Why in the world was a nice guy like Bill Pullman asked to play a monstrous killer — convicted of murdering his wife and son — in Lifetime’s ripped-from-the-headlines, two-part miniseries “Murdaugh Murders: The Movie”? “I kept thinking maybe it’s because they anticipated I’d look all right with ginger hair,” jokes the warm and genial Pullman during an early spring interview in Los Angeles. But a switch in hair color was just a small part of the actor’s deft transformation to evoke Alex Murdaugh, the South Carolina lawyer — and scion of a prominent legal family — who’s currently serving two consecutive life sentences in state prison for the 2021 double homicide. (He was also sentenced to 40 years for financial fraud.
) Not that Pullman’s dye job didn’t initially worry the veteran actor. “The movie’s makeup and hair heads took me to a [suburban Vancouver] strip mall where there was this beauty salon and I just thought, ‘Oh, my God, how did this happen?’” he says with a wry smile. “But they did an excellent job.
” Though he’s perhaps best known for warm-hearted or heroic roles in such movies as “Sleepless in Seattle,” “While You Were Sleeping” and “Independence Day,” a check of his 100 or so screen credits reminds that his career has been peppered with much darker parts. These include serial killers in both the BBC One/Starz series “Torchwood: Miracle Day” and Jennifer Lynch’s 2008 film “Surveillance,” as well as .
