Two-Time Oscar Winner Renee Zellweger Admits She Was Drawn In By The Escalating Absurdity Of ‘The Thing About Pam’

There’s an old saying that ruminates on the idea that truth is stranger than fiction.

It could be said that the new series The Thing About Pam proves this axiom.

The six episode series is based on the 2011 murder of Betsy Faria. The brutal crime set off a chain of events that would expose a diabolical scheme deeply involving Faria’s friend Pam Hupp.

A thorough examination of Hupp — her personality, as well as her motives and moves — was the subject of several episodes of Dateline NBC. Not only did Hupp’s story became one of the show’s most popular topics, it was also featured in a popular 2019 podcast, which has been downloaded over 20 million times.

Two-time Oscar winner Renee Zellweger stars as Pam in the new series.

“This is one of those stories that you couldn’t make up,” she says. “And I was listening it to — I binged the podcast, actually, when I was driving up and down the 5 Freeway — I couldn’t believe it. It was just an experience of escalating absurdities.”

Zellweger says that she prepped to play the title character by delving into public records, Pam’s court appearances, and reading books about human behavior.

To play Pam physically, the slight actor donned prosthetics, that she says in the beginning took four hours to apply.

She says the use of the prosthetics is part of ‘an actors toolkit,’ making it easier to tell someone else’s story.

She adds, “And, the further you are away from yourself, the safer you feel to explore.”

However, the creative team behind the series has been criticized for using the svelte Zellweger instead of casting a plus-sized woman to tackle the role.

Reacting to this, executive producer Chris McCumber explains, “I’ll say this, and I’ll keep it really simple — 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.’ 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.”

When crafting the narrative, showrunner Jenny Klein says, “certainly, you want to stick to the facts that we have at hand. We were lucky to have access to thousands of pages of court transcripts to pull from. So, many things were based on real videos that we had.”

In addition to this, she says that there were the law enforcement and prosecution elements that bring a larger scope to the story.

She says that finding the correct tone was one of the biggest challenges, because, ‘it could be the defining strength of the show.’

“You have this story that’s so tragic, it’s so disturbing and unspeakable, and then, on the other side of the very same coin, you have these absurd details that Pam really did or said, but always at the heart of the show, you have Betsy and her family, and that grounding emotional center with [Betsy’s husband] Russ, or Betsy’s daughter Mariah. So, I’d say it’s a real push‑and‑pull between the levity and the drama. It’s like a hybrid.”

What makes the Pam Hupp case different from other murder cases, surmises Klein is, “there’s just this palpable strangeness. 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.”

She quickly adds, “Yeah, I’ve never seen a character like Pam on TV — someone who’s just completely unfazed when caught in a lie, and changing her story so much — it almost creates a game for the viewer, where they’re the only ones actually tracking Pam’s lies because they’re the only ones taking in the show as a whole.”

The goal for the series says, Klein, is “that you want people to feel heartbroken. There’s family drama at the center of this, and you want them to be able to recognize the absurdity when it’s taking place.”

‘The Thing About Pam’ premieres Tuesday, March 8th, at 10 e/p on NBC.