Pam is facing money troubles, a relentless Dateline producer, and is also having difficulty caring for her sick mother. D.A. Leah Askey (Judy Greer) realizes Pam may not be the star witness she thought while Joel Schwartz (Josh Duhamel) discovers new breakthroughs in his case. Parade.com spoke to actor Glenn Fleshler, who plays Russ Faria, about the research he did in preparation for the role and speaking with the real-life Russ. Fleshler said he was unaware of Pam Hupp or the Faria case prior to his involvement in The Thing About Pam. In preparation for the role, part of his research included listening to the Dateline podcast about the case. “Once I got the part, I did a deep dive into the story via the podcast, the Dateline material and whatever I could find on the internet. I also had a long phone call with our showrunner/writer Jenny Klein about our story,” Fleshler said. “Ultimately, she helped put me in touch with Russ Faria. I also listened to Russ’ voice a lot…in actual conversation and then news clips and interviews and his infamous 911 call. We had several long conversations and he was kind enough to allow me to ask him about his entire life, including many of the worst, most painful parts of it. This was, of course, invaluable.” With regard to mimicking Faria’s appearance in the limited series, Fleshler said, “I worked with our wonderful hair and makeup teams to figure out how to approximate the look of the character over time. We had to decide what we could accomplish given the fact that we had to move back and forth through the timeline as we shot the show.” The Thing About Pam airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC. Watch an exclusive clip from episode 4 of The Thing About Pam below. Next, You Need to Listen to These 32 True-Crime Podcasts
