In order to play a notorious attorney, Tom Pelphrey did some detective work himself.
On HBO Max’s Love & Death, based on the true story of axe murderer Candy Montgomery, the Ozark alum plays her lawyer Don Crowder. Despite the headline-making crime, when he got the role, Tom “wasn’t familiar at all” with Candy’s sensational saga—so he started researching.
“I was finding everything I could,” Tom exclusively told E! News. “At first, it was a little bit difficult.”
Tom pointed to the source material used by Love & Death writer David E. Kelley—2016’s Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs by John Bloom and Jim Atkinson—as being “really helpful with a lot of Don’s backstory.”
But Tom wasn’t just interested in a surface level portrayal.
“So much of what I found interesting about Don wasn’t even in the show, but it helps you build the character,” he explained. “When you know what an underdog he is and what a champion of kids, children and the disadvantaged, you really get a sense of this guy. He played football, he’s kind of a tough guy. More of like a street fighter.”