RedHanded - Director Joe Berlinger on Ted Bundy: Live

Episode Date: April 30, 2019

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is the new Ted Bundy film; in this very special episode of RedHanded Joe Berlinger, the director, joins the girls for an exclusive Q&A to delve into the psychology of Ted Bundy. On the panel is also Mary Fenwick, agony aunt for Psychologies magazine, who has her own take on what drives men like Bundy and the people who love them. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is a Sky Cinema Original and is in cinemas and on Sky Cinema May 3. We hope you enjoy this bonus episode to get you ready for the film’s release!   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi guys, welcome to this incredibly exciting, very special bonus episode extravaganza. We just got in from the Soho Hotel where we recorded a live Q&A after a screening of the Sky Cinema original film

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, which was directed by Joe Berlinger. And we were lucky enough to be joined by Joe and also by Mary Fenwick, who is an agony aunt for Psychologies magazine. And we recorded What Happened Next. And that is what you are just about to listen to. We had so much fun recording it and we hope that you enjoy it. Extremely

Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is in cinemas in the UK and on Sky Cinema from the 3rd of May so make sure you check it out. On with the show. Thank you both so much for being here. Of course. And obviously we are recording this live, kind of. So for our listeners at home,

everyone in front of us has just watched Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. Just rolls off the tongue. We just wanted to do it together. So a very special episode of Red Handed,

courtesy of Sky Cinema. So sat here, as Hannah said, are our fantastic guests. In front of us are a room full of people who have just watched this film. So we don't want to drag things out too long. We know we've got loads of questions and we hope you guys have got some too. Before we do that, we just have a very important date for your diary. This Sky Cinema original, extremely wicked, shockingly evil and vile, is out in the UK on Sky Cinema and in cinemas on the 3rd of May.

So write that down. Without much further ado, we are going to crack on with our very first question. Obviously, we'll start with you, Joe, as the director of the film. What did you think was missing from the existing narrative of arguably the most infamous serial killer ever, Ted Bundy, that you wanted to bring to light in this film? Well, you know, most serial killer movies, and there are many great ones and many not-so-good ones, but a lot of great ones,

you know, most serial killer movies are the police procedural, tracking down the killer, escalating body count, violent act after violent act, and by the end of the movie... Excuse me, I've got to turn my phone off. I'm breaking the big rule here, sorry. So by the end of the movie, the police have their man. And those movies are great.

But that's about the killer killing. And I am much more fascinated about the part of Bundy's life where he was deceiving and betraying because that is, you know, Bundy defies all expectations of what we want to think a serial killer is. You know, we want to think a serial killer is some social outcast, misfit, strange-looking person who you could spot a mile away because that gives us the false comfort that perhaps we could avoid the fate of becoming a victim because you can identify him so easily or identify somebody like him. But the reality is that Bundy fit into society very well. He eluded capture for so long because people just couldn't believe he was capable of these things. And so I wanted to, there's been many films about

how a killer kills but not how a victim becomes seduced by a psychopath. And Liz Klopfer isn't the only victim. You know, the American media kind of made him into a hero. They were seduced by Bundy. Our justice system was seduced by Bundy. I mean, could you imagine if this was a person of color and as he's being sentenced to death, which is where the title comes from, the judge is, you know, actually almost apologizing for killing him. That's because he was a white male of privilege who just was well-liked. And even in his worst moment where he's being sentenced to death, the judge is saying, you know, I wish you could have gone a different way, partner. I mean, that's all verbatim from the transcript of the trial. And so Bundy, for me, is just endlessly fascinating

because of the deception and telling the story through the victim's point of view because Elizabeth Klopfer is a victim, you know, to me is a much more realistic portrayal of the dangers of a psychopath. And Mary, what is it that you think, because people are obsessed with Ted Bundy, and they were at the time and they are still now, what is particularly about him that draws people to him so much?

