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Murdaugh: Death in the Family: Jason Clarke on Alex's Downward Spiral

Murdaugh: Death in the Family star Jason Clarke discusses Alex Murdaugh's meltdown that led to his fall from grace and much more.

When examining the Hulu limited series Murdaugh: Death in the Family, we encounter the infamous Murdaugh family, one of the most influential in South Carolina, whose claim to fame is their prominent legal practice and community involvement. Following a fateful boating accident involving their children, leading to the death of one of its passengers and the subsequent liability civil suit, the truth starts unraveling, to where not everything is as it seems, especially regarding the family patriarch, Alex Murdaugh (Jason Clarke). With the finale premiering on Hulu, Clarke spoke to Bleeding Cool about physically preparing to play Alex into his larger frame, the sequence of events that led to the murder of Alex's wife, Maggie (Patricia Arquette), and son, Paul (Johnny Berchtold), and portraying Alex's eventual downfall on screen.

Murdaugh: Death in the Family Star Jason Clarke on Portraying Alex's Meltdown and Fall

When you took on the role of Alex Murdaugh, aside from working on his accent, did you do anything else physically to prep for the role? Did you put on some weight or wear a fat suit?

Both. He was pretty heavy at 265 pounds, and I wasn't anywhere near that. I put on about forty pounds of my own weight, and then I also wore a fat suit as well to get close to what looked like his size and his bloatedness for my six-foot-two frame. He was six feet five. I ate a lot, and then they made me a pretty cool fat suit, which was like a scuba suit, you'd sweat inside it.

Those final episodes were a powerful sequence of events here. What was it like working with Michael and Erin on Alex's downward spiral, starting with extramarital affairs and navigating that sequence with Patricia?

Yeah, that was the trickiest part, Tom. The writers were saying, "This is our version of the events of the last day and the last night." That was important to get right in our own way, that it made narrative sense for us, but also that we didn't overdramatize, Hollywood-ize, or make up stuff too far removed to suit our story. Then, in the lead-up, the prosecutor laid out his version of events in the court, of how he led to this storm and the murder. We laid out our dramatic version of events on the screen of how this last day and this last night played out based on a number of things.

It was important in the lead up that, because there were Alex's drugs, his marital affairs, but also the opioids and drinking. For me, it never leaned into that; it wasn't the reason he did it. I'm not killing my son and my wife because I'm out of my mind on opioids and alcohol, sexual rage, or something. We tempered and measured that, and then it came down to the simplicity of the shooting. When it came to the shooting, he made some very smart choices, if I can use that in terms of, they never found the gun, there was no blood on him. He also made some incredibly dumb choices, like throwing the phone out and the car tracking record. He knew about several things, even talking to the housekeeper. Some of it was premeditated, and some of it was just "Okay, yeah, why not?" There was an immediacy to what he did.

What part of getting into the role of Alex did you struggle the most with? Was this the physical prepping and getting his body frame, mentality, or was there a particular scene during the series that you struggled with?

I struggled with the whole thing, really. It was a pleasure to play him at times and crazy fun, but every day, I was pretty exhausted. The physicality hurt, your body hurts, your consumption…you're consuming so much and your body needs so much, really tipped my balance. We'd have some insane scenes back to back, and particularly that last sequence where you start from the dinner table with Maggie, Paul, and I. [Alex]'s crying and talking about his father dying, he notices she's missing her ring, and (adding insult to injury) saying, "I don't believe a word you say." Then, you go out and you must shoot them, which is horrible. It's like two or three in the morning when you're doing that. It's a very weird feeling, because you know it happened, and you can imagine being on the other end of it.

All episodes of Murdaugh: Death in the Family, which also stars Brittany Snow, Will Harrison, Gerald McRaney, J. Smith-Cameron, Tyner Rushing, Kathleen Wilhoite, Noah Emmerich, and Tommy Dewey, are available to stream on Hulu.

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