“I binged the podcast when I was driving up and down the 5 Freeway, going to take my dog to get his hip replaced up in San Francisco, and I couldn't believe it,” Academy Award-winner Renée Zellweger said of the Dateline NBC podcast The Thing About Pam. Zellweger’s first venturer into TV acting and producing, she stars as Pam Hupp in the limited series that begins tonight at 10/9c on NBC. “I was just thinking a lot, and asking myself how, and it just felt like it would be something really interesting to explore further. And it seems like this case, it opens the door to discuss some really important, current, relevant social issues, and thought it would be a really interesting way to do that, to make the show.” Renée Zellweger joined the cast and creative team for a press conference during a TCA presentation.
(Frank Ockenfels 3/NBC)
“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,’ I mean, you say, ‘Yes, yes, yes, and yes,’” Blumhouse Productions president Chris McCumber explained, who also serves as an executive producer on the series. “Our job, at that point, is to provide Renée, and the rest of the cast, with all the tools that they need to embody these characters. And it really came together in an alchemy that just was a very, very easy choice.”
The cast includes other recognizable faces and names, including Josh Duhamel. “Joel and I became pretty good friends throughout this process,” the actor revealed about getting to know the person he plays in the series. “He's a defense attorney and has defended the worst of the worst, and I think came into this expecting the same as what's he done in the past, is defending a guilty man, and he quickly finds out that Russell didn't do this. For me, it was really fun to pick Joel's brain about how emotionally he evolved throughout the process. He was coming into this, sort of going through the motions, realizes that Russ was innocent, and becomes, like, a dog with a bone by the end of this thing.”
Playing Russ Faria, the man wrongfully accused of murder, is Glenn Fleshler, who was in awe of Renée Zellweger. “What Renée did, the amount of hours [in the makeup chair], and then, to show up on set with the spirit that she had and has every day, it's really remarkable,” he explained about Zellweger’s daily transformation into Pam Hupp, which required prosthetics. “It's actually not easy, although she did find a way to enjoy it, but it's not easy to sit through all that, and to be that hot, and to feel like you don't necessarily have control of your whole self, and you're trying to do really relaxed work in front of the camera, and she just brought an unbelievable spirit to it.”
“I don't think there's been a drama like this,” Jenny Klein explained, who serves as showrunner and executive producer. “It starts with this marriage we have between NBC News Studios and having access to all of the extensive reporting done on this case, and then Blumhouse TV, the icon of horror and tension, and then, everything that Renée and her company, Big Picture Co., bring to it, it really lends this sort of sense of familiarity when it comes to the Dateline aspects infused in the show, and then, there's just this, like, palpable strangeness. And also it's a true-crime story that, in some ways, won't leave you feeling depressed, but will keep you on the edge of your seat because there's so many twists and turns.”
“For a few years we've been thinking, ‘We tell so many tremendous stories that could be the basis for good scripted programming.,” NBC News Studio president Liz Cole said of the unit’s venture into scripted television. “We connected with Jason [Blumhouse], who immediately saw that this could be a great marriage of our two brands: Dateline and Blumhouse. And then, we decided to partner on these projects; you know, this was the only story we really considered for our first project. We just kept coming back to Pam because it's such a rich story, and a story that had resonated with Dateline viewers, certainly, and in any format on TV and the podcast. Although, you know, when we first embarked on this, I don't think I imagined, in my wildest dreams, that we would have Renée Zellweger staring as Pam, and the rest of the incredible cast, and working with Blumhouse has just been a joy. It's been a wonderful partnership.”
The story of Pam Hupp will unfold in the 6-part limited series, airing Tuesdays at 10/9c on NBC.