0:04

When I essentially shot Susan Berman

0:06

and I'm at her house leaning

0:09

down, talking to her or

0:11

listening to her cold breath,

0:14

I didn't have the gun in my hand. I

0:17

didn't have any blood on me. There was plenty

0:19

of blood in the scene. This

0:21

is Paul Blumenthal. He played Bob Durst in

0:23

the recreations of The Jinx Part II. When

0:26

talking to him, you get the idea that he

0:28

really got into it. I

0:31

was leaning on the floor against

0:33

her and at one point holding her

0:35

up. I thought

0:37

I did it. You know, I'm not quite

0:39

sure if that was fantasy or reality at

0:42

that point. Hi,

0:49

I'm Zach Stewart-Pontier, one of the filmmakers

0:51

behind HBO's The Jinx. Welcome

0:53

to the final episode of The Official

0:56

Jinx Podcast, a show where

0:58

we took you behind the scenes of

1:00

Andrew Drecki's documentary series that became a

1:03

real-life murder investigation. Today,

1:07

Andrew and I are pulling back the curtain

1:09

on our filmmaking process. We're going

1:12

to talk with some of the behind the scenes

1:14

magicians who worked with us to make The Jinx

1:16

Part II into the Emmy-nominated series that it is.

1:19

We're going to dive into the sets, the

1:21

wardrobe, the sound, and how

1:23

we blended it all together to create what

1:25

showed up on screen. Andrew,

1:32

it's our last time in the studio. I think

1:34

that's right. We've talked a ton

1:37

about the story of Robert Durst. We've

1:40

talked about things that didn't make it

1:42

into the show. We

1:45

haven't talked a lot about the craft

1:47

of actually making the show. I

1:50

think a show with this

1:52

scope that takes years to make, obviously,

1:55

is the product of not just a

1:57

lot of individual great- artists

2:00

and crafts people, but is also

2:02

the product of the kind of

2:05

spree decor between all the department

2:07

heads. We did a lot

2:09

of zooms to sit with them and say,

2:11

this is what these recreations are for, this

2:13

is what they're about. By the way, here's

2:15

the big picture stuff on the whole show,

2:17

right? Talking to them about what this part

2:19

two of the jinx was all about. Right,

2:23

but by department heads, you mean

2:25

people like our production designer, Jenny Burton, DP,

2:28

director of photography, Davey Jakes, David

2:31

Jacobson, and costume designer,

2:33

Cassandra Shue. I mean,

2:36

there's so many talented people worked on

2:38

this show. Yeah. We're gonna hear from

2:40

some of them today, and also Paul

2:42

Blumenthal, the actor who played Bob, who's

2:44

always fun to talk to. That's

2:46

exciting. Like a reunion show. So

2:50

who are we gonna talk to? We're

2:52

gonna talk to Jenny, who's the production

2:55

designer. Yes, Jenny was incredible. I

2:57

mean, she and her team, they do

2:59

great work. She's able to look at

3:01

these photos of stuff that we're trying

3:03

to recreate, figure out what the

3:05

room should look like, build the room, and

3:07

then find all the stuff that should go

3:10

into the room. Everything from

3:12

a desk lamp that's period 1980 to

3:15

a notebook that she had to

3:17

redesign with the right stationery to

3:19

match another old grainy picture. The

3:22

attention to detail was out

3:24

of this world. You know,

3:26

Jenny is the most positive

3:29

person ever on a set.

