Johnny Berchtold knew he had his work cut out for him after being cast as Paul Murdaugh in Murdaugh: Death in the Family.
“We meet him and he’s in a very specific headspace. He’s the party animal in that period of his life and he’s been raised without consequence. He’s getting away with a lot and he’s the youngest in the Murdaugh family, which is so much pressure. It’s a little bit of calling out for attention,” Berchtold, 31, exclusively told Us Weekly. “Then this happens and he’s seeing the consequences of his actions — tragic consequences. He’s defensive and he’s scared.”
Berchtold enjoyed showing the onscreen development.
“But then we find a young man who’s just trying to pick up the pieces. That was really beautifully crafted by the writers and our team in just bridging the gap from villain to victim,” he noted. “I was so grateful to be able to play that and show that side and that journey because I think it’s such a real one.”
While filming the scripted series, Berchtold changed his perspective on true crime, adding, “As an actor, you want to feel empathy for any character that you play. With this, I was familiar with the case and was forming my own opinions at the time and hearing other opinions. Getting to do this made me really sit back and just contemplate so many aspects of how we see people when we don’t want to see them as people.”
Murdaugh: Death in the Family, which premiered in October, is centered around Alex Murdaugh (Jason Clarke), who was indicted in 2022 on double murder charges after his wife and son’s death.
Alex is currently facing a total of 102 grand jury criminal charges and 19 indictments relating to fraud and drug offenses. He was disbarred, had his assets seized and is serving two consecutive life sentences for the murders of Maggie (Patricia Arquette) and Paul.
Based on the “Murdaugh Murders” podcast, Murdaugh: Death in the Family has attempted to unpack the scandals, deaths and murder trial surrounding the infamous family while still allowing a more “nuanced” outlook — especially when it comes to Paul.
“I just think that Paul didn’t stand a chance in the way that he was raised,” Berchtold told Us. “It breaks my heart. But that being said, you don’t want to excuse anything yet you want to try and understand. All I was trying to do is just try to understand.”
While speaking to Us, creators Michael D. Fuller and Erin Lee Carr shared the extensive research and outreach that went into the series.
“For anyone who knows the real story, it’s sprawling and it’s complex. The thing that was my guiding principle that I tried to imbue the process with is we might not always be able to do the [full] truth because [of] the restrictions of episode count and the running time. But let’s always try to be aware of what the truth is,” Fuller shared. “Then let’s make sure that in our story’s truth we know why we made this decision. We know why we made this adaptation choice.”
The priority was to have “utmost respect and reverence”
“We were able to talk to a lot of people directly involved in it for their perspectives for research purposes. I can’t name who they are but we really wanted to do hour-long pretapes,” Carr explained. “And Michael always had this thing where we would do one-on-ones with each principal actor before the episode was shot.”
New episodes of Murdaugh: Death in the Family air Wednesdays on Hulu.
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