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SPOILER ALERT: The following reveals major plot points from Hulu‘s Only Murders in the Building’s fourth season.
Another killer has been caught on Only Murders in the Building Season 4, and they’re ready to reveal all their juicy secrets.
After a twisting and turning plot full of possible suspects from Kumail Nanjiani’s Rudy to Molly Shannon’s Bev Melon, Sazz’s (Jane Lynch) murderer turned out to be someone she had previously worked with and a true jack of all trades, Marshall P. Pope (Jin Ha), or as some like Ron Howard and Glen Stubbins (Paul Rudd) know him, Rex Bailey.
Episode 9 of the Hulu murder mystery series dropped the big reveal that Marshall was, in addition to a struggling writer, a stuntman who worked closely with Sazz. Just as Mabel (Selena Gomez) pulled Sazz’s movie script, which Marshall cribbed as his own, Charles (Steve Martin) and Oliver (Martin Short) learned from Ron Howard that the film scribe had been Sazz’s protégé because he majorly screwed up on one of Howard’s film sets: Project Ronkonkema. Episode 10 shows how he got away with what many thought was a two-person crime.
The boot print on the ledge of Dudenoff’s apartment was from Ron Howards’ shoes Rex/Marshall stole from that same set in which he singed off the director’s eyebrows by not waiting long enough for a potential re-spark from being set on fire in a stunt. He knew about the empty apartment from Sazz’s script because she wrote a subplot about it. As for the swift 12 minutes that Oliver couldn’t accomplish between sniping the target, cleaning up the collateral damage and disposing of the body, Marshall used his stunt skills and lack of fear of heights to climb across the Arconia ledges on the interior of the courtyard to get to Charles’ apartment faster.
In the below interview with Deadline, Jin Ha unpacks how he found out what character he was playing in the show, balancing the comedy and drama of his role and other details such as which stunts he did and did not do.
DEADLINE: Did you know you were the killer when you signed up for the show?
JIN HA: When I was auditioning for it, no. I just knew he was a writer, and I had prepared and prepped for — even when I booked the job, I wasn’t sure — and then it was a couple of days before our first shoot in LA that John Hoffman sat me down and revealed the news to me, and all the questions I had prepared to ask him went right out the window. It was a shock, for sure, but I had no advice from the beginning of production. And I had to keep it a secret because some people on set also didn’t want to know.
DEADLINE: How did discovering his true identity change how you played him?
HA: It was really exciting storytelling-wise to have that knowledge but also understanding that I had to fit into the larger storytelling apparatus of the entire season. That was paramount. So obviously there is the reality of as an actor I’m preparing “Okay, what actually occurred? What are the things, the actual events, and when did they occur, and how did Marshall do these things in time?” At the same time, though, that’s necessary to prep for my character. I can’t have any of that showing or even have that sense when he shows up earlier in the season or certainly not.
What helped was, for me, the anxiety and nervousness that Marshall had about being a screenwriter is all very true and very honest for him. I just tried to channel all of the focus into playing that part of his character so that I could take my foot off the gas a little bit on the murderous aspect [laughs} of his character, yeah. And, funnily enough, having to keep it a secret on set, and also my partner didn’t want to know, because we’ve been fans of the show from the beginning, it all helps, it all aided in the creative subconscious process of inhabiting a character, because he was playing a double life, and so in a very small way, I was also emulating that.
DEADLINE: That makes sense, especially when you realize his nervousness could be attributed to different reasons.
HA: Exactly, or both, because I genuinely do think —I’m biased, but I genuinely do think he really cares about his writing, deeply.
RELATED: ‘Pachinko’ Star Jin Ha Talks “Fire” Season 2 And Joining ‘Only Murders in The Building’ Season 4
DEADLINE: Was it difficult for you to switch between his comedic presence in the beginning, when he’s clumsy and fumbling around, and then taking on the more serious side that we see in the finale?
HA: I saw the challenge as an incredible opportunity to play as an actor. Through Marshall/Rex, I got to do a little bit of everything in one role. There were stunts, there was prop work, and there were different characters. I heard they kept the different dialects or regionalisms I did [laughs], all the little things, in the finale.
But similarly or in addition to that, what helped me was the homework. [Co-creator] John [Hoffman] told me Marshall/Rex comes from Michigan and has a survivalist background. So, I went off on my own and created a timeline of his life to track every year of his life. I had written about a paragraph each of imagining, what were his firsts of that year? Like, the first time he went hunting. I went all the way back, starting with his parents and how they met in Korea, in a town that had been radicalized through student uprisings. How all that led them to LA in the 90s, in time for the LA riots, which galvanized Rex’s dad to move out of the city of LA when he started to arm himself. I created this whole dramatic background of how he became who he was, and what motivates him. Once I did that prep work, it felt freer to lean into the comedy of it because I understood, or I hoped, that I could lean on the work that I had done to prep for the more serious aspects of his personality.