3:31

You can say to Jenny, like, hey, I know we said

3:33

that we needed three people to

3:35

walk up a hill, but really what we need is

3:37

27 people to cut

3:40

a diamond in the back of a Rolls Royce, and she'll

3:42

say, I got it. And

3:44

you realize, like, you're giving her completely

3:46

conflicting instructions. We're changing things because we're

3:48

editing the film while we're... And

3:51

Jenny is just always yes. She's like, yes,

3:53

we can do that. She's never like, you

3:55

people are crazy, which is, you know, something

3:57

we've heard occasionally. I

4:05

am Jenny Burton and I was the production designer on

4:07

part two of The Jinx. My

4:09

role would be to work with the director

4:11

and the DP to talk about the look

4:13

of the film, to develop it

4:15

together on how we perceive the look

4:18

of the film. And I would do drawings of

4:20

sets, including the dimensions, and then

4:22

have the sets actually built and created

4:24

and decorated and I oversee every

4:26

bit of it. One

4:28

of the more interesting sets I think we created

4:30

was Bob's hotel room, right? That's

4:33

the one when he's hiding out in

4:36

New Orleans, you see it in episode one,

4:38

but we knew that we'd be cutting from

4:40

these kind of search photos

4:42

to the recreation. So

4:45

it was really important that every detail

4:47

is right. Yeah, that one

4:50

I particularly loved because there were some

4:52

photographs, but of course it was again

4:55

so far ago that the hotel

4:57

had been renovated two times over.

5:00

For instance, it had a very particular

5:02

carpet with a pattern in it

5:04

and a particular green and it

5:07

was impossible to recreate. So I made

5:09

a stencil and had the carpet painted

5:11

with a stencil that I drew to

5:13

match what I could determine was the

5:16

correct size of the pattern

5:18

from the photographs. So

5:21

we went pretty deep. We talked about

5:23

the hotel room, which we did build,

5:25

but the lobby, tell us about the

5:27

lobby, right? We were able to take

5:29

a hotel in New Jersey, I

5:32

believe, and turn it into a hotel

5:34

in New Orleans. I had like, you

5:36

know how sometimes hotels have like artwork

5:39

that conveys the city. So I

5:41

had artwork with pictures of Bourbon

5:43

Street made and obviously the signs

5:45

that say, you

5:47

know, New Orleans Marriott. The flyers,

5:49

that was a genius. You

5:51

know, Iraq with flyers were all the things you can do

5:53

in New Orleans, tourist things.

5:56

We made our own original flyers for

5:58

that. Right. tile

8:00

on the floor is about a foot square. So

8:02

you can kind of start to use

8:04

those measurements to create a pattern for

8:06

the set that is somewhat realistic. Something

8:08

interesting about the chairs is that they're

8:11

actually prison chairs, like the kind of

8:13

things that prisoners sit on and they

8:15

can attach their manacles to the, you

8:18

know, to the bases of them. So that

8:20

they were very particular kind of made for

8:22

prison. So we ended up thinking the best

8:24

solution was to just build them from scratch.

8:26

And I remember, like, I think

8:28

only four of them were strong enough to

8:31

sit on, right? Yeah, exactly. There's room full

8:33

of chairs and no place to sit. Don't

8:35

sit on those. Another thing I

8:38

remember about that set is that we

8:40

weren't building a ceiling, right? And

8:42

it was all about how tall the walls had to

8:44

be. Right. We know, like in

8:46

filmmaking, one of the things that we talk

8:49

about at the beginning is camera angles, right?

8:51

And one of the things that we thought

8:53

was the most important for this set was

8:55

overhead shots. So ordinarily, you might

8:57

make a set wall a foot or two

9:00

taller than a wall

9:02

is in real life. And then you don't

9:04

really need a ceiling. You know, the walls

9:06

kind of just drift off and you don't

9:08

know your eye doesn't perceive them as being

9:11

any taller than a regular room. But then

9:13

if you went overhead, right over the tops

9:15

of the walls and you were that far

9:17

away from a tabletop, you would be able

9:20

to tell how many feet above you were.

