Chelsea Rebecca: Hi Johnny! Thanks so much for sitting down with me. Right now, you’re currently starring in the limited series “Murdaugh: Death in the Family” on Hulu and Disney+ as Paul Murdaugh. This is kind of a change of pace for you- walk us through your acting background.
Johnny Berchtold: My first paid acting gig, I think, was at a haunted house being a scare actor. That really set me on my course of challenging myself as an actor. I've been saying I think one of the greatest acting educations you can have is in a haunted house, because with scare acting, it is fully immersive. And I think it can only make an actor better because it gives you a new perspective- sometimes you get to tap into things that aren't even human, maybe animalistic or primal. And it's really, really fun.

CR: Did you have an interest in true crime already before joining this show? I always hesitate to say true crime fan. Because I hate that phrasing.
JB: I agree. It's not right. It's like a fascination. Which I think is the whole thing about true crime, is the fascination with what humans can do and become. So, yes. I was tapped into the true crime genre. I just think it is the ultimate reflection of humanity. We watch those things and we go, well, I wouldn't do that, or this is what I would do, or I can't believe someone would do that. As an actor, you're looking to ask those questions with roles that you take on. You're trying to crack open someone's motivation or someone's emotional truth. And so, with a show like “Murdaugh”, that's the entire thing that we were doing. We were trying to find that emotional truth in such a wild story.

CR: What's the process of preparing to play someone like Paul Murdaugh, where he is very much a real person as compared to a completely fictional character?
JB: Yeah, it's challenging. There's a sense of responsibility to make a well-rounded human being. With any acting job that you take, you want to understand who you're playing and empathize, if you can, with the person you're playing. And with Paul, he's such a hurricane of mixed emotions. He did something that had real life consequences. Inexcusable. And at the same time, he was the victim and something terrible happened to him that he didn't deserve. And so really bridging that gap, trying to understand how he got to that point and what he did with that afterwards was really important. And, you know, just not making a caricature of someone. Jason Clarke said something really great to me in the beginning that made me relax a little bit, and it was that we weren't trying to make impressions of these people but rather capture their essence. To me, that was great because then I got to collect things that I learned about him for my acting toolbox that I then could use for my version of Paul. But yeah, it's still, it's a dark place to be because you know how the story goes, but he didn't really know how the story goes. You have to sort of just focus on what we're doing that day and, try to get yourself in the mindset, but not too deep, you know?

CR: I imagine a lot of that character work was familiarizing yourself with the larger culture that the Murdaugh’s come from?
JB: When I got the job and I was doing my prep work on Southern culture, I was able to trick my social media algorithm into thinking I was a young man in South Carolina. When I opened social media, I was being fed what someone in South Carolina, even that specific region would be fed. And I'm watching guys on their farms practice their turkey calls, talk about their trucks in the accent that I was actively trying to learn. And it made me realize this is a brand new tool for an actor or a creative to use.

CR: How were you able to trick your algorithm? Did you start a new account or something?
JB: No, I did it on my own account, which I'm still trying to rework my algorithm. Lots of trucks. I ended up getting a truck after “Murdaugh”. I really did. I'm being fed trucks a lot. In researching the story and learning about the culture, I would actively seek out content creators or search specific things that were unique to the region that then I would watch and interact with those creators. My morning ritual was I would drink my coffee and watch TikTok Lives of these dudes just like talking about southern life and what’s new with the goat on their farm and who’s going turkey hunting. And it was just so cool because I would interact with them and just learn so much. Yeah, it just made it so much more immersive for me, which was like a new tool that I got to explore that I didn’t realize was possible.

CR: Has this show changed your relationship with the true crime genre, and how we view that as entertainment?
JB: It taught me a lot about the importance of nuance when consuming stories like this. It has become such an entertainment focused genre where you can get so caught up in the “story” of it all and have these opinions of these people as if they were characters from the comfort of your couch, like the same way you watch a movie. But when you are on a project like this, and you are in a scene inspired by real moments that happened, you can't help but be reminded. And especially with this project and this crew, there was never a moment when anyone forgot that.

CR: This conversation is why it fascinates me when I've met people who enjoy true crime, who then say, oh, but I can't watch horror movies.
JB: So bizarre. Because for me, it can be the total opposite. At least with horror movies, I can go, okay, this is just coming from someone’s insane brain, and it’s cool as hell. These are actors. You can remind yourself of that. Still get caught up in it all, of course.

CR: For anyone maybe skeptical of a show like this, because there have been so many true crime adaptations where we've adapted these stories into a narrative format or a serialized format, what would you maybe say about “Murdaugh: Death in The Family” is something that really stands out to you, and that makes it makes it different?
JB: Well, I think a lot of times when we adapt true crime stories, it's because of the story, there's so much to it and they're so massive and explosive and you have these massive headline moments. For us, we approach it like a family drama, which was really unique because we got to see microscopically what this family was like in between those massive events, because the story is so expansive too, and it covers so much ground, so many years of scandal. Like, what was interesting to us was what made those people tick, and how they interacted at the dinner table, or what was their reaction when they would find out news, and they're sitting on the couch watching TV. Going back to why people have a fascination with true crime, the most human thing to me was those quieter moments, and that's how you can sort of come to your own understanding of how something like this could happen.