Well, I'm answering this from the point of view that I'm an agony aunt, so I'm imagining that somebody like Liz might have written to me and said, I'm in love with somebody, but a lot of my friends seem to be saying mean things about him, and I find it really difficult to believe. So that's the perspective that I'm coming at this from. The other thing I've got to say is I come from New Zealand, and we've just had a mass killing in New Zealand, and our Prime Minister has decided not to publicly speak the name of that killer,

and so I'm doing my best actually in this case as well. The main character in this movie is appealing partly because of what we call the halo effect. When somebody is really good looking, we attribute other good qualities to them. And I think there's that kind of dissonance between what we've set ourselves up to expect of this person. You know when you said we want to think that an evil person looks evil somehow and there's something fascinating about our expectations being confused in that way so that would be one of my explanations for what's happened.

The other thing I'd say is that at Psychologies magazine we know that if we put narcissism on the cover that sells really well which is a bit ironic. People are really interested in that kind of personality. The absolutely supreme confidence of this character has got its own kind of attractiveness about it. But I have to say I mostly wanted to hear what Jo's got to say because Joe's lived with this character, inside this character for so long. And the thing about Bundy, there weren't a lot of people telling Liz that something's wrong.

You know, for me one of the most fascinating anecdotes about Bundy and just the power he held besides even upon being sentenced to death, the judge almost apologizing for doing that. His first handful of killings were generally lone women. These are the Seattle area murders. Lone, single women walking on college campuses alone. And he was very successful, I hate to use that word, in those attacks. And so he became emboldened. And his first daytime attack, which is when the movie kind of picks up, was at a place called Lake Sammamish State Park, where there were

thousands of people on a beautiful Sunday enjoying a lake. And Bundy went up to a number of women, and he was successful in, you know, he wore a fake cast and pretended to be in need and elicited sympathy from his prospective victims. And in one day, he was able to, at the same park, in the same location, to abduct and kill two women using this ruse of, can you come help me load my sailboat up onto my car, my Volkswagen? And Bundy was so bold at the time that he used his real name, Ted. He said he had a Volkswagen and enough people saw those interactions that when the police realized there were two missing women,

a police composite sketch that you see in the movie was circulated. The article said that there was an abductor who had the name Ted. He drives a VW, the sketch looked very much like Bundy, and all of his friends looked at that Seattle newspaper and said, oh my God, what a strange coincidence. This guy's name is Ted like you, this guy drives a VW like you, he kinda looks like you. Isn't that weird? Instead of saying, oh my God, let's call the police, this this guy might be the killer.

That's the power he had over people, which I'm fascinated by. That is a very fascinating part of this whole thing. And actually, that was one of the questions that we have. I think it's inevitable when you're talking about somebody like Ted Bundy, the idea of almost the veneration and the glamorization of killers, especially when you are sort of in this world of the genre of true crime, especially as we said with a man like Bundy. And I just wondered how front of mind was that for you when you were researching this, putting this case, putting this movie together,

especially in an era like the one that we're in now with the Me Too movement? Well, of course the last thing I think we're doing is glamorizing Bundy. What we're doing is doing a very realistic portrayal of how he's deceived people. If the movie, I mean, first of all, there's a couple of things. Some people have said you haven't showed the violence and therefore you're glamorizing him. Well, I think it's infinitely more disrespectful to the victims of violent crime to recreate the worst moment of their life when they're being desecrated by a violent killer. It would have been very easy to make a typical movie where there's lots of killing. We discuss the murders throughout the movie.

There's a whole murder trial in the movie, but we don't show Bundy actually doing the killing. And I actually think that's more respectful to the victims. I mean, we live in an era where in a few clicks, even an eight-year-old can come upon the most vile, disgusting, pornographic images and violent images against women. So showing violence, you know, the beginning of Deadpool 2 is, you know, a superhero killing 500 people and we're all, you know, cheering that on. That to me is glamorization of violence. If you watch this movie, by the end of the film, he's alone on death row. We see him as the needy, pathetic person he's been, as the deceiver, as the manipulator. The entire structure of the movie, the entire intent of the movie, I was very much aware of not glamorizing him. I am trying to provide, and I think we do quite well,

a realistic portrait of how you become seduced, how the media became seduced, how the legal system became seduced, how a victim is lured to their death by somebody who is charming. And, you know, there's been some, you know, knee-jerk reaction to the casting of Zac Efron. Oh, you're casting a pretty boy or a Disney star

and that's glamorization. No, this is a realistic portrayal of the power that Bundy had over people. So we were very conscious of it and very conscious of the Me Too movement. It's the one bit of dramatic license that we took in the film is that final scene. In the real story, it's based on Liz Kloepfer's memoir, of dramatic license that we took in the film is that final scene.