9:22

So we had to pick a nice sweet

9:24

spot where we could seem intimately involved in

9:26

some of these beautiful shots, like Bob's getting

9:29

a cup of coffee and the coffee is

9:31

swirling in the cup. And there are some

9:33

really great moments that heighten the drama of

9:35

this moment that are really beautiful. So

9:42

we've talked a little bit about how we build

9:45

the sets. And

9:47

obviously in the show, the

9:51

show moves seamlessly

9:53

back and forth between

9:55

the recreation and the

9:57

archives. don't

14:00

see faces in these recreations normally. So we

14:02

see everything else, right? We're on the back

14:04

of somebody's head, but you're also seeing like

14:07

the collar of their shirt. And

14:09

there's the detail like of matching

14:12

a photograph, right? Bob's got a

14:14

specific shirt on or

14:16

a jumpsuit on that we're trying to

14:18

match exactly. Or, you know,

14:21

a time period. We have like an 80s

14:23

scene that takes place in an office building

14:25

with 20 people in it. And

14:27

all the costumes have to be kind of

14:30

perfect because we're going to be featuring little

14:32

tiny details of all the various clothing. And

14:35

the costume designer Cassandra Shue

14:38

did like an incredible job. For

14:40

sure. Hi,

14:42

I'm Cassandra and I am

14:45

a costume designer and I'm

14:47

there to dress everyone

14:49

that you see on camera. What

14:54

kind of challenges go into doing something like

14:57

this? The Bob and Debbie wedding photo. Yes.

15:00

Was like one of the first fake challenges.

15:02

And that was particularly difficult because

15:07

it was in the late 90s. It's

15:11

actually, it's like the early 2000s, but

15:13

yeah, pretty much. But she was wearing a

15:15

suit that was like more 80s. And

15:20

then it's

15:22

like the suit shape. That's what we're

15:24

gravitating towards like in order to recreate

15:26

it. But, you know, Andrew

15:28

from like a director's

15:30

perspective was

15:34

focused on other things and he was obsessed with the

15:37

buttons. Yeah,

15:40

I think we're lucky enough to have an actual

15:42

photograph that was taken moments after Bob and Debbie

15:44

are married. This is like the least romantic wedding

15:47

photo of

15:49

all time. And if you get

15:51

that right, then you really feel like

15:54

you're in the moment with them. Yeah,

15:56

absolutely. And we scour

15:58

the internet. I scoured every

16:00

thrift shop my assistant and I in

16:04

Brooklyn and in Manhattan. So we

16:06

found the best base possible. And

16:08

we found these giant

16:10

buttons in the bottom of a

16:12

barrel at this shop. And like

16:15

they were the last eight

16:18

buttons. And I'm not joking. It was

16:20

like crazy how this all came together.

16:22

And nobody knew. But we actually

16:24

dropped one of the buttons and these buttons were made

16:26

out of like, I don't

16:28

even know what. And it shattered. And

16:31

we had to like super glue it back together.

16:34

But it ended up looking perfect.

16:37

That dress. I mean, it really did sell it. I

16:40

saw the final shot and like going from

16:42

the footage to the photo, it was like

16:44

seamless and it was amazing and beautiful. Let's

16:47

talk about Bob a little more. What

16:49

was it like to match his costumes? I

16:52

think Bob in his

16:55

prison uniform was

16:57

really interesting. And

17:00

I think real life

17:03

Bob wanted to present

17:05

himself in this very specific way

17:07

to the courtroom and to

17:10

to maintain that sort of

17:12

same feel for

17:15

all our actor. I think we

17:18

had to size up everything.

17:20

I think everything he wore was two

17:23

or three times larger than his

17:26

person. And we did that purposefully. So

17:28

what you're alluding to just for the

17:30

audience is that Bob would wear oversized

17:33

clothing to sort of make

17:35

himself look smaller. And Paul was a little

17:37

bigger than Bob was. So you had to

17:39

even you had to achieve that effect. You

17:41

had to even go bigger. Yeah, we definitely

17:43

scaled up a lot. And I

17:47

remember like the prison jumpsuit. I think we had to

17:49

like. We had

17:51

a bit of a tough time finding

17:53

like the triple X in order to

17:55

make him look super small

17:57

and. You

18:00

may see it. Was it sort of

18:02

interesting to see it all come together?

