ST. LOUIS — Renee Zellweger's dog needed a new hip.
The vet who was going to perform the procedure was in San Francisco, and it's a long drive on Interstate 5 from the Los Angeles area to San Francisco. Back and forth along the way, Zellweger binged the "Dateline" podcast "The Thing About Pam," which delves into the story of convicted murderer Pamela Hupp.
"This was one of those stories that you couldn't make up ... I couldn't believe it. It was an experience of escalating absurdities," Zellweger said on a Zoom call promoting a six-part NBC miniseries based on the story, also titled "The Thing About Pam."
Zellweger thought the byzantine tale of the Troy, Mo., killer might make great television. The idea made its way to Blumhouse Productions.
"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,'" Blumhouse president Chris McCumber said.
Zellweger stars as Hupp, a central figure in at least two murders. In 2011, her friend Betsy Faria was found stabbed to death; Faria's husband, Russell, was arrested and convicted of the killing. But he was exonerated in a 2015 trial that included evidence potentially pointing to Hupp as the killer. She was charged with the murder in 2021.
Meanwhile, Hupp was convicted of murdering Louis Gumpenberger in 2016 in a failed plot to frame Russell Faria for his wife's death. Hupp's mother also died in 2013 under suspicious circumstances, though the cause of that death is considered "undetermined" and is not classified as a homicide.
The story was covered extensively locally and nationally, including by NBC's "Dateline."
"I can't believe this hasn't happened earlier," said Josh Duhamel, who plays Faria's attorney, Joel Schwartz. "I've been a 'Dateline' fan for as far back as this started, and I just remember going, 'God, that would make a great movie; that would make a great TV show.'"
It is a tale that is stranger than fiction — which is the title of the second episode of the miniseries. But the question for the producers was how to show it. What would be the right tone to take?
"You have this story that's so tragic, and it's so disturbing and unspeakable," said showrunner and executive producer Jenny Klein, "and then, on the other side of the very same coin, you have these absurd details that Pam really did or said."
Klein pitched the story as a true-crime tale, but with a streak of dark humor reminiscent of "Fargo."
"A lot of the absurdity comes from Pam herself," Klein said.
For the script, the creators mined thousands of pages of trial transcripts, news stories and interviews, and also talked with many people involved in the cases. The miniseries is dramatized, so some of the scenes are fictional, but the creators wanted the series to feel true to life.
Much of the focus has been on Zellweger's physical transformation to resemble Hupp. To look the part, the petite actor was fitted with a fat suit and wore extensive prosthetics and wigs.
"That's part of your toolkit that makes it easier to achieve what it is that you're trying to (do), in terms of telling someone else's story," Zellweger said. "The farther you are from yourself, the safer you feel to explore."
The daily process of simply getting ready for the cameras was arduous. When shooting for the series began, it took four hours for the makeup artist and his assistant to give Zellweger the right look. Eventually, they were able to pull it off in 2 ½ hours.
For Zellweger, who'd had only limited experience with prosthetics, it was a chance to learn how they are made, how they fit together, and what they can and cannot do.
"They have minds of their own, and what they become during the day isn't quite what they begin as in the morning," she said.
She also discovered that acting with her body completely encased in prosthetics was "a skill I didn't have. So every day, it was learning."
Zellweger also made a vocal transformation. She wanted to sound like Hupp.
"The accent — boy, that was elusive," she said. "I was listening to accents from the regions that she had grown up in and where she lived, and boy, it was peculiar. It's very unique to Pam. It's not regional."
All the effort — the makeup, the prosthetics, the costumes, the accent — went into making the story seem relatable and true to life, for all of its absurdities.
"You want people to feel — it sounds so simple — but feel heartbroken," said Klein, the producer. "There's a family drama at the center of this."
'The Thing About Pam'
- 9 p.m. Tuesday
- NBC