Just because Dennis Quaid played serial killer Keith Hunter Jesperson in Happy Face doesn’t mean he wants to know what the convicted murderer thinks of his performance.
“I don’t care what he thinks about it, to tell you the truth,” Quaid, 70, exclusively told Us Weekly before the Paramount+ show premiered on Thursday, March 20. “I hope he doesn’t get to see the show because I’m sure he would be interested to see the show. He gets bored in prison.”
Quaid’s primary focus was properly portraying Jesperson’s daughter Melissa Moore‘s lived experience. (She is played by Annaleigh Ashford in the series.)
“The interesting part for me was this father-daughter relationship and the way Happy Face came about true crime, which so many people — including myself — are interested in,” he noted. “Because we wonder how people could do this to other people? Then they try to hide it and you get to play detective to figure it out.”
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He continued: “That goes on on our show too because there’s other murders to solve. Melissa knows the minds of killers herself so she knows what to look for.”
Happy Face is largely inspired by Moore’s “Happy Face” podcast and her 2009 autobiography Shattered Silence. Before she was an executive producer on the true crime drama, Moore went public as Jesperson’s daughter. The inmate murdered at least eight women during the early 1990s.
“I like playing real people because true stories are stranger than fiction,” Quaid told Us. “You can’t make this stuff up. But usually I like to meet the real-life person if they’re alive because I want to play it from their point of view. But with this, I didn’t want to meet him.”
Quaid wasn’t interested in visiting Jesperson, 69, in Oregon State Penitentiary, adding, “He’s in a hole in a prison, which is exactly where he should be. I didn’t want to give him any kind of satisfaction or excitement. In this tale, it’s really from his daughter’s point of view. I think she knows him better than he knows himself.”
The actor praised Moore for being the “hero” of her own story. “The way that she reached out to the victim’s families and also other families of serial killers is in a way of therapy for herself,” Quaid continued. “It is a very courageous thing to do.”
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While speculating on Jesperson’s motivation, Quaid questioned how self-image played a role, saying, “It’s as simple as that. The rest is just a bunch of bulls— he makes up to make himself feel better.”
Quaid might not need a stamp of approval from the subject of the material but he did receive one from his onscreen daughter, Ashford, 39.
“Dennis is one of our greatest actors of all time. So it was a thrill to watch him inhabit this person,” she shared with Us. “The thing that was so unique about his portrayal and his take on the characters is that he is disgusting, disgraceful, angry, crazy and all those things. But he’s also still my dad. He’s also still vulnerable and he still wants love from me. That is really uncomfortable to watch as an audience. It was uncomfortable for me as a character and thrilling for me as an actor.”
New episodes of Happy Face stream Thursdays on Paramount+.
With reporting by Travis Cronin
