Behind the mask: Family comedy helped Tom Bateman play a serial killer
To play a serial killer, Tom Bateman did all the meticulous research one would expect but he found the best answer in the most unlikely of places: a popular 1994 family comedy.
To play a depraved – yet charming – serial killer, Tom Bateman did all the meticulous research one would expect.
The British actor – and husband of Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley – read books. He watched documentaries. And he tried really hard to understand what on earth would make somebody intentionally harm another human being.
Ultimately though, Bateman found the best answer in the most unlikely of places: a popular 1994 family comedy.
“I’m going to quote one of my favourite movies, The Mask starring Jim Carrey, because ‘We all wear masks metaphorically speaking’,” he explains of playing the two-faced Matt in the black comedy Based on a True Story.
“All human beings, even sitting here now, there is an element of us presenting a version of ourselves to the world.”
The dashing actor already has some valuable experience when it comes to playing men wrestling with an uncontrollably violent side, having starred as the grandson of Robert Louis Stevenson’s infamous Dr Jekyll in the 2015 TV series Jekyll and Hyde.
“I think as an actor, every job you do sharpens some tool that you keep in your tool bag, and you pull out when, when you think, ‘Oh, this is kind of in that area again’,” he says of drawing on time as Jekyll to undertake his role as the murderous Matt.
Based on a True Story sees cash-strapped couple Ava and Nathan Bartlett (Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina) recruiting the charismatic serial killer Matt as a creative consultant on their true crime podcast to get the winning edge over the competition.
While the couple make Matt promise to draw a halt to his murder spree before going into partnership with him, they soon realise that you can’t always trust a psychopath. Heading into season two, things get even more complicated when Matt starts dating Ava’s younger sister, Tory (Liana Liberato).
It’s a darkly funny premise that pokes fun at society’s obsession with true crime podcasting in a similar way to Only Murders in the Building starring Steve Martin, Selena Gomez and Martin Short. There’s no doubt the huge popularity of true crime podcasts has translated into big business. As of March, there were more than 23,000 now available to listen to online.
According to Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) research released in February, more than 1 million people – mostly women – now listen to true crime podcasts in Australia alone. In America, the audience is even larger.
One of those avid listeners is Bateman’s Based on a True Story love interest (and potential future victim) Liberato.
An unabashed fan of the genre, Liberato says anytime there’s a new documentary or podcast released, “I’m the first person to tune in”.
“I don’t know why we’re so fascinated by them,” she says.
“Maybe it’s the mystery? And, as a woman, you’re just like, ‘I can’t believe that these things happen'.
“And it’s interesting to almost feel involved and invested in these stories and what happens to them.
“It is interesting how, at least in America, we’re obsessed with them over here, but it doesn’t seem like it’s the same in the UK where Tom is based.”
Bateman doesn’t listen to true crime podcasts but, like Liberato, he is intrigued by their popularity.
“The one thing we all have in common is death and taxes,” he says.
“We all know we’re going to die. So anything morbid, anything to do with death, does, in some way, excite, fascinate and scare us, because we know it is coming,” he shrugs.
“We just don’t know when.”
TV shows, books and films about serial killers and notorious murderers are constantly being churned out for the masses.
Ryan Murphy’s series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story starring Evan Peters spent seven weeks in Netflix’s global top 10 when it was released. It was so successful that it spawned this year’s sequel about brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez (who were convicted of killing their parents in 1989). Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, coupled with recent documentaries about the case, presented this infamous story through a modern lens, raising questions about the duo’s conviction. It’s possible the brothers’ life sentences could soon be overturned. A third season of the Monster anthology – starring Sons of Anarch’s Charlie Hunnam as Ed Gein and Laurie Metcalfe (Roseanne) as his mother – is in the works.
Of course, it’s not just true crime which piques people’s interest.
From Psycho’s Norman Bates to Silence of the Lambs’ Hannibal Lecter, fictional serial killers have also featured heavily in film and TV. But it’s only in recent years that these murderous characters have moved from being antagonists to heroes of the piece.
Case in point is You, which follows a handsome stalker played by Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgley and, of course, Dexter. The 2008 series starring Michael C Hall about a serial killer with a conscience, who channels his murderous instincts into bumping off those who deserve it, was rebooted in 2022 and a prequel, Dexter: Original Sin starts streaming on Paramount+ on December 13.
Bateman insists that he never wanted to make his killer in any way likeable. Nor did he – despite his research – ever put himself in Matt’s shoes to empathise with his narcissism.
“As an actor, one of the great joys is that you get to explore what it is to be human and come at it from a totally different angle, and to go ‘well, OK, fine, I’m going to play this person who does these things’,” he explains.
“It’s so far removed from me. What research can I do to get me to that place? And you go down some rabbit holes, let me tell you.”
When it comes to the popularity of entertainment about serial killers, Bateman believes it’s about people trying to make sense of something so “abhorrently awful”.
“I think for most human beings, they don’t understand how another person could do that to another human being” he continues.
‘The fact that someone can walk like us, look like us and sound like us but they are capable of committing this act, I suppose it might be, on some level, fascinating to try and understand how and what steps led that person to do this thing that (even if I had to) I just don’t think I could do.”
Based on a True Story is streaming now on Binge
Originally published as Behind the mask: Family comedy helped Tom Bateman play a serial killer
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