In the real story, it's based on Liz Kloepfer's memoirs, in the real memoir, in the real situation, it was a phone call. And it was a more ambiguous phone call. And I felt, first of all, another phone call in this movie, you know, a bit too many phone calls in the movie, but more importantly it was so important for me to give a voice to this woman who often victims are, especially in this era of the 70s, that, you know, she was told by the police, oh, you're wrong, because she did this heroic act of finally calling him in. And they said, you're wrong, and they kind of dismissed her, which is, you know, classic don't believe the victim. And so at the end of this movie, it was so important for me to have Lily's character hold Bundy accountable.

She goes into death row, of course, intellectually knowing he's the killer, but she hasn't quite felt it emotionally and she needs to hold him accountable. And I think this is an era of accountability. So all of those issues were very much top of mind. I have to say, just watching it for the first time, you know, he is seductive. And I think this is an era of accountability. So all of those issues were very much top of mind. I have to say, just watching it for the first time, you know, he is seductive.

The whole thing is seductive. And actually, I have to admit, every time he starts telling one of those fantasy stories about how amazing it's going to be, there's a tiny little bit of me that's going, oh, yeah, wouldn't that be nice? And I'm kind of ashamed of that bit of me, but it is there. That's exactly the journey I wanted the audience to take. When he's jumping out that window, I want a part of you to, knowing that this is Bundy intellectually, I still want the audience to emotionally almost be rooting for him to succeed,

for the love to come together. Because by the end of the movie, when Lily's character finally understands emotionally the horror of what this person did, I want the audience to feel that same betrayal. This is a portrait of how you become a victim. And so I hope you all felt that, oh my God, I liked him for part of this movie. I am deeply conflicted and disgusted that I actually kind of liked him in the first half of this film. He's a vile human

being because I want you to feel the journey that Elizabeth Klupfer felt. And I think that's where, and again, the discussion of glorification, the discussion of is there too much true crime, the discussion of are we being disrespectful to victims by even telling these stories? This is a good and healthy debate. And people should be telling these, should be discussing these issues because there is irresponsible true crime storytelling and there's responsible true crime storytelling. I like to think I'm doing responsible true crime storytelling, but that's for others to judge. But portraying, you know, I think the fact that I actually want to induce in the audience the same empathetic feeling of disgust

that our main character feels has been confused by some people, and people are free to feel what they want about the movie. People have confused that with, oh, you're glorifying him because I like him. No, that's the power of these psychotic people, is you like them, you know? And we want to think that a serial killer is some aberrant behavior on some disconnected end of the human behavior spectrum. But in my experience, because I'm mainly known as a documentarian, I've been filming crime and criminals for 25 years. And it's my observation, and I'm not the only one, but it's my observation that the people who do evil in this world are often the people you most often trust and least expect. It's not the guy you can spot a mile away. Whether it's a priest who commits

pedophilia and then holds mass the next day, that is a horrible abuse of trust. But on a Sunday, he thinks of himself as a spiritual leader, and he probably is a spiritual leader to many people, you know, but he has this compartmentalized evil. Compartmentalized evil is part of the human condition. I mean, you know, we, I don't know how bad it is in this country, but in America, we are having the worst opioid epidemic in history. 200,000 people, you know, have died of opioid overdoses. And the executives at those companies not only repressed the research that these opioids are addictive, they told their sales forces to lie, and they told their sales forces to encourage doctors to prescribe opioids. I know you're saying, what is he talking about? This isn't an opioid movie. But, you know, to prescribe opioids

when in my day, if I had a sprained ankle or something, I'd be given a Tylenol. And this has created an incredible crisis. Now, those executives, I'm sure, have loving families and wonderful friends and art museums that think they're the greatest for donating millions of dollars. But they go to bed at night thinking they're great guys, but they are, that's compartmentalized evil. That is the nature of evil. The nature of evil, even, you know, I hate to quote Bundy, but the reason I say it, you know, I quote him at the end of the movie, you know, killers don't come out of the, you know, the shadows with long teeth and saliva dripping off their chin. They are people, sadly, the people you least expect and most often trust. I had another question, actually, because you've lived with this for a long time.

