Bill Pullman Crosses into Murder; Tribeca Star Portraits
I catch up with the acting legend amid the swirl of FYC L.A. Plus: Tribeca talent says cheese
I’m in Los Angeles this week, and FYC season coats the town like a morning dew. Billboards advertising TV shows and movies double as both a public art form and a kind of industry-specific Waze: The Ripley billboards on Sunset signal that Netflix is down the block, while a cluster of Hacks and True Detective posters will tell you HBO’s Culver City offices are somewhere close.
Sometimes, though, the billboards almost speak to each other, as they did last fall when Lifetime was promoting the premiere of the original film Murdaugh Murders at the same time that Apple publicly showcased its miniseries Lessons in Chemistry. And there it was, an outdoor advertising family reunion — Bill Pullman’s face on a billboard right next to his son, Lewis.
“It was like, wow, this might never happen again,” Bill remembers thinking at the time. “We've got to be aware of this.”
I caught up with the elder Pullman last week, in the midst of his own Emmy season chaos; we spoke while he was in the green room at Morning Joe, having just completed an on-air appearance. He’s not competing against his son, thank goodness; Bill is being campaigned as lead actor for his performance as convicted South Carolina murderer Alex Murdaugh, while Lewis is a supporting actor as the brilliant scientist Calvin on Lessons in Chemistry.
But they’ve still been able to check in with each other on their Emmy campaign experiences — in true proud dad fashion, Bill predicts Lewis has a better shot at a nomination than he does.
Later on you can read more of my conversation with Pullman, who relishes the fact that he gets to play against his “good guy” type 40 years into his screen career. But first, a dispatch from the heart of L.A.’s FYC frenzy.
And if you’re reading this on Monday, join me in that frenzy! I’ll be talking to Lawmen: Bass Reeves star and executive producer David Oyelowo at the Landmark Theatres Sunset; get your tickets here!
On the Scene
On Saturday night, I got to be a firsthand witness to the power of John Leguizamo, who spoke to me following a screening of the first two episodes of his new series, The Green Veil. Leguizamo was closely involved in the making of the series, which was created and directed by his longtime collaborator Aram Rappaport.
The hard work paid off: It’s a role truly unlike any Leguizamo has ever played, a 1950s FBI agent who is passing as white and willing to resort to brutal means to keep his vision of the American dream alive. Later this week, you’ll be able to see our conversation at AnklerEnjoy, our site for Ankler events, but in the meantime, you can watch all of The Green Veil on the brand-new free streaming service The Network.
Earlier Saturday, I visited The Grove to take part in a good old-fashioned marketing activation on behalf of Peacock’s reality TV series The Traitors. In a “castle garden” set up in the middle of the outdoor mall — with the fountain and the Cheesecake Factory lingering in the background — season two contestants Parvati Shallow, Trishelle Cannatella and Kate Chastain revisited the highlights of the season, and shared some speculation about the third season now in production. (The prediction that Tom Sandoval might get eliminated early was met with a chorus of righteous boos.)
There were photo ops, Scottish hosts in kilts and multiple people who brought their dogs. Will it help The Traitors break into the notoriously stagnant reality competition Emmy category? Or get host Alan Cumming a well-earned nomination?
Bill Pullman’s Next Act
“I can get lateral for a long time when I'm interested in some subject matter,” says Pullman during our chat. When he was a kid, he tells me, he’d listen endlessly to old records of Appalachian accents, courtesy of his folk music-obsessed brothers.
That propensity to enjoy a deep dive has served Pullman, now 70, well, but when it came to Murdaugh Murders, even though the script was based closely on real court transcripts and police records, there was no time for any of that. ”So much of the script is verbatim, and if you think you're going to do some kind of imitation of that, you're going to go nuts,” Pullman says.
Instead, his version of Alex Murdaugh, the South Carolina lawyer convicted of murdering his wife and son in 2021, is something entirely different from what you’d see in the many docuseries and news reports about the trial. With his hair dyed a subtle red, his shoulders slumped and his clothes rumpled, Pullman captures a man who has convinced the world he’s an upstanding pillar of society, while desperately trying to hide all the evidence to the contrary.
“He dedicated himself to looking like an insider, as inside as you could be,” Pullman says of Murdaugh, who was the fourth generation in a prominent family full of lawyers and judges. “But there was a reason why they never put him forward to be on the bench. I think his father and grandfather probably said, ‘Nah, I don't think you're going to be the family member that gets there.’”
Though Pullman has the long career and sterling reputation that Murdaugh couldn’t achieve, he had a visceral initial reaction to the Murdaugh Murders script by Michael Vickerman that suggested a connection with the character that surprised him. “I had a vague nausea in the first couple of days thinking about it, and I thought, boy, that's a sign you don't want to do the part,” he tells me. “But I think it was a sign that I had to make it through that membrane to get to the other side. It’s a transition from me, a quasi-moral person, to somebody who really doesn't have to bother with morals.”
Hearing Pullman talk about the acting process, it’s clear why even though he’s at the point in a normal career where retirement might beckon, he’s far from ready to let go. “Just when you think, I don't know if I got the push or focus, you read a good script and it ignites you immediately. It brings you closer to humanity in some way,” he says. “Most of my family was in medicine, and I think there is an empathic thing that converts into acting. You're working on something, it changes how you ride in the subway, it changes everything.”
Live From Tribeca
As you may have read in last week’s newsletter, the Tribeca Festival is underway in Manhattan, and we’ve partnered with Shutterstock to share portraits of some of the festival’s biggest stars. The images above are from the event, as are these gems:
