Dennis Quaid didn’t have to spend a lifetime preparing to play serial killer Keith Hunter Jesperson in “Happy Face.”
“It turned out to be surprisingly easy because serial killers don’t have any feelings, so I really didn’t have to reach for anything,” the actor, 70, told Page Six exclusively Tuesday at the New York City premiere of the Paramount+ series.
“I’d seen videotapes of him and audio of him describing the murders, and it was very much matter-of-fact,” he added. “The guy has no feelings, which is chilling in itself.”
Jesperson, 69, is serving a life sentence without parole in an Oregon prison for murdering at least eight women in the early 1990s, though he claims to have killed as many as 160.
His victims were mainly sex workers and transients.
Jesperson, whose preferred method of killing was strangulation, became known as the Happy Face Killer because he drew smiley faces on sick letters he sent to media outlets and authorities.
“Happy Face” is based on a 2018 podcast hosted by Jesperson’s daughter Melissa G. Moore, who also wrote a book, “Shattered Silence,” about overcoming the shame of having a serial killer as her father.
Quaid read Moore’s 2009 bestseller to prepare for the role and told us he “probably could have gone to Oregon and met the Happy Face Killer” himself, though he “really didn’t want to do that.”
“I think I got to know him more through her [Moore], and the show is based on her,” he said.
The “Parent Trap” star noted that Jesperson killed animals as a child, which is a common trait among serial killers, “but there’s a lot of people out there that tortured animals and stuff like that or were mean to their sister or whatever that didn’t wind up being a serial killer.”
Quaid theorized that Jesperson’s murderous rage was rooted in sex, explaining, “I think he had not a very good self-image of himself when it came to sex, and the evidence is in the murders.”
“Happy Face,” which begins streaming Thursday, also stars Annaleigh Ashford as Moore.
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