And in your opinion, what is the kind of inoculation for the women who are his potential victims? How do you mean inoculation? How does one guard themselves? Yeah. That's a good question. You know, my daughter up there, say hi, Maya. She jokingly said today that, boy, I'm really, I'm really conflicted because my wife, say hi, Lauren. I mean, we were having this debate just today at a meal because my wife is a very positive person who, you know, says, you know, there's so many great people out there. You know, life is just there to explore. And she's had so many wonderful experiences when she was younger, you know, just meeting strangers for the first time. And my message is like, hey, be careful. I don't know what the answer is. I want my daughter to be, she was conflicted. Dad, you say don't trust anybody. Mom, you know, you say go have wonderful

adventures with people. I don't know what the answer is. But really, the point of this movie is just to be forewarned. I mean, you know, people, you know, especially in this day and age, is why I think the Bundy story is so relevant. And in fact, the first thing I did before I embarked on this movie, I called each of my kids up and I said, do you know who Ted Bundy is? And both of my kids are, you know, prototypical Bundy victim age, smart college women, who, by the way, I did nothing to get them into college. They did it on their own.

They're both at really good schools and I didn't bribe anybody. But both of my daughters and their very smart, independent, young female friends, most of them didn't know who Bundy was or the lessons of Bundy. So, you know, we live in it. So I felt that it's time to retell the story and arm a new generation that you just can't trust people because they're of the way they look or how they act. And it's why Zac Efron, some people have dismissed that as a casting stunt. And I would say if he didn't deliver the goods and deliver, I think, the performance of his career, although I am biased, you know, you could maybe say, oh, you're just casting him because he's a good looking guy.

But actually, I'm casting him, A, because I thought he could do the role and he was my first choice. But secondly, for a certain demographic, including my daughter's demographic, he's a guy who could do no wrong. People don't really know who he is or what he's like. I've gotten to know him as an incredibly caring, intelligent, sweet guy who worked really hard, but people don't know who he is. They just accept him. He can do no wrong. And so I, as a documentarian by trade, wanted to bring that element of reality into the movie and portray somebody who society thought was incapable of doing these crimes.

So I don't know what really the answer is. I'm not saying don't trust anybody because that's a terrible lesson in life. But be forewarned because we live in an era of internet catfishing. We live in an era of even on the tamest end of the spectrum, and I'm guilty of it, we all curate an idealized version of our lives on social media. You look at my Instagram, you think that I'm just like, you know know whatever. We all do that. The truth of my life is very different than my Instagram postings. Those are highlights of the good moments. But on the more nefarious end of things you have people who are putting themselves

out on social media and other forms of internet communication who just are not who they say they are. And so how do you inoculate from becoming a victim? You've just got to be careful. I don't know where the line is. I'm not that smart. And I certainly am saying the lesson of the movie is not don't trust anybody, but the lesson of the movie is people better earn your trust. You need to be careful.

They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Laney Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite.

Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder

early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness,

and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met.

But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health this is season two of finding and this time if all goes to plan we'll be finding andy

you can listen to finding andy and finding natasha exclusively and ad free on wondery plus join wondery plus in the wondery app apple podcast or spotify we were actually talking earlier in the bar about the levels of psychopaths at CEO level is similar to the prison population. So I really hope you can, what are the top things you can spot? I want to know how I can spot a psychopath on the tube. That's my number one thing. I think that's exactly the point that we're making here. And it's one of those kind of things that gets tossed around with what they call a dark triad of personality characteristics as being a psychopath, narcissism and Machiavellianism.

But all of them have in common the inability to have genuine empathy to feel other people's pain. And in a way, that's what makes this character so compelling that because he doesn't naturally feel what other people are feeling he has studied them very, very carefully to be able to act in exactly the right way. To me, when he first goes home with Liz, he is charming. That's really understatedly charming, the way he behaves.

