Hulu’s true crime drama, Murdaugh: Death in the Family, has thus far proven itself a standout in the genre thanks to the sensitive handling of its victims’ lives. While Jason Clarke (currently also gracing streaming services across the nation in The Last Frontier and A House of Dynamite) capably leads the series as patriarch and murderer Alex Murdaugh, it is Patricia Arquette’s performance as his wife Maggie that anchors the narrative.
While the tragic murders of Maggie and Paul (played by Johnny Berchtold) set the fascinating yet terrible case in motion, Maggie spent years as a victim in her own home. Creators Michael D. Fuller and Erin Lee Carr, who is a documentary filmmaker in her own right, wanted to explore more of what she went through as a person before she and her son became a headline, and used Mandy Matney’s Murdaugh Murders podcast as their jumping off point.
ScreenRant‘s Liam Crowley spoke to the stars and EPs of Murdaugh: Death in the Family to get a better understanding of the path from podcast to Hulu miniseries. Carr and Fuller explained the crucial role that one Wikipedia line played in their approach to the story, while Arquette and Clarke discussed their performances. Furthermore, Matney and her onscreen counterpart Brittany Snow revealed how they spent time together as preparation, and Will Harrison shared which parent he thought Buster felt closer to.
Wikipedia Made Death In The Family Creators Committed To Fleshing Out Maggie Murdaugh’s Story
ScreenRant: This story has been told in so many different mediums. Obviously, the podcast was part of the inspiration for this series, but we also had the documentary. What does your version of this story add?
Erin Lee Carr: It was pointed out to me that, on the Murdaugh Wikipedia page, which has been visited hundreds of thousands of times, Maggie Murdaugh has one line in it. One line. Everybody else has their own link, their own everything. So, when we talked about doing this, we said, “What about the lives of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh that happened before they were killed on that fateful day in June 2021?”
This story has been covered, but it’s really about what happened inside that house. And although I’m a very proud documentary filmmaker, that was a place cameras were not able to get into. How on Earth did these things converge into a family annihilation plot? We felt so motivated and humbled to tell the story of the circumstances that led there, in all their depravity, but also their humanity.
Michael D. Fuller: Erin said that early on in the process, and it helped articulate that we had to explore the space between the people. We have Jason Clarke and Patricia Arquette playing Alex and Maggie, and just an incredible cast beyond the two of them, so I think it’s really about finding our interpretation of the emotional truth of the story.
I say this sitting next to an incredibly talented and accomplished documentary filmmaker, but so many times, crime documentaries can just be seen through the prism of, “Here’s the crime, here’s the perpetrator, here’s the victim.” Those can be powerfully told, and those are all important things, but for us, it’s about the human drama at the heart of this beyond that prism.
ScreenRant: Jason and Patricia are legendary actors in their own right, but Patricia is bringing a haunting performance unlike anything she’s done
Michael D. Fuller: She obviously is such a powerhouse of an actress, and I think the thing that’s really interesting in this is that so many times she’s playing the mother as the character, which is an incredible performance. But she’s also the woman who’s our touchstone for this story, and she’s grounding it through her humanity, which was really interesting.
Jason’s long been one of my favorite working actors in the game, and I think he’s got so much incredible charisma and swagger. I felt like he was one-of-one for us. There aren’t too many people who can capture what Alex is. This person has a stature that’s known, and he has a profile. This isn’t just an actor you can grab and say, “Here’s Alex Murdoch.” It’s somebody who’s got to embody that and be able to perform. I thought we were incredibly fortunate to get that pairing at the top of the ticket.
Erin Lee Carr: We just breathed a very deep sigh of relief when Patricia signed on. We were like, “We might have a show!” Statistically, you have a 2% chance at a show actually getting made or something like that. Particularly for me, who’s never created or worked on a television show previously, so we can’t tell you how humbled we were that Patricia would sign on to do the show. She is an Oscar-winning actress who brings every bit of feeling into the role and, in order to play someone that people thought they didn’t like and didn’t know, we needed to have somebody like her.
Patricia Arquette & Jason Clarke Explain How They Got Into The Minds Of The Murdaughs
ScreenRant: You’re terrifying in this story, and you’re unrecognizable in this role. Can you speak to the value of getting lost in a character when the man that looks back at you in the mirror looks nothing like Jason Clarke?
Jason Clarke: There’s something incredibly wonderful about that. One of my favorite actors growing up was Gary Oldman, and I always loved that I could never see the stitches, and never see the work put in. He just was.
It is incredibly freeing. But it’s incredibly hard work, putting on 40 pounds. It hurts, putting it on and taking it off, but then you become somebody else. That’s what I love about this business: the level of fantasy, level of play, and level of time travel. That’s what drew me to it, in a way.