18:05

Was it... Yeah, what was

18:07

it like to watch? You know,

18:09

I grew up watching, like, Forensic

18:11

Files, which I loved, but

18:13

those recreations are definitely not

18:15

on the same level as

18:18

the Jinx, and then it

18:20

adds to this reality, and

18:23

it adds to the story in a way that I think

18:26

is really impactful. Last

18:35

but not least is Robert Durst

18:38

himself? No. The guy who

18:40

played Robert Durst in all

18:42

of the recreations for part two was

18:45

Paul Blumenthal. Who's Paul? He

18:48

is the unsung hero of the Bob

18:50

Durst saga. He's an interesting guy because

18:52

for 40 years he was a trial

18:54

lawyer. He came from a

18:56

completely different walk of life. But

18:59

he really has the soul of an actor, and

19:02

he really was able to embody

19:04

Bob Durst in all of his

19:06

movement and oddity and quirkiness. Hi,

19:09

gentlemen. My name is Paul Blumenthal. I

19:12

played Robert Durst in the

19:14

recreations. Were you familiar

19:17

with Robert Durst? Because what I remember about

19:19

your audition was that it

19:21

started with an empty frame, and

19:23

you came up like this, blinking

19:25

and looking, and we were like, oh

19:28

my gosh, that's Robert Durst. And

19:30

everybody else was kind of doing a

19:32

normal audition. How did you know to

19:34

do that? I had never heard of

19:36

Robert Durst before. I

19:39

was not aware of the

19:41

Jinx. I think that

19:43

the requirements for the

19:46

casting listing was to

19:48

play somebody who is

19:51

stalking somebody in the woods. And

19:53

that's all I remember. So

19:55

I popped up out of the woods, as

19:57

you had told me, from the bottom. and

20:00

I'd shown my big

20:03

brilliant eyes like this, and

20:05

I guess that caught your attention. So

20:09

then you get cast and what happens

20:11

next? Well, I went from

20:13

Philadelphia to New York and I met

20:16

your wonderful wardrobe person.

20:18

She's absolutely amazing. But

20:21

there was this huge guy who actually

20:23

was fitting me into a large

20:26

prison jumpsuit, and I'm not being

20:28

facetious, but the legs were about

20:30

two feet longer than my body.

20:33

So they kept trying to resize. I

20:35

think they had three different orange prison

20:37

jumpsuits and they were all too big

20:39

for me. Anyway, ultimately

20:42

they got it. I mean, it

20:44

was an interesting challenge that you

20:46

had playing Bob in the recreations

20:48

because you were being shown real

20:51

footage of his

20:53

interactions that we were trying to get

20:55

you to recreate. You were really good

20:57

at watching the material and then trying

21:00

it in the scene and Andrew would direct you in

21:02

here and there and then we would do it again.

21:04

But what was that like from

21:06

your perspective? I've always

21:09

prided myself in watching

21:11

people and watching people's

21:13

bodies. One of the

21:15

PAs had sent me something, watch

21:18

Bob Durst's mannerisms. And I

21:20

tried to adapt his burping,

21:22

his gestures, and

21:25

how he moved his hands all the time.

21:28

His not obvious nervousness,

21:30

but his subtle nervousness. So

21:33

I tried to adapt all of

21:35

that in the first scene when

21:37

I sat down in the thaw

21:40

interrogation room. Well,

21:42

you did it very well. You were really

21:44

good at, because with these recreations, we were

21:46

never focused on, hardly

21:48

ever focused even on your whole body. It

21:50

was like, as you say, these really on

21:53

your hands or on the feet. So

21:56

we're really seeing just a small piece of

21:59

the puzzle. the

24:00

LA courtroom. We had

24:02

a ton to shoot and cover

24:04

and we were trying a bunch of stuff. We

24:07

were experimenting with being in

24:09

Bob's perspective and looking

24:11

out at the courtroom. Well, let's keep

24:14

trying to push the boundary. Totally. And,

24:16

you know, so much of part two takes place

24:18

there. It's something that everyone

24:20

we talked to mentioned. Well,

24:23

the courtroom obviously was, you know... The

24:25

courtroom is like its own monster. It's like

24:27

the courtroom was a really

24:30

tough one for the cast.

24:34

So the courtroom, we knew we were

24:37

always going to have to build it

24:39

and matching it was complicated. So we

24:41

huddled with the production designer, Jenny. And

24:44

the first question was, which courtroom was it

24:46

going to be? Because the trial takes place

24:48

in two. We always knew

24:50

we wanted to, from the very beginning, that we

24:52

would get to build this courtroom. But which courtroom

24:54

was it going to be? Because the trial started

24:56

and then COVID hit and they changed

24:59

the venue. So there were two different,

25:01

completely different courtrooms in all of the court

25:04

TV footage. And I think that after a lot of

25:07

discussion, like clearly one was more

25:09

cinematic and more interesting as a room.