But that's a learned behaviour in his case and you won't spot that on the tube I'm afraid. Could you give us the top three characteristics of a psychopath? Oh only because I've spotted them up on Wikipedia I have to say because not many people write to me about psychopaths you probably know better than me but lack of empathy and being charming is one of them. What are the others? Well, narcissism.

This belief that it's all about you. The grandiosity of his storytelling. In Bundy's final days, Dr. Dorothy Lewis was studying the brains of psychopaths and came to the conclusion that Bundy actually was bipolar and extreme manic and extreme depression episodes. And it's that the manic phase is the charm phase and the depression phase is when the urge to kill comes over. So there's also obviously extreme mental illness. I don't know if you agree with that, but that was Dorothy Lewis's conclusion.

But I also, and I know this is controversial because one would say that a psychopath is incapable of love. If you subscribe to the classic definition of love, which is a selfless caring for another person's well-being, obviously somebody like Bundy is incapable of that. classic definition of love, which is a selfless caring for another person's well-being. Obviously, somebody like Bundy is incapable of that. But love comes in all shapes and forms, and sometimes love is very selfish. And I actually think he really did care for Liz. That's one of the driving questions of the movie, why didn't he kill her? Because I think in addition to being a psychopath, I believe that people compartmentalize bad behavior. You know, the pedophilic priest, as an example that I said before, and I think he craved normalcy. He craved

having a family unit. You know, I've spent a lot of time with the real Liz and the real Molly, and they're both so deeply confused about the experience still today, because he was a wonderful surrogate father to Molly for example she has wonderful memories of them together was it all play acting I don't know um it feels to me that he had a need for normal normalcy in his life and that he cared for them is it love I I you know it depends how you define love there's that also that little snapshot that you give us of Liz just before she meets him for the first time where she's sort of slightly wanting to hide who she is as well. Yeah.

And he brought the best out in her. You know, there's their lovemaking scene where they're drinking and he's dropping glasses. She was shy and introverted and he did something for her. That's why she was so deeply conflicted and why it took her so long to figure all this out. And one of my most fascinating experiences relating to this movie was that Lily Collins and I went to spend some time with the real Liz during pre-production. And Lily has never portrayed a living person before. So this was the first time in her research for a character she actually got to meet the person she was portraying. And you can imagine somebody like Liz,

who spent seven years living with Bundy during a killing spree of 30 people, that coming out of that experience, she would have a hard time trusting people. I mean, that's an understatement. I mean, I think that was the baggage, one of the many baggages that she took on into the rest of her life. So this initial meeting was one in which we had to earn her trust. And we had an incredible couple of days and the trust and Lily was fantastic she just she's a sincere uh intelligent I mean besides being incredibly talented I think Lily Collins is just a very very grounded very intelligent um you know terrific person in real life um and she was terrific with Liz right from the get-go in a very sincere way. And over time,

over this course of this visit, Elizabeth started to trust us more. And so she brought out these photo albums that she's never shared with anyone before, anyone in the media. I'm sure she shared them with friends. And it's these classic 1970s photos you know the square and stomatic with the date at the bottom in those three to a page plastic sleeved uh do you guys know what photos are anymore um you know i was a teenager in that period so it reminded me of my own um family photos and there's this happy family unit of a mother, a father figure, and a daughter. Pony rides, birthday parties, camping trips. I mean, photo after photo, year after year.

But the guy in the picture is Bundy. And it was so, the banality of all that and the normalcy of all that just, A, made me feel like we were on the right track and how we were telling the story and made me deeply understand just how these people operate and and why telling the movie from the victim's perspective uh was was a new and good way to tell this story then at a certain point she begin you know she was trusting us enough to pull out a box of Bundy's love letters to her. And there wasn't one. There were hundreds of love letters handwritten on yellow legal pad. You see a glimpse of it in the film where he's writing her a letter, but that came from the fact

that he really did write her these intense love letters, you know, written so hard that it wasn't just ink on paper, but the handwriting was deeply embossing the paper. And so Lily at a certain point says, do you mind if I read these aloud? Which, you know, at first I was like, oh, I hope that's an okay thing to ask. And Lily's instincts were 100% correct because Elizabeth said sure. And so she read the letters aloud, and it was just this incredible moment of just understanding how somebody because she's not a stupid woman you know she's a very smart woman the real Elizabeth Klopfer but there really weren't that many clues and that's the scary thing about these kinds of people. I'd never even thought of that I'd never thought about the the

writing of a love letter feels like such an emotional thing and I categorise Bundy as someone who's incapable of emotion, so it's such a conflict. I think we're actually going to open out for your questions. So if anyone has a question, please stick your hand in the air and we've got mic ladies running around. Anyone with a question? OK, can we get a mic front and centre, please? I can shout if you don't mind.

