Brittany Snow and Marin Ireland’s latest projects revisit two of the most haunting crimes in our history, through the unique female lens
It’s no secret that female audiences have catapulted the true crime genre into the spotlight. From podcasts to hit TV series, true crime is having its moment, and that moment is certainly not ending anytime soon. This fall, true crime fans will be gifted with two brand new shows, which also star two of BUST’s favorite leading ladies. Murdaugh Murders, premiering this fall on Hulu, stars Brittany Snow as Mandy Matney. Mandy is the award-winning journalist whose in depth research on the Murdaugh case inspired her to launch the Murdaugh Murders podcast, giving the Hulu show its namesake. Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy, premiering on October 16th on Peacock, stars The Umbrella Academy’s Marin Ireland as Elizabeth Piest, the mother of one of Gacy’s last victims. BUST had the chance to sit down with Snow and Ireland and discuss their upcoming projects, as well as all things fandom, taking risks in your career, and what it means to have agency in telling your story.
“I’m definitely in the category of women who love true crime,” states Snow. After appearing in a countless number of projects that have since become comfort movies for Gen Z women (Pitch Perfect, John Tucker Must Die, and Hairspray, to name a few) it feels like a natural and serendipitous transition for Snow to jump onto a project inspired by one of the women who created one of the most famous true crime podcasts of all time. “I was a huge fan of Erin Lee Carr, the producer of Murdaugh Murders. I’ve seen every single one of her documentaries,” said Snow, “I fangirled out when I met her on the Zoom for Murdaugh Murders. I just think that she’s so intelligent and she does everything with such a female lens. All of her movies are very much geared towards representing women in the right way and finding justice for women’s stories.” Snow also offered her thoughts on the connection between women audiences and true crime, “I think as women, we have this sort of feeling when we watch true crime, specifically true crime that has happened against women, where we feel united in a joint effort to understand and support each other and share the story of a woman that we feel connected to. I also think there’s something very psychologically interesting about women trying to solve mysteries and puzzle pieces because it makes us feel more alive, or like we’re using our brain for good. I know that I find comfort in finding out the answer to the murder mystery before the show or the documentary or the podcast ends. Somehow I’m utilizing a part of my brain that makes me feel safe, and also I don’t have to think about other things in my life.”
While Snow is a fan of the genre, it wasn’t just her love of true crime that drew her to taking on the project, she was also specifically drawn to portraying Mandy Matney herself. “I’ve never played a real person before, especially not someone who is alive and going to be on set as a producer. I knew the pressure that was going to create, but I was also open to that challenge because I wanted to do an homage to her, an interpretation of the essence of her, and not portray an imitation. In other words, Mandy being there was really interesting for me, because I needed to make sure that she felt connected to what I was doing, but also didn’t feel like I was trying to be her in any way.” Snow went on to describe the feeling of pride she felt to take on a story like Mandy’s. “Mandy as a person is so layered, and fascinating, and she’s such a feminist and a strong voice not only in her field, but also for women in general.” Snow went on to say, “That act of not wanting to let her down and tell her story in the best way that I could was a challenge I was open to, but also a little scared by. But usually when I’m scared, it means I should do it.”
