FILE – Renee Zellweger attends the 2020 An Unforgettable Evening in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Feb. 27, 2020. Zellweger will star in the new true-crime limited series “The Thing About Pam,” inspired by episodes of “Dateline NBC.”
Renée Zellweger has disappeared into her latest role.
The Oscar winner is barely recognizable as suburban housewife and convicted killer Pam Hupp in the trailer for the upcoming NBC true-crime drama "The Thing About Pam."
Zellweger, 52, is wearing facial prosthetics and clad in a pastel windbreaker as she plays Hupp, 63, a suburban mom who is serving a life sentence for murdering disabled man Louis Gumpenberger in 2016.
“Oh, gosh, if you don’t recognize an actor or an actress in a performance, that’s a great compliment,” Zellweger told Vanity Fair. “You’re not trying to tell your own story.”
In July, Hupp was also charged with the first-degree murder of her friend Betsy Faria in 2011. She has pleaded not guilty.
Authorities believe Hupp killed Gumpenberger to frame Faria's husband, Russ, for murder. Hupp testified against Faria in the initial trial where he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison after his wife was found stabbed 55 times in their Missouri home.
Russ Faria spent four years behind bars for his wife's murder before being acquitted in 2015, and his wife’s death remains unsolved.
Hupp's wild saga has been chronicled on one of the most popular Dateline episodes of recent years as well as a hit podcast, also called "The Thing About Pam." The new series is co-produced by Blumhouse Television and NBC News Studios.
Zellweger’s role in the six-episode series that premieres on March 8 is the broadcast television series debut for the two-time Oscar winner, who went all in on portraying Hupp.
“It was prosthetics, it was a (padded) suit, it was the choice of clothing, it was the briskness in her step-step-step, her gait,” she told Vanity Fair. “All of those things were really important because all those bits and pieces are what construct the person that we project our own conclusions and presumptions onto.”
The star of “Bridget Jones’s Diary” most recently won the Oscar for best actress in 2020 for inhabiting another true life role as Judy Garland in the biopic “Judy.”
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