KLMNO
Style
THURSDAY, AUGUST 29 , 2019. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STYLE EZ SU C
BY SONIA RAO
Among the most intriguing el-
ements of “Mindhunter” is the
way it interrogates the very rea-
son some viewers watch it in the
first place. Based on the real
experiences of an FBI agent who
initiated the bureau’s profiling of
serial killers, the Netflix drama
undoubtedly benefits from the
American public’s timeless fasci-
nation with true crime. And yet it
also questions the soundness of
that fascination from time to
time, highlighting the agents’ bi-
ases to deconstruct the mythol-
ogy surrounding these notorious
offenders.
This becomes especially appar-
ent in the second season, which
premiered Aug. 16. Special agentHolden Ford (Jonathan Groff)
has harbored a quiet obsession
with Charles Manson since the
pilot, when he upsets a room of
police officers by suggesting Man-
son’s criminality may have been a
product of his harsh upbringing.
A season and some change later,
Ford and his partner, Bill Te nch
(Holt McCallany), finally get the
chance to explore Manson’s moti-
vations for themselves when they
visit him in prison.
That’s a lot of buildup to a
single scene, in which Australian
actor Damon Herriman (perhaps
known most for FX’s “Justified”)
plays the maniacal man. Ford
looks at him with a slight sense of
awe, while Te nch makes his dis-
taste abundantly clear. But for
viewers who can see past all theprosthetic makeup, a different
sort of recognition might set in:
Herriman is, in fact, the same
man who plays Manson in Quen-
tin Ta rantino’s “Once Upon a
Time in Hollywood,” released just
a few weeks ago.
“It’s really just a crazy coinci-
dence,” Herriman recently told
The Washington Post. “There
were two projects where they had
the character of Charles Manson
shooting this year, and I’m guess-
ing a lot of people auditioned for
both, especially because he has a
certain physicality in his look and
height that narrows down the
pool a bit.... Bizarrely, they
ended up filming within a few
weeks of each other.”
Herriman only briefly appears
in Ta rantino’s film, when Mansonscopes out Sharon Ta te’s Cielo
Drive residence in February 1969.
(His followers show up that Au-
gust with the intention of com-
mitting the murders.) The scene
in “Mindhunter,” set more than a
decade later, carries more heft, as
Ford and Te nch aim to under-
stand the psyche of each criminal
they interview. Their conversa-
tion showcases Manson’s ability
to “manipulate people and phi-
losophize,” Herriman said.
In the months between book-
ing and shooting “Mindhunter,”
which he did before “Once Upon a
Time,” Herriman got his hands on
all the Manson material he could
find. He h ad read “Helter Skelter”
— a book written by the Manson
trial prosecutor and named after
SEE HERRIMAN ON C4How one actor ended up playing Charles Manson in two projects
BY ELAHE IZADI
When Eddie Murphy first ap-
peared on “Saturday Night Live”
in November 1980, the show was
on the brink o f extinction. Creator
Lorne Michaels had departed be-
fore the sixth season, most of the
high-profile cast was gone and
critics labeled the sketch show as
“Saturday N ight Dead.”
But Murphy became a breakout
star who would later be credited
with keeping the show afloat.
Now, Murphy will return to host
the show on Dec. 21, it was an-
nounced this week — the first time
he has performed comedy on the
NBC series s ince 1984.
“Out of nowhere, Eddie saved
‘Saturday Night Live,’ ” comedian
Chris Rock said during the show’s
40th anniversary special. “If ‘Sat-
urday Night Live’ hadn’t h ired Ed-
die Murphy, this show wouldn’t
have lasted half as long as ‘Bay-
watch.’ ”
Murphy has a long history with
the show that helped propel him
to fame, including a long stretch
where h e stayed away.
A stand-up comic, Murphy was
just 19 when he joined SNL. One of
his first characters was Raheem
Abdul Muhammed, a high school
basketball player who com-
plained about an Ohio judge’s rul-
ing that teams had to have at l east
two white players.
Indeed, much of the material
SEE MURPHY ON C335 years
on, Murphy
will return
to host SNL
BY PAUL FARHI
S
tephanie Grisham says she hates to be
the story. And for the better part of
two months, she’s succeeded in not
becoming one.
This is surprising, since Grisham is
the most powerful communications aide in
Washington, and perhaps the world. In late
June, President Trump handed her an unprec-
edented portfolio, appointing her White
House press secretary and his communica-
tions director. She remains first lady Melania
Trump’s communications director, meaning
her domain spans the East and West Wings.
Ye t Grisham hasn’t done much communi-
cating, at least in public. She hasn’t given a
press briefing, continuing the five-month
drought that began under her predecessor,
Sarah Sanders. She’s done just two informal
gaggles with reporters and given only one TV
interview.
There’s such a limited supply of recent
video footage of Grisham that TV news
organizations had to rely on still photographs
of her when they reported on her appoint-
ment in June.
Which means that the public face of the
administration has remained largely faceless
beyond the gates of the White House. The
other day, as Grisham sat with a reporter in a
restaurant two blocks from her office, a
predictable thing happened: nothing. For two
hours, no one approached to chat or to argue.
No one asked her to leave. No one, it seems,
knew who she was.Grisham, 43, says her low profile is by
design. She’s b een busy, she said, learning two
new jobs while juggling a third. And much of
her work is behind the scenes. She tells the
story in numbers culled from her appoint-
ment logs: In h er first seven weeks in the West
SEE GRISHAM ON C2Stephanie Grisham’s guarded comments
Sarah Sanders’s successor is less in your face and more behind the scenes
SAUL LOEB/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGESBRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
TOP: White House press secretary
Stephanie Grisham listens as President
Trump speaks to the media on Air Force
One during his return flight from El Paso
on Aug. 7. “This president is really his own
spokesperson,” she says. ABOVE: Grisham
waits as the plane is refueled in Alaska
during a trip to Japan in June.BOOK WORLDSeries shows what five
great thinkers see in
autocracy’s petri dish. C3
THEATER REVIEWA woman walks under the
social ladder in Ly nn
Nottage’s “Fabulation.” C3
KIDSPOSTAndrew Luck
and the point
where the
game is no
longer fun. C8
CAROLYN HAXWhich is ruder, a gift card
request or the malicious
gossip about it? C8
STEWART COOK FOR SONY PICTURESDamon Herriman
BY PAUL FARHI
AND JOHN WAGNER
President Trump says he wants
to change the channel on Fox
News, the cable network that
helped make his political career
and whose hosts have consistent-
ly defended his administration.
Trump lashed out at Fox on
Wednesday morning, accusing
the network in tweets of “heavily
promoting the Democrats,” and
adding, “The New @FoxNews is
letting millions of GREAT people
down! We h ave to start looking for
a new News Outlet. Fox isn’t
working for us anymore!”
The tweets were the latest, and
perhaps the bluntest, criticisms of
Fox that Trump has broadcast to
his nearly 64 million Twitter fol-
lowers, despite unwavering sup-
port from Fox’s top-rated opinion
programs. In t he past, the symbio-
sis between Fox and the Trump
administration has been so close
that critics have called the net-
work “state TV,” e ffectively brand-
ing it a propaganda organ.
Trump’s morning fusillade fol-
lowed Fox anchor Sandra Smith’s
interview of Xochitl Hinojosa, the
SEE FOX ON C5Tr ump rails
against Fox
on Twitter
President says network
is promoting Democrats