For a show like Murdaugh, one that’s based off of one of the most popular murder podcasts of all time, it’s safe to assume that people can easily get caught up in the plot of it all, and forget that this was a real tragedy that was inflicted against real people. As Snow describes, the cast and crew took extra measures to be sure every day felt grounded, and kept the victims’ stories at the center of their work. “I really give credit to Michael Fuller, our show runner, and, our producer, Erin Lee Carr, who were at the forefront of the whole story and constantly reminded everyone daily that these were real people, and this is a real thing that happened.” As Snow goes on to state, “We’re not being salacious with this. We’re just doing the brass tax facts of what happened. I think that sometimes when you’re on a set and you’re trying to act and have these performances, you forget that these are people with real feelings and the families are still grieving in that way.” Snow recalled her first day on set, a first day that was particularly heavy, and helped to set the tone for the remainder of filming. As she described, “The first day on set, we started with a scene that I was in. I hate being in the first scene of the new show, so nervewracking.” Snow’s nerves were quickly replaced with a feeling of both astonishment and heaviness when Michael and Erin informed the crew of the significance of the day. “Michael and Erin told the entire crew that it was actually the anniversary of the day that they found Mallory Beach’s body. So we all circled around and said a prayer and it was very surreal. I think that really brought it home that we were doing a story in honor of her, and we wanted her to be at the forefront of everything that we were doing. I mean, it was so easy because [that day] was something I could draw from, that was completely right in front of us all the time.” Mallory Beach was the first victim of the Murdaugh Murders, killed by Paul Murdaugh in a boating accident in which Murdaugh was under the influence. Snow went on to express her gratitude for Erin Lee Carr in centering the victims in this story including Paul Murdaugh and Maggie Murdaugh, Alex Murdaugh’s son and wife who he murdered in 2021. Snow stated, “Erin, who is just a total genius, and I love her so much, she was very much the one spearheading the idea that even though Paul and Maggie, in a way, were seen in documentaries as misunderstood and complicated people, they were still victims, too, and we needed to give them the honor that they deserved as well. You really see that in Johnny Berchtold and Patricia’ Arquette’s performances. They’re played with so much heart and understanding, and I’m so appreciative that they went that direction with the show, because these are the stories of two people that need to be told as well.”
While not exactly true crime, Brittany Snow is not a newbie to the world of crime thrillers. Snow’s role as Sophie O’Neil in the hit Netflix thriller-drama The Hunting Wives feels like a natural extension of the kind of projects Snow has taken on—ones that resonate deeply with women. What’s especially exciting about The Hunting Wives, which premiered this summer on Netflix, is that it was created through a distinctly female lens with a predominantly female cast and crew. That includes intimacy scenes, which were entirely blocked and filmed by women—a particularly relevant topic given recent industry conversations around safe and respectful sets.
“A huge reason why I signed on to The Hunting Wives was because it was female-led. We had an all female directing crew and we had a female camera operator.Pretty much everything, in terms of our blocking for those intimate scenes, was done by representation of women who had done that specific act before. There was never this lens of ‘this would be cool, or interesting to see on camera, or to get any shock value,’ It was true to life of what people felt and they have done in that situation. Even though we’re in this sort of satire-campy ride, the element of that really intrigued me because I wouldn’t want to do anything that was for the male gaze, or for any man to fantasize about, that’s not why we did this show. We did this show for women, by women, and that was told to me from the very beginning. I knew I was going to have a voice within these scenes.” Snow praised the showrunners and crew for creating an on-set environment that was particularly woman-centered. “I did feel really safe between our directors and our showrunner Rebecca Cutter and Lizzie Talbot, our intimacy coordinator who is just a boss. She does all of Bridgerton.” Similarly to how fear inspired Snow to take on the role of Mandy Matney, the challenge and vulnerability that came with the intimacy scenes of The Hunting Wives was a feeling she decided to lean into. “Because Talbot worked on Bridgerton, we were going into Hunting Wives kind of aware that we were going to be in that vein of intimate scenes, which I was terrified by, but you know, it’s a different type of thing for me and something that I’d never done before, so I was excited to try it.”
