The Thing About Pam, representing a unique symbiosis between NBC’s news and entertainment divisions, premieres on the network March 8. The series is based on the 2011 murder of Betsy Faria in Missouri. Her husband was convicted but a diabolical scheme involving Betsy’s friend Pam Hupp soon materialized.
The case was examined in several episodes of Dateline NBC, which spawned a podcast, also called The Thing About Pam.
Showrunner/executive producer Jenny Klein said the folks at Blumhouse Television brought the podcast to her attention. “They said, Jenny, this is the craziest story we’ve ever heard — we think you’d love it,” she said. “I did.”
Klein grew up in Illinois, in a place not all that different from Troy, Missouri, where Faria is killed. “It’s such a weird Midwest story that I was immediately drawn to it,” she said.
Renée Zellweger plays Pam Hupp. She too became obsessed with the podcast, Klein said, and was eager to bring the project to screen.
Klein called Zellweger “the hardest working, toughest person I’ve ever met,” and a deft enough actor to make Pam’s many quirks, including the Midwest accent and talking with her hands, feel authentic. “Renée got every detail down to a T,” Klein said, “in a way that brought Pam to life so accurately.”
Dateline anchor Keith Morrison hosts the podcast and is the narrator on the series. Klein called him “an omniscient, almost philosophical narrator.”
The limited series has six episodes. The Thing About Pam was shot outside New Orleans, so August in Louisiana had to stand in for December in Missouri. “A truck was shooting snow onto the street as everyone was standing around, sweating through their tank tops,” Klein said. “It was environmentally incongruous.” ■