25:12

It was more of like a classic wood panel

25:14

courtroom. And that was more interesting to us visually.

25:18

And so COVID is happening in the

25:20

course of the trial. And sometimes people

25:22

are wearing masks, sometimes they're not. And

25:24

that all had to be matched. So

25:26

that was one of the challenges that

25:28

Cassandra faced, the costume designer. The

25:31

court was hard because we

25:34

were trying to match

25:36

archival footage. There

25:39

was pre-COVID and post-COVID courtroom

25:41

footage. And so we

25:44

had to make sure we had the correct

25:46

masks for everyone. And there were lots of

25:48

different types of PPE at the time. They

25:50

ran the gamut from fabric to K-95 and

25:53

also a

25:55

lot of glasses. We

25:57

were like looking at the

25:59

courtroom. and everyone, like, I think

26:01

Jenny and I had borrowed like

26:03

15 pairs of glasses that we

26:05

had to make sure

26:08

matched exactly to the archival footage to

26:10

what these people were wearing. And

26:13

I've never done anything like that before. And

26:16

then Carl had to deal with an untangle. How is

26:18

it going to sound? Yeah, you

26:21

know, everybody's got a microphone in front of them

26:23

in the courtroom and they're all recorded horribly. I

26:25

don't know why, how they managed to do that,

26:27

but they seem to. And

26:29

because the personalities in the courtroom are

26:31

also, you know, have a

26:34

dramatic effect on the rhythm. I mean,

26:38

by looking at the two

26:40

legal representation teams and

26:42

they're sort of the way they talk

26:44

and they're pacing and how they work.

26:47

And so there's this sort of realm of

26:49

how we clean it up too much, not

26:51

enough. And then what we add to the

26:53

courtroom, it really becomes a sort of an

26:56

orchestration, like it's more of

26:58

an orchestra musical thing than

27:01

maybe a sound thing. Yeah,

27:03

yeah. The

27:18

memory of this already, and

27:20

it hasn't been that long, is so

27:22

warm and fun. And I did a

27:24

good job this

27:26

time taking pictures and I was looking through

27:29

last night and I just had the biggest grin

27:32

just even the stuff

27:34

that like went wrong at the time

27:36

I was smiling about. So

27:39

I mean, I do feel like incredibly

27:41

fortunate that we were able to work

27:43

with this whole cast

27:45

of interesting and talented

27:48

people. Yeah, I mean, I think

27:50

this is such a unique

27:52

experience. The subject was

27:55

so unusual.

27:58

And the fact that we sort of found ourselves in

28:00

it and ended up looking into a

28:03

lot of aspects of the

28:05

story that were, you know,

28:07

unimaginable, the most

28:09

obvious being the bathroom confession.

28:11

But having that, like, the catcher's

28:13

mitt of being able to

28:16

gather all that story and then

28:18

being able to, you know, then

28:20

being able to express it through

28:22

the vision of all these individually

28:24

brilliant creative people is just

28:27

such a huge privilege, you know. It

28:29

just feels like it's an all-star team.

28:31

And it's a really exciting thing to

28:33

be able to bring a story like

28:35

this to a group of people and

28:38

say, you know, if you're willing to jump in and

28:40

it's going to be a little unpredictable and we don't

28:42

know how much of your time we're going to need,

28:44

it might turn out to be the dominate year for

28:46

three months and then we're going to disappear for three

28:49

months. But being able to

28:51

get that level

28:53

of experience and quality out of the people

28:55

that we're working with is really, it's so

28:57

inspiring. It just makes you want to do

29:00

your job better and it makes you feel

29:02

like you're constantly raising the bar on how

29:04

good this thing can be. There's also the

29:08

instant matter, which is that there's a real

29:10

family that got terribly damaged

29:12

in this story, the McCormick's.

