robb in 2023’s “Oppenheimer” to call just a few.
Collection co-creator and showrunner Michael D. Fuller stated Clarke’s efficiency in “Oppenheimer” confirmed him Clarke may pull off the difficult function. Though the characters are very completely different, Fuller stated he noticed the “physicality, the boldness, the masculinity” required to play Alex in that efficiency. And Fuller’s hunch proved right — a minimum of within the eyes of Mandy Matney, the journalist whose podcast supplied supply materials for the sequence and who was an govt producer on it. In response to co-creator Erin Lee Carr, Matney “would get a chill in her physique as a result of she felt like she was and speaking to Alex Murdaugh.”
“He’s simply one in every of our greatest residing actors,” Fuller stated. “There’s at all times one thing human about him, there’s at all times one thing assured about him, after which there may be one thing scary about him. That’s why I believe he was singular for this half.”
The sequence’ finale was the last word take a look at of Clarke’s abilities. It follows the theatrics of Alex’s trial and depicts the complete sequence the place Maggie and Paul are murdered. Their murders have been first depicted in an earlier episode, however the viewers doesn’t see the killer in that occasion. Nonetheless, within the finale, Alex is depicted because the perpetrator.
Within the courtroom scenes, a lot of Clarke’s dialogue is lifted instantly from court docket transcripts. “Oh, what a tangled net we weave,” Alex says in response to the prosecutor questioning why he lied about his whereabouts on the evening of the murders.
That line, Fuller stated, is “on the nostril, however it’s additionally spot-on.” Placing a stability between what statements Alex and others made and taking inventive license was all about “discovering these little breadcrumbs that give it that sense of actuality and authenticity.”
Clarke stated he poured over recordings of the trial, listening to them first earlier than he watched the movies, partly as a option to nail down the specificities of Alex’s accent and cadence. Re-creating moments proven or mentioned in documentaries, podcasts and within the frenzy of stories protection concerning the case felt like an necessary piece of the dramatization for Clarke. If he appeared like Alex and talked like Alex and a number of the most memorable moments have been word-perfect, “then the remainder of what we construct could have far more authenticity and believability,” Clarke stated.
The moments that haven’t been documented — what household life appeared like contained in the Murdaugh residence, what Maggie and Alex’s marriage was like behind closed doorways and what precisely occurred on the evening of the murders — are the place Clarke, the solid and the writers wanted to depend on the belief that they had constructed with the viewers.
A methodical, but simplistic method to filming the homicide sequence within the finale was necessary to each Clarke and the co-creators. Fuller stated on the 2 nights they spent filming that scene, the solid and crew took a second to acknowledge the real-life victims and the occasion they have been about to dramatize and guarantee they have been “treating it with the reverence and sensitivity it requires.”
As Alex is proven finishing up the murders, he acts shortly and absolutely, and his face is sort of impassive.
“You don’t need to do issues that don’t have to be executed since you undermine the remainder of it,” Clarke stated. “There’s a coldness to what occurred. It was the act itself.”
Clarke stated taking pictures that scene was “not one thing you need to do too many instances.” What appears to have struck him the toughest, particularly as a father of two sons, was that Murdaugh didn’t “should be crammed with hate or anger” to kill his relations. Within the sequence, Paul will get a glimpse of Alex simply earlier than he offers the ultimate blow, which is a second that Clarke wished to emphasise. “That’s the complete horror,” he stated.
Though Clarke knew a lot of his work on the sequence could be heavy, he additionally knew that “the remainder of it was enjoyable,” he stated. “There’s a variety of pleasure and enjoyable and video games and leisure and lunacy.”
(Rick Wenner / For The Occasions)
The actor referenced his work on the 2019 horror film “Pet Sematary,” wherein he performs a father whose daughter is killed (after which resurrected with a brand new, disturbing demeanor), saying these forms of roles have grow to be more and more difficult to carry out. Clarke stated, “I don’t understand how far more of that I can do.”
The ultimate moments of the sequence present Alex alone in his cell, catching a glimpse of his reflection after joking with (and swindling) a fellow inmate. When he sees himself, his reflection seems within the blue raincoat he wore when he killed Maggie and Paul. It’s a reference to “The Man within the Glass” poem — which the real-life Murdaughs had framed of their residence — about private integrity and accountability.
“The one individual he can not deceive is himself when he’s alone,” Carr stated.
That second was initially conceived as one thing far more emotional, Fuller stated, however Clarke pushed again on that, favoring a extra ambiguous look on his face. He wished the viewers to interpret that second on their very own, and Fuller agreed.
“We’re not going to hold a lantern on precisely what he’s feeling right here,” Fuller stated. “He’s nonetheless alive, he’s nonetheless in that jail cell, each in actual life and in our story.”
After filming wrapped, Clarke took a seaside trip together with his sons and his spouse (their journey was far more enjoyable than Murdaugh’s escape to the Caribbean depicted within the sequence). He nonetheless had pink eyebrows, he was nonetheless heavier than common from the shoot and he was “nonetheless a bit delicate,” he stated. However finally, he dropped the load, his eyebrows returned to their pure shade and he was capable of faucet again into the enjoyable he had on set when he wanted to re-record dialogue and put the ending touches on the sequence. He was capable of respect taking part in to Alex’s swagger and attraction and embracing the collaborative spirit of the set.
“As a lot because it harm, it was fulfilling, and I’d be dishonest to say in any other case,” he stated. “I loved disappearing.”
There’s nonetheless some components of Alex he can’t fairly appear to shake but, although, as evidenced by how simply he’s capable of swap his Australian accent for a definite Lowcountry drawl over the course of the dialog.
“I nonetheless love that accent. “I really like ‘bo,’” he stated of the South Carolinian equal of “mate.” “I nonetheless discover myself calling folks bo, they simply don’t get it. Australians don’t get it.”
