How Renée Zellweger’s Love of True Crime Spawned ‘The Thing About Pam’

Pam Hupp is a wife and mother of two, a neighbor, a “nice lady”…and a suspected murderer in mom jeans. Played by an unrecognizable Renée Zellweger in the six-part limited series The Thing About Pam, she’s already been the subject of five Dateline NBC episodes and a hit podcast. The homicide in a small Midwestern town that unfolds is about as twisty as they come. The location: Troy, Missouri, the “sort of place that didn’t make a fuss,” notes wry narrator Keith Morrison of Dateline fame. But on December 27, 2011, “there’d be a fuss tonight.”

Pam’s friend Betsy Faria (Katy Mixon) is killed, stabbed 55 times, the blame pinned on Betsy’s husband, Russ (Glenn Fleshler). Something is off, though, and the trail leads back to Hupp. Eventually. Here’s more on what makes Pam tick.

The Thing About… Becoming a Series

“I binged [the podcast The Thing About Pam] on a road trip in one go,” recalls Zellweger. “It’s about a series of escalating absurdities that make you keep questioning how. How? How’s that possible?”

The actress’ enthusiasm to adapt Hupp’s story for TV opened doors quickly. Says executive producer Chris McCumber: “When a two-time Oscar winner calls and says, ‘I’m obsessed with this story, and I want to play Pam, and I want to produce,’ you say, ‘Yes, yes, yes and yes.’”

The Thing About… The Title Character

Hupp is the last one to have seen Betsy alive, but who would suspect the friend helping the victim through liver cancer? During the murder investigation, the innocuous Hupp is full of information and hospitality (“You boys want a cookie? I’ve been baking up a storm for the holidays,” she says to detectives) — and misdirection. Pam “goes ‘blah, blah, blah’ so that she can point you in a different direction, away from this thing that she doesn’t want you to pay too much attention to,” Zellweger says.

If that sounds rather ridiculous for a true crime, it is. Instead of “regurgitating the factual,” as Zellweger puts it, the show leans into dark comedy (think: Fargo) and Hupp’s attempt to drive the narrative. “In its literal form, it’s laughable, despite that this is a very tragic story,” she continues.

The Thing About… Transforming Into Pam

Zellweger spent up to four hours a day having her hair, makeup, and prosthetics done. “There were enhancements everywhere, except, I think, the middle of my forehead,” she says, laughing. Makeup artist Arjen Tuiten (Wonder, Maleficent) “got every detail down to the freckles,” says showrunner Jenny Klein.

The Thing About… The Prime Suspect

The widower’s perceived guilt is helped along by Hupp’s tall tales of his domestic abuse (“Did you guys ever find that letter…about Russ putting a pillow over her face?”), and Fleshler is effectively pitiable as Russ gets railroaded by law enforcement, who decide it’s “textbook spousal homicide” despite his alibi. Russ “begins his story having an innate sense of trust for the world — he’s on a journey to become more wary of human nature,” says Klein of his conviction and eventual exoneration.

The Thing About… The Courtroom Battle

At least Joel Schwartz (Josh Duhamel) believes Russ. “I’ve represented a lot of guilty people,” says the well-dressed, smooth St. Louis defense attorney in one scene, “but it’s the innocent ones that keep you up at night.” Explains Klein: “He’s on a redemption arc. He gets to do his ‘one good thing,’ as the real Joel Schwartz told me.”

(Credit: Frank Ockenfels 3/NBC)

As Schwartz raises questions about Hupp — why did Betsy suddenly make her the beneficiary of a $150,000 life insurance policy? — the prosecutor, Leah Askey (a deceptively chipper Judy Greer), has tunnel vision and can’t see beyond Russ. “Her story has a lot to do with ego and the art of doubling down because she can’t face being wrong,” says Klein.

The Thing About…Villains

The real Hupp has been charged in Betsy’s murder and is awaiting trial, but she was convicted in the 2016 shooting death of a man named Louis Gumpenberger — which involved her pretending to be a Dateline producer in an alleged scheme to again implicate Russ as Betsy’s killer. The series delights in painting Hupp as someone to be feared. Just a look from her causes a snarling dog to back down! “We feel nervous every time she’s on the move because it’s like she really could do anything,” Klein says of the relentless Hupp, but that’s our view—we may see a villain. “Pam is the hero of her own story.”

A line from Hupp in the first episode reveals just how much she’s looking out for No. 1: “What happened to Betsy was hard on me too, probably more than anyone…except maybe Betsy.”

The Thing About Pam, Series Premiere Tuesday, March 8, 10/9c, NBC