29:15

And they really, all these years

29:17

have been, like, on the edge of their seat saying, like,

29:20

what can you guys do to make this

29:23

story more known, to not

29:25

have people forget about Kathy? So

29:28

I think people on our crew and all

29:30

these department heads and people that we've been

29:32

talking to, they all did feel that. They

29:34

all felt like we were doing something that

29:36

was valid and important. And

29:38

then finally, in this part two, being

29:40

able to tell the story about how

29:47

decent people get roped

29:49

into being complicit in terrible

29:51

acts, that's something that's big

29:54

picture. And so being able to bring this

29:56

group of people in on a story that

29:59

can help. illustrate how

30:02

dangerous it is when people become

30:04

complicit was a big

30:06

privilege. And I think people felt that who were

30:08

working on it, that we were telling a story

30:11

that was important at a few levels. I

30:13

agree. And I think a lot of

30:15

that is a testament to you and that you

30:17

had that vision from the very beginning that if

30:20

we were gonna do a part two, that it

30:22

really had to be about something. You

30:24

kept us focused on that in a great

30:26

way. And I think it really shows. Thank

30:28

you. I'm very happy to hear

30:30

that. And just happy to reconnect with all these

30:32

guys because it's been a little while. Yeah, that

30:34

was so fun. Thank you, Andrew.

30:36

Thank you. As always, this

30:39

was awesome. This was so good. The

30:43

official Jinx podcast was

30:46

hosted by me, Zach

30:53

Stewart-Pontier. It's produced by ZSB Media and

30:55

Hit the Ground Running Films with HBO.

30:58

Both parts of the Jinx are available now on

31:01

Max. This episode was produced

31:03

by Ramoy Phillip. The rest

31:05

of our team is Ethan Obermann, Laura Newcomb,

31:07

and Naomi Bronner. The supervising

31:09

producer is Liz Stiles, mixing

31:12

and engineering by Sam Baer. It

31:14

was recorded by Sam Baer at Relic Room

31:16

in New York City. Music by The Mondo

31:19

Boys, Wes Dylan-Thourson and

31:21

John Kusiak. Additional music

31:23

courtesy of HBO. The

31:25

executive producers are Andrew Jarecki and

31:27

me. Special thanks to

31:30

Esme Smith, David Jacobson, and

31:32

Michael Gluckstadt, Ali Cohen, Aaron

31:34

Kelly, and Saevon Slater at

31:36

HBO Podcasts. And the

31:38

fabulous, now Emmy-nominated Jinx team,

31:40

Saam Neve, Kyle Martin, Richard

31:43

Hankin, Charlotte Kaufman, Susan Lazarus,

31:45

Annabelle White, Pedro Vitale, Jesse

31:47

Herman, Michaela Zabarffian, and

31:49

Naco Narter. And thanks

31:52

to Ro Dillon, George Vogel, Charlie

31:55

Wessler, Nancy Jarecki, and Emily

31:57

Wiedemann. And to say

31:59

farewell. Here's a funny moment from

32:02

one of our calls. To put

32:04

the mask on, I put it on by myself

32:06

because I've had a childhood

32:08

ailment of nose bleeds ever since, I

32:10

don't know, like elementary school.

32:12

And it's from the dry air or

32:15

the simple touching

32:17

my nose sometimes, and it would be

32:19

a spontaneous bleed. But there's a product

32:21

which is nothing but a nasal gel.

32:23

And if I can lubricate my nose

32:26

in advance, it's more likely than

32:29

not. Not gonna please you. This

32:31

is a section brought to you by Nasal Spray.

32:33

Absolutely. Use code JINX2 for 10% off. On

32:38

a Monday morning in May 1992, a

32:42

20-year-old woman is murdered in her home. Her

32:45

husband of just nine days comes home

32:47

from work and finds his high school

32:50

sweetheart stabbed to death. Her

32:52

name is Jennifer Judd. Who

32:54

killed Jennifer Judd? In this new series,

32:56

we'll attempt to solve a 32-year-old cold

32:58

case. Listen

33:01

to Who Killed Jennifer Judd on

33:03

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the iHeartRadio app,

33:05

or wherever you get your podcasts.