Film crew turns Episcopal church into set for scenes of upcoming Hulu true crime show

A funeral scene from an upcoming series about the Murdaugh murders is seen on a production monitor during filming at St. James Episcopal Church in Marietta, Georgia. Photo: Scott Smoot

[Episcopal News Service] April was a busy month at St. James Episcopal Church in Marietta, Georgia. First, the congregation stepped up its preparations for Holy Week and gathered all week for daily liturgies, culminating April 20 in Easter worship services attended by almost 600 people.

Then, less than 24 hours later, a professional film crew arrived.

Certain St. James facilities will be featured in an upcoming true crime limited series on Hulu about the notorious Murdaugh family murders. Some of the church’s halls and offices were transformed by the crew to depict the South Carolina law offices of Alex Murdaugh, who was convicted of killing his wife and son in 2021.

A parishioner at St. James who works as a film location scout recommended the Episcopal church for the shoot, for which the congregation is receiving an undisclosed fee. An initial round of filming took place there in March, and at 5:30 a.m. April 21, the production crew returned for another weeklong shoot, according to Scott Smoot, the congregation’s communications coordinator. He told Episcopal News Service he was particularly impressed how the crew created the illusion of sun on otherwise gray days or before sunrise.

“They needed bright sunshine, so they brought their own,” Smoot said. With reflective screens and powerful lights outside the office window, the production ensured enough artificial sun for the actors at work on an interior scene. “It was very convincing.”

The Murdaugh murders occurred one state away, in South Carolina, but it is common for such scenes to be shot in Georgia. The state has become a major player in the American film industry thanks largely to state tax incentives and the growth of Atlanta-based studios.

Marietta City Manager Bill Bruton told the Marietta Daily Journal that, in addition to the production at St. James, the city was expecting “a couple of other” productions to begin filming nearby in the coming month.

In the Hulu series, Patricia Arquette was cast in one of the lead roles, as murder victim Maggie Murdaugh, according to Variety, while Jason Clarke is to portray Alex Murdaugh. It is based partly on the reporting of journalist Mandy Matney, who is also depicted as a character in the series. No public release date has been specified.

Marietta is a city of about 60,000 residents located northwest of Atlanta. St. James, part of the Diocese of Atlanta, sits on a property roughly the size of a full city block. Railroad tracks run behind the church, which sometimes required the production to call “cut!” when the sound of trains passing interrupted a scene.

The action in most scenes filmed at St. James was unrelated to the church’s more familiar parish functions – and no murders were depicted there – though the filmmakers also shot one funeral scene in a small chapel on the campus that dates to the 1840s. “It was really lots of fun for me to see the place full with actors,” Smoot said.

To film the other scenes, the crew took over the church’s vestry conference room, parlor, foyer and hallways, which were crowded all week after Easter with cameras and actors, Smoot said. He and other members of St. James mostly stayed out of the way and watched from a distance. One exception was when the crew needed assistance opening a door to the church archives. That scene included a closeup of an actor’s hand on the doorknob.

Church leaders also had to respond to “big excitement” when a stray bird flew into the church, disrupting the filming of one of the office scenes until the winged intruder could be removed.

The presence of a film crew hasn’t interfered much with the church’s weekly routines, though the choir chose to cancel one of its rehearsals rather than navigate around all the film equipment and wires. The crew also brought its own furniture and other props, and between shoots, many of those set pieces remain in place. The crew expected to return for at least one more day, likely later this month, to get final footage at St. James.

For now, a nameplate on one of the doors says “Murdaugh.” Bookshelves contain law books that never would be found in a church library. A trophy deer head hangs from a wall. Curtains were added to the windows to create the right atmosphere. “A lot of us have gotten used to the way things look now,” Smoot said.

The production has offered to leave some of those window treatments behind for the church. It also will repaint and repair walls that were altered for scenes and will relandscape gardens outside the church where film equipment caused some damage.

Overall, St. James parishioners have treated the film shoot as a harmless fascination that also has drawn attention to the church in local news stories, and the congregation is receiving financial compensation from the film company. Smoot declined to reveal how much, though he said the proceeds will help St. James pay for an undramatic but necessary church improvement: a new roof.

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.