It's better for the recording if we use the mic if you don't mind thank you I just wanted to ask about the courtroom scenes that's a small element but John Malkovich is remarkable in the movie I'm guessing you based that on real recordings or whatever of the

courtroom sequences the trial but just maybe how you work with Malkovich and what your take on the judge's relationship with Bundy was, because he's almost pally with him in some very strange kind of way. Yeah. Well, first of all, working with John Malkovich, especially when you're doing your first scripted movie,

or I did a movie a long time ago, which I don't count. This is basically my first scripted movie as an adult filmmaker. When John Malkovich enters the set and John Malkovich is there, John Malkovich does whatever he wants. That's how you work with John Malkovich in all seriousness. I mean, he was fantastic. I mean, 95% of the dialogue in the trial sequence has come from verbatim transcripts. So he was playing the judge, and there's lots of archival footage of him.

So the real Edward Cowart was a heavyset, real southern guy. And so we decided we weren't going to try to mimic the actual judge. But it was very important to capture that relationship because, again, having spent a lot of time in the real criminal justice system, I find it astounding the latitude, the real life latitude that Bundy was given throughout all these legal proceedings. The fact that he wasn't shackled in Colorado and allowed to escape. The fact that after he escaped, he still wasn't, you know, the security against him was extremely lax.

You know, the fact that he was, after all that, allowed to represent himself at trial because he clearly wasn't competent to stand trial, and yet the judge ruled that he was competent not only to stand trial, but competent to be his own lead attorney. And, you know, I just wanted Malkovich to just play the reality that actually the real story captured, that this judge, for whatever reason, maybe it's because there were cameras in the courtroom, but I think it's because, you know, it was an era of white privilege and even the judge was kind of

deceived and manipulated, I think, by him. You know, obviously the judge did his job, but there was a latitude that was given that I still find amazing. And the other reason the movie focuses so much on that trial is that for me, you know, we talk about true crime and is there too much true crime and why are we so obsessed with true crime and true crime has never been more popular. I actually look at the Bundy trial as kind of the big bang of our current obsession because changing technology, meaning just a few months before the Bundy trial, many news stations were still doing live news coverage. Sorry, many news stations were still shooting news on 16 millimeter film, meaning there was no live coverage. But in the late 70s, there was this new thing called

electronic news gathering, you know, video that was new and satellite dishes. And so for the first time, live coverage of events was coming into the fore. And all this growing media interest in Bundy intersected with this new technology. And there was so much demand that the judge allowed cameras in the courtroom for the first time in American history. So for the first time in American history, millions of people were able to sit in the comfort of their living room and watch a murder trial, serial rape and murder, gavel to gavel as live entertainment. And I think that had a desensitizing effect on all of us. And to me, that was the precipitating event that has caused our obsession, because you can draw a straight line, in my opinion, from the first live coverage

of a trial, of a murder trial. Ten years later... O.J. Simpson, I would imagine. Well, that's 15 years since. Ten years later, you have his execution. And his execution was now covered by this new technology of this mobile satellite trucks with the dish. And, you know, the kind of satellite truck that, at least in our country, you know, the kind of satellite truck that at least in our country, you know, 50 of them show up to every crime scene now. There's the satellite truck and the camping out in front of the perpetrator's house. That was just starting to come into being

when Bundy was being executed. And so his execution then becomes this live television event. You see people rowdy outside and, you know, holding up signs. I find that very, despite he got his due, although I'm virulently anti-death penalty, but that's a whole other conversation. This movie's not about the anti-death penalty, believe me. And just to clarify, some people don't take it out of context. I'm anti-death penalty because I've done a lot of wrongful

