My latest Badlands episode was pitched to me with a helluva challenge. My editor Zeth came to me and said, “We want to do an episode about Sigourney Weaver,” which made me raise an eyebrow. As far as I was aware, Sigourney Weaver wasn’t really someone with a reputation for sex, drugs, and other lurid activity, ya know? I feel like she’s a pretty wholesome person.
But Zeth had an idea. There was – as I learned — apparently a really fucked up murder case that got into all kinds of slippery complications in the legal system. And the killer — who, to be clear, definitely did it — apparently had a serious mental break that involved worshiping Sigourney Weaver as a goddess.
So that would be my “in” to the story. Tell the story of Sigourney Weaver’s life, through the veil of this horrifying crime.
I always do a lot of research for these podcasts. But this is the only time I found myself looking up old court transcripts and appeals. Badlands is a stylized show, and I wanted to honor that pulpy aesthetic without glamorizing the horror and trauma at the center of it. I wanted to approach it with empathy and truth, inasmuch as I could in this situation.
I think I did a pretty damn good job, if I do say so myself.
