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NEW YORK, June 13 (UPI) -- DaVinci's Demons and Murder on the Orient Express actor Tom Bateman says he immediately wanted to play Matt the plumber in the mystery comedy, Based on a True Story, because he had never read a script quite like it. "What a crazy idea!" Bateman told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
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"I thought, 'Oh, God is this going to be a heavy piece?' But straight away, in the first few pages, you realize this show is really funny, it's really dark, it's really fast. It never once did what I expected it to do."
Peacock's eight-episode TV series follows Ava (Kaley Cuoco), a cash-strapped, California real-estate agent and her former tennis star husband, Nathan (Chris Messina), who hire handsome and charismatic Matt to fix their kitchen sink and then quickly realize he is the West Side Ripper.
Instead of calling the cops to report the serial killer's whereabouts like most people would, the couple blackmails Matt into making a true-crime podcast with them, hoping for a quick payday.
It turns out Matt is keen on the idea, however, and soon becomes a demanding collaborator who wants creative control of the enterprise because he is worried about his "brand."
"There's so many different sides to him and he is put in so many different positions that it was just so exciting," Bateman said.
"He was pretending to be this to someone, this to someone else, pretending to be totally cool and charming and sweet with people and then flip on a knife's edge and want to slit their throats," he added. "It was just fascinating to me and I relished every scene."
Although the show's premise is outrageous, it is also weirdly possible in 2023, when so many people are struggling.
Bateman said Based on a True Story strives to draw viewers by satirizing shared experiences and making them emotionally connect with the characters.
"We all know what it is to struggle with your rent. We all know what it is to feel overlooked and invisible. [The show] draws people into that and then really tries to up the ante of the situation," he added.
"Hopefully, you get in four or five episodes and go, 'How the hell did we get to a point where you stood, screaming at a serial killer and telling him not to pack his bags and leave Las Vegas?' It's so out there, but we all know the world we live in is a crazy place."
Bateman, who is British, said people in the United Kingdom aren't as invested in true- crime stories as Americans are, but he gets why so many people are preoccupied with the genre.
"I do understand it, academically, thinking about it and talking with people about what it is that makes us so obsessed with it," he said.
"My take on it is that it such a minefield to try and understand how a human being could actively want to and cause such pain and perhaps even kill someone. What is it that could drive someone to do that?"
He said he thinks it makes people look at themselves critically and wonder, "Could I ever do that?"
"It really challenges our moral confidence," Bateman said.
His research for the role show taught him that a lot of psychopaths and mass murderers are narcissistic, charming and well-dressed.
"They look like high functioning human beings, but they have something to them that is so abhorrent and unnatural," Bateman said. "I think, for me, that is why people are so fascinated by them and why they perhaps get glamorized."
Matt's friendship with Nathan before his true identity is discovered accurately reflects how some real killers stalk their prey by bonding with them about feelings of disappointment or insecurity.
"They have no empathy, but they will read what it is that makes you tick, what it is that they want you to be and they will be it," Bateman said. "That's how, basically, seduce people, get them in, how live their lives. That is what we see Matt do straight away."