conviction work. 20 people on death row have been exonerated just with DNA technology. So I believe, you know, you don't even have to have the moral argument about whether or not it's right or wrong to kill somebody. You don't even have to get there. And I've looked mothers in the eye who have lost their children who want vengeance, and I don't want to have that moral conversation with mothers who have lost their children. You don't even have to get there because any system that kills an innocent person means you just can't have the system anyway that's a that's a digression i just don't want my i just don't want my words about the death penalty in the context of this film to be taken out of context but you draw that line to the bundy execution and that's a live television event uh and then just a

few years later is the is the oj simpson trial which now you have the 24-hour news cycle, you have a proliferation of, in our, you know, in the United States, there's like 500 cable stations, and this, you know, that proliferation of television stations was just happening around the O.J. trial. So I think all of these things, you know, have fed into this obsession and this desensitization that these are stories about real people's tragedies and that's my beef with true crime i like to think the stuff i do you know has some element of social justice whether it's shining a light on wrongful conviction or whatnot but some some true crime i think is irresponsible you know and it is a good question is this disrespectful to

the victims it's a good debate to have anyway i don't think i answered your question sorry i think we probably have time for one more does anyone else have a question let's just pass the Anyway, I don't think I answered your question. You got the whole video. Sorry. I think we probably have time for one more. Does anyone else have a question? Let's just pass the mic down. That's nice and easy. Hi. Hi.

What sort of things did you and Zach do to prepare for him playing this role? Because obviously it's very different to stuff that he's done before. Also, did he ever meet Liz? He did not meet Liz. We just, you know, it was hard enough to arrange the Lily meeting, and that had some reason for it, so we didn't push for the... Oh, I'm sorry, she came to set. So she came to set during the bar scene, so she did meet Zach, but she didn't take that trip out.

He didn't take that trip out the way Lily did, but she came to set for... She wanted to come to set for the happy scenes, of which there there aren't that many so she came when we were shooting when they first met in the bar and they had a really nice interaction so sorry I forgot about that I'm still jet lagged so I apologize um and what was the other part of your question how did he prepare for the role well by some strange coincidence because I was not intending to do this movie the movie kind of fell into my lap while I was already finishing up my documentary series, Conversations with the Killer. Have anyone seen that, the Conversations with the Killer? So I had lots of proprietary archival footage,

and I was truly an expert in the subject, way beyond the normal knowing your subject before you start a scripted film. So I gave him lots of archival footage and lots of research material. Interestingly, we made the decision not to give Lily any of that. I forbade Lily from looking at any negative images. I told her not to go online, don't research Ted Bundy. And not until the hacksaw scene and the running down the hallway scene. At that point, I then literally right before we shot it, I shared with her some gruesome images so that she could then get into the head. But during the movie, I didn't

want her to think about all that horrible stuff. And I'm not a, you know, I guess because I'm a documentarian by trade, I just didn't feel like I wanted to do a lot of rehearsal, like classic rehearsal of going over lines and, you know, putting a scene up on its feet and all that kind of stuff. Plus it was, some people think that because Zach is in this movie, it was this massive budget. This was a movie that was shot in 28 days on a very small budget, which is in rural Kentucky in the dead of winter. So it was not an easy shoot,

and so we were not a lot of time for rehearsal anyway. But rehearsal for us really just meant sitting around the table and just talking about the meaning of scenes. And the thing that I kept emphasizing with Zach and Lily is that the, you know, I don't want you to be portraying and thinking that you're deceiving her. The love needs to feel real. You really, the relationship needs to feel real because I want the audience, as I said before, to take the same journey that Elizabeth takes that, wow, when he jumps out the window, I want that relationship to succeed because you feel it on screen. You feel a connection between the two. And so that was the thing we kept coming back to in our rehearsals.

Fantastic. I think we are out of time. I think we are. Hard hour at 10 o'clock. Absolutely. All right. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Absolutely wonderful.

And listeners at home, extremely wicked, Shock Me Evil and Vile, in the cinemas, and on Sky Cinema, May the 3rd. Go and see it. Thank you all so much for being here.

Thank you. It's been wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Cool. That's great. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you.

He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution.

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