Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for the Murdaugh: Death in the Family finale. One of the biggest questions hanging over Murdaugh: Death in the Family early on was just how far the Hulu true crime miniseries would go in depicting the most significant criminal act that the narrative centers around. While Alex Murdaugh, here played by Jason Clarke, would eventually be convicted and sentenced to prison for the murder of his wife, Maggie (Patricia Arquette), and son, Paul (Johnny Berchtold), as the series reveals, so much of that fateful night still remains a mystery. The series, co-created by Michael D. Fuller and Erin Lee Carr and inspired by the Murdaugh Murders Podcast from Mandy Matney, does attempt to recreate those events in harrowing detail, with the finale, “The Man in the Glass,” positing the sequence that ultimately culminated in Maggie and Paul’s deaths. Ahead of the show’s premiere, Collider had the opportunity to speak with several members of the Murdaugh: Death in the Family cast, including Clarke and Arquette, whose standout performances anchor an increasingly fraught narrative as the weight of Alex Murdaugh’s crimes inevitably catches up with him, leading to a murder trial poised to change everything. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below or watch above, the co-stars discuss the experience of working together and the deterioration of their onscreen marriage, as well as how they emotionally and physically prepared to film the finale’s most horrifying sequence. COLLIDER: Jason, between this and The Last Frontier, what has the experience been like in promoting two very different shows at the same time? JASON CLARKE: It’s enjoyable. It’s easy when I’ve had a great response from everyone. The same in Kathryn Bigelow’s movie, A House of Dynamite. It’s nice to show your work. I’m reminded of the community — you guys, of other actors, of all these things we’re putting out there and trying to show the world in a very competitive environment. PATRICIA ARQUETTE: But you know what? It’s no mystery. Jason is an incredible talent. Jason is an incredible actor, and it’s exciting that this is all happening. There’s a reason people want to work with him and can see him playing this or that or this other thing, because he has incredible talent, and people love working with him. [To Clarke] You owe me five bucks.
Patricia Arquette Explains Why She Wanted To Work With Jason Clarke on ‘Murdaugh: Death in the Family’

“… he has to drive this whole thing.”

Patricia Arquette and Jason Clarke in Murdaugh: Death in the FamilyImage via Hulu

Patricia, that sparks another question. Was that one of the reasons that you wanted to be a part of the show, getting to bounce off of the guy sitting right next to you? ARQUETTE: I can’t even tell you how exciting it was very early on to see what he was bringing because he has to drive this whole thing. This guy is so motivated by hiding every damn thing he’s ever done that he’s charming, he feels like the baby, he’s the daddy, he’s the hero, he’s the smart lawyer, and he’s the teenager, and he’s the football guy. He’s all of these things, and Jason was just hustling immediately. Where Maggie is like the support system, the invisible person, the person being the mom, the person supporting the boys, the person supporting him. Then she starts to see underneath the mask of what’s really going on, and realizing her cognitive dissonance, her enabling, and the guilt of all that. What happens with the boat is sort of the inciting incident, but it really uncovers a lot of the dark secrets that the family, specifically Alex, has been keeping under wraps. One of the things I think that you capture so well in your performance, Jason, is this man’s house of cards just really starts to tumble, and he’s desperately scrambling to pick up all the pieces. But there’s also a lot of excess living — food, drink, prescriptions. Did that take a toll? I’m thinking specifically of a scene of the two of you at dinner, and you’re just eating… I don’t know how much you had to eat in that scene. CLARKE: I had six lobsters. It was important to me to do all of that, to fuel that bloated indulgence. You know what I mean? I don’t want my cup here, I want my cup overflowing. Yeah, it beat me up. I found myself listening to really silly dance tracks to keep myself up, just to dominate everything, whether it was the lobster or just the whole thing. Then, with my grief and my emotion, with the death of my father, it was important to because we get to the point of: how does a man do that? You still can’t get your head around it. There’s no smoking gun, so there’s not that final closure. But it was that house of cards that he built, and then it came down to a simple decision of what was important in his pyramid, and the script and the writing did all that. But you can see what his pyramid is that night. He puts on the blue, and he goes to business. There’s a clarity and a simplicity, which I think the script showed, so that when Patricia comes around that corner, what you get, what I got in shooting those scenes, was the God Almighty horror of the hole I’m now in, the mess I’ve made of my life, or the failure to see it. And the same thing with Paul, a different thing. All they get is that last look: It’s you. That, for me, is why that sequence is important to see. You have to understand that this man clearly made a simple decision, and that decision was to do these two acts, and they saw it before they died.

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ARQUETTE: If you’ve ever seen somebody’s mask slip or somebody who’s a pathological liar or a manipulator, a betrayer, thief, all of these things, if you’ve ever seen them go dark, their eyes, when they lock in and everything falls away, all that charm and manipulation and everything, it is one of the most terrifying things you will ever see.
Patricia Arquette and Jason Clarke Struggled To Wrap Their Heads Around ‘Murdaugh: Death in the Family’s Finale

“…what happened was one of the most brutal, simple decisions that a person can possibly make.”

Jason Clarke in the Murdaugh: Death in the Family finaleImage via Hulu

To touch on that scene specifically, I actually just spoke with Johnny [Berchtold] about it, because there is the recreation, and obviously, we may never know the exact sequence of events that played out, but based on the evidence, there’s some conclusion that can be reached. From the viewpoint of the three of you preparing to take on that scene, depicting the tragedy, what are you both doing to prepare yourselves emotionally, physically, to shoot that? ARQUETTE: For me, at that point in the story, Maggie has kind of been starting to awaken to seeing these things, being willing to see these things — see her own failure, see many of his failures — and coming to terms with maybe this isn’t the perfect family, maybe he’s not the perfect dad, and maybe she hasn’t been the perfect mom in some ways, and making a space for herself. But she never in a million years imagined it was that. Never. So, it doesn’t even compute. I mean, I’ve, as an actor, died a lot in movies where there’s a different thing, but to suddenly think, “What? I don’t even understand. Why is he on the ground? What was that noise? What are you doing?” It doesn’t even connect. CLARKE: For me, there were a couple of moments before that were real moments, but we’re taking a guess, so it was very important that we didn’t overguess. It was very important that we didn’t put in things that weren’t there. Then, what it came down to in the [series] was that in the simplicity is the brutality, and that it is not what you imagined of the carnage. There was a choice he made, and the choice was quite simple. I liked the way we did it, and I liked the way that it was placed in the thing, as well. We haven’t put it on to some, like, “Here it is. Here’s this grand…” No, what happened was one of the most brutal, simple decisions that a person can possibly make, and his pyramid said, “He’s got to go and she’s got to go, and then I’ll go and see Mom, because I’m doing it for the best.” That is the true horror for me. Shooting it was horrible. It’s one of those things where you look on the thing, and you go, “Okay, that’s going to be that night. That’s my night. Let’s just do it properly.” It was very important for me that Paul got to clock my eyes, super quick, that I just got to see his eyes for one sec, because I still can’t get over a father shooting his son and his wife.