This fall’s true crime offerings stand out for placing women and survivors at the heart of their stories. Fresh off of the box-office hit The Materialists, Marin Ireland sat down with BUST to discuss her relationship to true crime and her approach to portraying Elizabeth Priest in Devil In Disguise. Ireland first shared that a lot of her performances pull from the skills she learned as a stage actress at the beginning of her career.“When I started out, the landscape of TV and film looked really different, and I didn’t really see myself on TV screens. So I kind of thought I would do theater work and maybe some indie movies or something,” stated Ireland. “It wasn’t really until TV started to change in the early 2000s that I thought there was actually space for me in that universe.” Though Ireland didn’t necessarily plan on starting in theater, or later leaving it, she’s thankful for the skills she learned that she can now bring to layered, more nuanced roles like Elizabeth Priest. “Starting out on the stage, what I’ve learned is you have to kind of be responsible for the storytelling. I think a lot of people who don’t stage are afraid of the fact that you can’t do it again in case you mess up. But on stage, you kind of embrace the mistakes. You think to yourself, ‘well, what can I learn from that?’ Even if I forget a line, I think, ‘Well, why am I forgetting that line? It’s because I haven’t really made that connection from the line before to that line in my mind.’ So I really zero in on that. You learn things by just kind of staying present and seeing what mistakes teach you. So for instance, if I’m shooting something, I don’t stop unless they call it, kind of like a boxer. Even if I forget my lines, I just try to find my way to it, or if I drop something, or something falls over, I just kind of play through and see what I can find.”
Years of training in both the theater and on screen led to the New York Times naming the actress “one of the great drama queens of the New York stage,” and as Elizabeth Priest, Ireland brought her stage skills with her.
Ireland described the personal connection that made her especially excited to join the cast of Devil In Disguise. “First of all, my friend Michael Chernus who I’ve known for 20 years is playing Gacy. He’s a genius, and I knew if he was attached to it, then it was going to be good, and I knew it was going to have a really good Ethos behind it.” While the actress was happy there would be familiar faces attached to the project, she was also vigilant in making sure the series would pay a respectful homage to the lives lost by the killer. “I think my biggest concern was how the show was going to be handled, especially because the victims in this particular circumstance were mostly boys and young men. There is such a crazy sort of sensationalism around the Gacy story with the clown stuff, and you know, there’s so many elements to it that could be handled in a particular kind of way. I was nervous about that, and so I really had to have a conversation with Patrick McManus, the showrunner, about the energy around the show. He was the person who told me that we really want to make this about the victims.” With so many true crime series of dating leaning teetering on exploitation, Ireland wanted to make sure she was telling the right story when it came to Gacy. “This story is not ‘let’s get into the mind of Gacy,’ because people have tried to do that for years and you can’t get inside that person’s mind, it’s also not even worth it. We’re actually trying to humanize the victims and focus on them.” Ireland also took a moment to describe the enthusiasm she had in portraying Elizabeth Priest specifically, “My character is the mother of the last victim. Partially because of her privilege being upper middle class in that neighborhood, she felt she could just walk into the police station and say, “This isn’t acceptable,” whereas other people in the community didn’t really feel like they could do that. She really led to him being caught because she didn’t give up.”
While landing a leading role in a high-profile Peacock series might be any actress’s dream, Ireland approaches every project with purpose. “There’s been a lot of intentionality in the projects I choose,” she shared. “It’s always about wanting to help tell a specific story or work with people whose values align with mine.” That sense of meaning was especially strong with Devil in Disguise. “Patrick’s passion really stood out to me—and honestly, the whole writer’s room. When they were on set, you could feel how much heart and soul they poured into it, which isn’t always the case with true crime.”
As for Ireland’s thoughts on why women are so drawn to true crime, the answer is still up in the air. “I don’t tend to watch a lot of true crime, but my mother is obsessed.” stated Ireland, “I think for my mother, she likes that they often get the bad guy in the end. And that there’s something satisfying about the fact that you can put the pieces together and solve the problem and then it’s resolved.”
As Murdaugh Murders and Devil in Disguise prepare to hit screens this fall, both series not only offer gripping storytelling, but also center the voices, visions, and values of women, on screen and behind the scenes. With actresses like Brittany Snow and Marin Ireland at the helm, these projects remind us that true crime, at its most powerful, doesn’t just retell tragedy, it honors the stories that demand to be heard.
Images Courtesy Of: Disney, Daniel Delgado; Peacock & Hulu,
Produced By Ucp, A Division Of Universal Studio Group
