How Bill Pullman Became Alex Murdaugh Under the Gun of a Streamlined Schedule, Limited Budget, & Looming Actor’s Strike

Awards Daily talks to Bill Pullman about becoming Alex Murdaugh in Lifetime’s Murdaugh Murders: The Movie and how he balanced all the lies against his character’s most honest moment.

Even though his character committed one of the most notorious crimes in recent memory, Bill Pullman isn’t what you would call a true crime fan.

“I was probably the last person in the country who hadn’t heard of Alex Murdaugh,” says Pullman, star of Lifetime’s Murdaugh Murders: The Movie. “I guess it’s pulling back the covers on my own head in the sand in terms of media and pop culture. I was afraid I’d get too lost in it. Once I started watching it, it was astounding that so much of that story was available to watch.”

Frequently known for playing nice guys (is there anyone more affable than Jack in While You Were Sleeping?), Pullman sees his likeability as an asset for a part like Alex Murdaugh, who was convicted of murdering his wife and son.

“There are some people who only want to think of you one way. I always feel like it gives me a fighting chance not to have anything get telegraphed. My biggest disappointment is when you start in on a movie, and the guy looks like he’s guilty. This guy, of course, would be capable of that. But to be surprised is part of what motivates me.”

Pullman says he was “a real sucker for this job”—not just for playing against type, but also for the dash cam transcriptions incorporated into the script. When he was first starting out in New York City, he used to record conversations to try to learn the casual style (“I was always intrigued by the imperfect syntax of a conversation”). This self-training came in handy for the streamlined schedule following the trial plus the then-looming actors’ strike. 

“I realized I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare because there was this drop-dead date for the strike. I was the only American actor in the piece, and they had three or four more days of shooting after I left. Just right before the door closed.”

If he had more time, he wished he could have explored Murdaugh’s oral fixation, something he pieced together throughout the process.

“One thing that was so curious to me was at different times what his mouth was doing. That first dash cam deposition the night of the murders, he would open the door and lean out for no reason in the middle of a sentence and then come back in. He wasn’t a smoker, but it made me think because I spend time in Montana, there are a lot of people there they call it ‘chew and snus.’ I asked the writers, ‘Did he do Copenhagen?’ The writers said, ‘Nope,’ but I thought, I think he did. Later, when he was in the courtroom, he was chewing candy, maybe because he couldn’t chew snus. I didn’t put it all together until I was halfway through it, and I couldn’t go back and reshoot it.”

In order to become Alex Murdaugh, Pullman had to change his physicality, something he took note of when the real-life Murdaugh took the stand to testify at his trial.

“One of the most telling moments for me was when he took the stand to testify. That was like watching somebody who’s an athlete, like someone going up to take a penalty shot or something like that. There was a litheness to it you could see.”

Another important factor in his performance was keeping track of all Murdaugh’s lies. In Part I of the film, the scene following Paul’s boating accident not only highlights the attorney going to work, but Pullman as well.

“We didn’t have a lot of money for a steady cam operator, but our director made sure we had enough for one for that scene. Greg is a very good director with a gun to his head about time, so then I realized, ‘Okay, the only obstacle here is that I’m going to mess up.’ [In this scene] Alex is kind of a different person with everyone he goes to. To one of the kids, he tries to win his allegiance and trust, and then he turns to grieve for the parents coming up with the other girl. Then, he whips out that badge, which was kind of a last-minute realization as a prop. There was also him being watched by that cop before landing on Paul and laying down the ground rules for what the future is going to be with our story. It was fast, but there was a lot of adrenaline in it. Great writing, too.”

Amidst all the lies, Pullman points to one scene that gets closest to an honest moment from Alex Murdaugh.

“That scene where he comes into the bedroom, and Maggie is packing up to leave. Part of shooting fast is that you can be very repetitive with notes and kind of the worst instinct is to yell everything. I didn’t really have the time to talk a lot about the scenes before I did them. We’d have one walk-through, and I was always interested in going right for the heartbeat of the scene. They were all prepared for [that scene] to be a big one, and I’m so glad that she [Lauren Robek] and I were able to play it so internally and intimately. It felt like he was at the edge of saying something truthful, and she gets to that point where she gives him a chance, and he seems like he’s right at the door and then he doesn’t. Then he got his force field back up.”

Murdaugh Murders: The Movie airs on Lifetime. Catch it during the BEST OF 2023 Marathon on Dec 31: Part 1 @8pm, Part 2 @10pm.