Initially, Betsy’s husband, Russ, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison seven years ago, but it was later overturned. He was found not guilty at his retrial in 2015.
Zellweger is serving as star and executive producer of The Thing About Pam, which is based on Dateline‘s true crime podcast. Josh Duhamel also joined the cast to play Joel Schwartz, Russ Faria’s defense attorney.
During a recent interview, Zellweger explained why she was so drawn to the case of Betsy Faria.
“It goes beyond just the peculiarity of the story or the audacity of the behavior of everybody involved,” she shared. “It’s sort of a glaring illustration of currently topical social issues.”
Zellweger, who is currently dating Ant Anstead, said she wanted to touch on how social bias and unconscious personal agendas come into play in the America justice system. “It also speaks to, I guess you could call it, white lady privilege in America,” she continued. “And also it kinda has an interesting look at the sad invisibility of middle aged women in America and how in the most bizarre circumstances it can work to someone’s advantage, as is probably the case in Pam Hupp’s story.”
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