Renee Zellweger looks completely unrecognisable as convicted killer Pam Hupp, having had a 'head-to-toe' makeover for new series The Thing About Pam. Watch the trailer here:
The crime drama will detail the 2011 murder of Betsy Faria, whose husband Russ was initially wrongly convicted for the killing. After he was exonerated, Hupp became implicated in the murder and she was charged with first-degree murder in July last year.
At the time, she was already serving a life sentence for the murder of Louis Gumpenberger, who had physical and mental disabilities, having entered an Alford guilty plea – where one doesn’t admit guilt, but concedes that evidence presented by the prosecution would likely persuade a judge or jury to find them guilty.
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In the forthcoming limited series, Zellweger donned a padded suit and prosthetics to portray the American mum-of-two.
Speaking to Vanity Fair about the transformation, the star said: “It was pretty much head to toe. It was prosthetics, it was a [padded] suit, it was the choice of clothing, it was the briskness in her step-step-step, her gait.
“All of those things were really important because all those bits and pieces are what construct the person that we project our own conclusions and presumptions onto.”
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Asked what it was like embodying such a cold-blooded character once she was in costume, Zellweger joked: “Hot. It was really hot.”
District attorney Leah Askey (played by Judy Greer) was resolute that no one but Faria's husband could have killed her - as were many others, including defence attorney Joel Schwartz (Josh Duhamel), who had originally assumed his client was guilty.
Zellweger continued: “It reveals a lot about social and personal bias, and how that comes to play in the criminal justice system.
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“I think the bigger picture is a reflection of where we are socially right now. We have such certitude about the conclusions that we’ve drawn, how we define certain things, and we’re hesitant to move from our positions based on new information.
"We would rather find peripheral, unsubstantiated information that supports the view we already have, because somehow that ideology makes us feel safe.”
The Thing About Pam premiers on NBC on 8 March.
Topics: TV and Film
Jess Hardiman