Patricia Arquette: It’s pretty chilling. There are times, in the middle of a scene, where I’d look at him like, “Ugh. He looks exactly like him. Sounds exactly like him.”
But as soon as we started rehearsal, it wasn’t just the way he looked. He’s charming, he’s hiding, he’s daddying, he’s cry-babying, he’s fixing things. He’s buying things, he’s driving constantly.
Jason Clarke: I really love working with Patricia. There’s something that takes you back to your theater days. There’s our play as well as what’s being shot, and you get a reward out of that. It sets you free.
ScreenRant: Patricia, this is one of my favorite performances of yours, especially what you do without dialogue. Are there directions you’re given on how to emote when it’s all on your head, or are you taking your own direction?
Patricia Arquette: I was pretty fascinated by the case and watching him lie, knowing that most American women are murdered by their intimate partners and knowing some of the dynamics of this dysfunction, like alcoholism or addiction or codependence.
Breaking that down, I wanted to honor women who slowly start realizing they’ve normalized a lot of dysfunction. They’re being charmed to death by a pathological liar. You start realizing, “I don’t really know who I’m with. I really don’t know what you’re capable of. I really don’t know what our life is.”
But she was a support system. “I’m the wife, I’m the mom. I’m here to be supportive.” Only towards the end, you start breaking away and going, “Who am I outside of this?”
Could TikTok Be The Next Creative Frontier After Podcasts?
ScreenRant: Can you each give me some insight into which parents Paul and Buster gravitate toward?
Will Harrison: I think it probably lands on Buster being a little bit more of a Mama’s boy, but I don’t know.
Johnny Berchtold: Paul’s the youngest in the Murdaugh family, and that alone holds so much pressure. I feel like there are bits of each, but also he’s trying to rebel against the whole idea in our version.
I think he definitely sees and wants that attention from his dad that he’s giving Buster.
Will Harrison: Yeah, totally. I think Buster in the series gets more direct approval from his mom, but because of that, he is really fighting for approval from his dad. It’s a very traditional family, so it feels like approval from Dad is right. It’s so It’s like getting top marks, maybe.
ScreenRant: Johnny, I wanted to talk to you about the unique storytelling method of this series. A lot of the story you’re presenting here is inspired from the podcast, and I recognize you from the TikTok world. Do you think there’s a world where things that originate on TikTok can eventually blossom into longer-form features?
Johnny Berchtold: Oh, absolutely. I think there’s so much talent there, and all of these creations come from a kernel they would love to build into something bigger. Listening to the podcast for the Murdaugh Murders and then seeing how it transformed into this eight-part series has been so wild.
Even as an actor, having fun on TikTok and then being able to do a project like this is such an immense privilege. That jump is so wild, but it’s exciting to watch.
Brittany Snow Was Invested In The Murdaugh Murders Podcast Before Booking The Show
ScreenRant: Mandy, talk to me about the call you got from Hulu about going from a podcast to a TV series.
Mandy Matney: I still can’t believe it! This was a long time in the making. I met Michael D. Fuller and Erin Lee Carr, the co-creators of the show, back in 2021 and was just blown away by their ability to approach the story from a victim-focused way. I really connected with them and was able to trust them, as they were the first people who wanted to do something with the story that I didn’t get the ick from. I’ll be honest, a lot of people were icky about it, but Erin and Michael were so genuine and kind and approached it in a good way.
But back then, they were like, “There’s a 1% chance of this going through. We’re going to try.” Finally, we got greenlit last year, but I couldn’t believe it. Greenlit with Patricia Arquette starring! That was huge. Every time that we made it through another hoop, I was like, “Oh, my gosh! No way.”
I didn’t think I was a character for a long time, and I thought they were going to make Liz and I a composite character. When I found out Brittany was playing me? I never would’ve been like, “Can you have someone amazing and super good-looking and awesome play me?” Dream come true that Brittany wanted to do this. Again, my jaw’s on the floor. I still can’t believe it to this day.
ScreenRant: Brittany, when it comes to getting into character, how many hours of the podcast did you log? Did you two get lunch beforehand?
Brittany Snow: There was a lot going into it. I had already listened to the podcast, so I was familiar with Mandy.
That was years before, but once I got the call that I was going to be playing Mandy? I am not kidding. I would listen to her podcast and her voice every morning while getting ready. I would listen to it on the way to work; I would listen to it after work. Her voice was in my head, and I felt like I knew the podcast so well at that point that I felt like I didn’t even have to try to sound like her or be her. I was just inundating myself with Mandy.
Then we got to hang out. We got lunch, we got drinks, we got to hang out for a whole day – and it was so much fun because you never get to play a character who’s on set and around and is also a blast to hang out with. It was really a dream.
New episodes of Murdaugh: Death in the Family drop Wednesdays on Hulu.
- Release Date
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2025 – 2025-00-00
- Network
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Hulu
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