Annaleigh Ashford: 'Happy Face' explores unique trauma of a serial killer's daughter

NEW YORK, March 20 (UPI) -- Tony-winning actress Annaleigh Ashford says she wanted to star in Happy Face because the TV drama offers a fresh spin on the true-crime genre by telling the story from the perspective of the perpetrator's child.

Premiering Thursday on Paramount+, the series is based on the true story of Keith Hunter Jesperson, aka the Happy Face Killer (Dennis Quaid), who remains imprisoned for life for raping and murdering eight women in the early 1990s.

Author and podcaster Melissa Moore, the eldest of Jesperson's three children, served as an executive producer on the project, which co-stars James Wolk, Tamera Tomakili, Khiyla Aynne and Benjamin Mackey.

Ashford plays a fictionalized version of Melissa, a married mother of two children, who is reluctantly drawn back into her father's orbit after decades of estrangement.

"We are coming from Melissa's point of view and, in real life, Melissa used this terrible, terrible trauma and act of violence that rippled out to not only the victims' families but also her family, as well," Ashford, 39, told UPI in a Zoom interview Tuesday.

"While she could never, ever right this wrong that her father committed, she used this bad for something good and has become an advocate for not only the victims' families, but also the families of the perpetrators, having the bigger and uncomfortable conversation about how both sides of the courthouse are struggling and are truly traumatized for generations to come by acts of violence," Ashford explained.

"It was exciting to tackle and I was really struck by her active service and I wanted to help tell that story."

The TV version kicks off with Melissa, who works as a makeup artist for a talk show, phoning her father in prison and demanding he stop writing letters to her and her kids, who don't know about his crimes and think he died before they were born.

Melissa is forced to see Keith again, however, after he makes this a condition in a call to her bewildered boss promising to reveal new details about previously undisclosed victims and possibly giving closure to families who don't know what happened to their loved ones.

Ashford said that when viewers first meet Melissa, she's "in hiding."

"She has a lot of secrets and the thing about secrets is they always find the light," she added.

"You can't keep them in the dark forever and, so, I would say she's not being her authentic self. She's not being true to herself and she is kind of lost in the shadow of her own trauma."

As more people discover the truth about who her dad is, Melissa has to face the past.

"We watch her come to terms with not only her family's history, her family's trauma, but also the guilt and shame that she carries and the deep empathy that she has for his victims and the families of those victims," Ashford said.

The series shows Melissa conflicted because she intellectually accepts her father is a villain, but she also has fond memories of him from when she was a little girl.

"The real-life Melissa really struggled with the person that she knew before this act of heinous violence and the person that she knows after," Ashford said.

"The person that she knew before that was just her dad, somebody that she loved, who she looked up to, who took care of her and it makes you question, as a human in this world, 'What would you do if you had a family member, somebody you loved, if you had a parent, a sibling, a partner, or even a child who committed a terrible act of violence?'" she said.

"How would you reconcile the love that you had for this person before they committed that violence with the person that they are to you after, and the memory of that person. It's unimaginable," she added. "To me, as an actor, that was a really compelling conflict to get to play."

The story also looks at what makes someone a monster.

"Is it nature? Is it nurture? And, if it is nature, is it you? Will your children get that? Will they inherit this threat of psychosis? This threat of violence? Whatever that is. Could that be a part of you, too?" Ashford said. "That question is really scary."

Once Melissa is outed as the daughter of the Happy Face Killer, her family unexpectedly is dragged into the spotlight and her once-peaceful home is filled with tension.

"Not only does it open Pandora's box for her in her life as a public person, but it also opens a whole new world of conflict for her and her family," Ashford said. "What does this mean for her children? What does this mean for her relationship with her husband?"

The actress said sharing the screen with Quaid was like playing "an incredible match of tennis."

"He was so game, so ready to play. What I think is really unique about his take and really thoughtful and makes the show even more dynamic is that he's vulnerable," Ashford said about her co-star, who is seldom cast as a bad guy.

"He's terrifying and you believe that he did this heinous act, but we also still believe that he was her dad," she added. "You can believe that she loved him. Is it manipulation? Is it love? That's the question. It's probably a little of both."

Ashford is best known for her roles in the TV series Masters of Sex, Bad Education and B Positive, as well as the Broadway shows Wicked, Legally Blonde, Kinky Boots, You Can't Take It With You and Sweeney Todd.