Murdaugh mystery
Murdaugh: Death in the Family stars Johnny Berchtold and Will Harrison discuss how the Disney+ and Hulu show portrays the real tragedy at the centre of the story, why it’s really a family drama and coming to blows on set.
After the Dying for Sex podcast inspired a Disney+ and Hulu factual drama of the same name starring Michelle Williams, the two streamers have now drawn on another audio show – the Murdaugh Murders Podcast – for a fact-based true crime series that explores one family’s connection to a series of mysterious deaths.
Murdaugh: Death in the Family introduces married couple Maggie and Alex Murdaugh, who enjoy a lavish life of privilege as members of one of South Carolina’s most powerful legal dynasties. But when their son Paul is involved in a deadly boat crash, the family is faced with a test unlike any they’ve ever encountered.
As details come to light and new challenges emerge, the family’s connection to several mysterious deaths raises questions that threaten everything Maggie and Alex hold dear.
Now airing on Disney+ and Hulu in the US, the series is based on Mandy Matney’s podcast chronicling the events that led Alex Murdaugh to be charged with the murders of his wife and son. They are survived by the family’s eldest son, Buster.
The series stars Jason Clarke as Alex, Patricia Arquette as Maggie, Johnny Berchtold as Paul and Will Harrison as Buster, alongside Brittany Snow as Mandy Matney and J Smith-Cameron as Marian Proctor, Maggie’s sister. From co-creators Michael D Fuller and Erin Lee Carr, the show is produced by UCP.
Here, Berchtold and Harrison speak to DQ about their roles in the series, its focus on the family at the centre of the tragedy and the challenge of playing real people on screen.
What were your first impressions when you read the scripts or heard about the project?
Harrison: I came in without any knowledge of the case. So I was doing a crash course on the case and all the docs and news articles around it, while also reading the script and getting the reveals from that. It was thrilling – I couldn’t believe what I was reading.
Berchtold: I was familiar with the case. Then when I saw that it was this team doing it specifically, I was like, ‘OK, it’s in the right hands.’ It’s such an expansive story, and then hearing their take and how they were going to structure it and tell the story, I was like, ‘OK.’ As the scripts were coming in, I was reliving things I already knew and relearning things and learning new things. It was just wild.
What is the show’s take on the case?
Berchtold: We approached this as a family drama first. That’s how it read to me, and that was really exciting because you have all these big headline moments that we all know. Then what was really interesting to us was like, ‘What about when they’re sitting at dinner after this event? What would that look like and how do we colour that in and paint in a bit of humanity?’ That was really fresh for me, because when we consume true crime, it’s just a timeline thing, and we really got to dig deep into that.
Harrison: It’s easy to sensationalise these stories and just go through the bullet points of the insane events that happened. But giving them a little space to breathe and looking at it on a more human level is what we were tasked with. It lends a whole new perspective to motive and the level of tragedy that befell this family. That was something we focused on a lot.
How would you describe Paul and Buster?
Berchtold: Well, playing our version of Paul, he’s the youngest in the Murdaugh family. Just the Murdaugh name holds so much weight and pressure, and so that was really interesting for me to dive into how that would manifest in a young person who maybe doesn’t want to follow into that legacy.
Harrison: Then, of course, as Buster, he’s the other side of the same coin. But we had a great time playing off of each other and figuring out the different ways they deal with that pressure. We talked a lot about privilege and living without consequence. They were really given free rein in a lot of ways – and it caught up to them.
We see Paul and Buster fighting each other in the first episode. What does that moment tell us about their relationship?
Berchtold: That moment is such a good tell of what’s going on. That’s why I love that moment, because you get a little bit of tension. There’s so much unresolved and unsaid brewing, not just with the parents, but with the sons as well. Also, those [scenes] are fun to shoot.
Harrison: My first day was the fight scene. I’d been kicking around Atlanta for a little bit and we’d been hanging out, but then I showed up and we just immediately fought.
I love that scene too, because there’s that friction there, and you’re getting this vibe that there’s a lot under the surface. But it also makes them feel so close as brothers, the fact that they immediately start scrapping in front of everyone. It is so beautiful in this way that they’re just right back to being little kids.
Playing real people, what kind of work do you do to become the characters, and how do we see that in the performances?
Berchtold: It’s interesting to do a project like this where there’s so much documentation of them and how they walk and talk. So for me, it was a lot of ingesting that. Then Jason said something to me early on: ‘We’re not trying to do one-to-one impressions of these people, rather capture their essence.’ So that was great to hear from him, obviously, because then I got to take tools and put them in the toolbox and craft this version of Paul that fit with the emotional, thematic arc we were trying to tell and that was really exciting.
Harrison: There’s always a sense of responsibility that you have with playing a real person. It’s also a really fun challenge, because you have these references and you can build it off of them, but then there does come a point when you have to distance yourself and realise you’re the one telling the story and being this guy in this version. But we had no shortage of resources to pull from.
What was it like being on set making the show and working with Jason and Patricia?
Harrison: [The story] is so dark and so intense but they were really amazing at setting this tone that was very serious and dedicated, while also bringing a joy to it and having fun with it, which I think is really important when you’re tackling some intense stuff. They’re just incredibly generous actors for how successful and incredible they are. The most mindblowing thing was how kind they were.
Why does this story or the way it’s told stand out from other true crime dramas?
Berchtold: In the way we approached the family drama dynamic. Especially in South Carolina, in that small southern town, where these people who are getting away with so much that goes back generations, really putting it under a microscope and seeing those quiet moments in between those big moments was the selling point for me.
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tagged in: Disney, Hulu, Johnny Berchtold, Murdaugh: Death in the Family, Will Harrison