When it comes to the comedic part, because the show is still a comedy, even though there are so many beautiful moments of empathy and pathos throughout especially this season, it was so freeing to know that the genre and the tone of the show does ride that razor’s edge of one moment: it’s the slapstick, physical comedy, people are falling over, and then in the next moment, it can be a really touching scene, whether it’s between Marty [Short] and Meryl [Streep] or Steve [Martin] and Jane [Lynch], it was such a joy and privilege to be able to be in that world and jump back and forth. A lot of it is trusting the directors too, understanding like, here’s what I’m thinking, but the directors are the only people who can tell me what they’re seeing and how it’s reading on screen. I’m excited to see it because I remember how it felt, but I don’t know how it turned out.
DEADLINE: What can you share about the props? Was being a blonde more fun when you had to wear that wig?
HA: [Laughs] I was trying to channel my best, oh, what’s the character’s name from Fast Times at Ridgemont High that Sean Penn played …. Spicoli! I was channeling my best Spicoli with that wig. As soon as I put it on and shaved my face, it was, transformative looking at a mirror. I’d never had blonde hair that long, so it was a nice little preview maybe for what’s to come later in my life.
I also thought of something to add to your last question.
DEADLINE: Yes, go ahead!
HA: I love doing comedy, and that’s been so much fun, but my other main TV gig is on Pachinko, which is a deeply historical fiction drama, and also, the work I’ve done on stage. I played Aaron Burr in Hamilton a couple of times, and that part of my apparatus, so to speak, my palette of colors from my role, I realized I could pull from that. The comedy was more the first time I got to showcase that through Marshall once I got to the series. Like “Oh, I’m familiar with this.”
DEADLINE: I also watch Pachinko, and I thought that was cool how you were talking about your timeline and history. I’m sure there was a little overlap from working on that show.
HA: Yeah, the methodology for sure.
DEADLINE: And speaking of physical comedy, how many stunts did you get to do? Like when you jumped off the wall to get in front of Selena.
HA: That was awesome. I got to do all the small stunts. Suo [Liu], who was my stunt person, comes from Cirque du Soleil. He’s done all of this incredible work and martial arts. He did the car flip, and jumping over the car. He actually got lit on fire for that scene, which was incredible. And then he helped me a lot with the little wall jumps, the little parkour moments I’ve dreamed of being able to do. I had to stop myself from shouting, “Parkour!” as I jumped off the wall and over the bed. We had the roll over the bed, the jump off the wall, and the stunt coordinator was like, “I don’t want to repeat anything. How can we add something fresh that’s different for you to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible? So I was like “Oh, I think I can maybe jump over the bed, and I tried it a couple of times. It seemed feasible, so that’s how we landed on that. It was delightful, all those years of jumping over chairs for no reason finally paid off.
DEADLINE: Do you have a favorite scene partner from either before or after the big reveal?
HA: That whole sequence from the end of Episode 9 with Selena through the interrogation and the standoff, all of that. And then when Steve and Marty come through the window. That entire monster scene was, aside from the deeply, unbelievable reality that I got to work with these three incredible humans and actors, the writing was phenomenal. I feel so lucky to have been there and experience that. A very close second is all the work I got to do with Jane [Lynch]. We weren’t able to do our scenes in Episode 9 together because I got COVID toward the end of production. But even so, it was still incredible, and I feel so grateful. It was so easy. Everyone’s so damn good at their job; I was just trying to keep up.
DEADLINE: Would you want to come back for Season 5? Is that a possibility?
HA: If John Hoffman ever invites me to participate in any project he’s ever working on, 1,000 times yes. I would always jump to work with that wonderful showrunner, writer and leader. That being said, Isn’t [Marshall/Rex] dead? Didn’t he die? I guess it’s unclear enough. I thought he died.
DEADLINE: I did too, but I have to ask.
HA: We could get into a Paul Rudd-type tradition and come back with a different dialect. I am down, just call John for me.
DEADLINE: Will do. Before you go, I have a Pachinko question for you. I spoke with Michael [Ellenberg] and Theresa [Kang] about the end of Season 2, and Michael, I remember vividly, called Solomon a real mother-effer by the end. Do you agree with that? How do you empathize with him after he pulled all those moves and what would you hope to bring to a Season 3, if that happens?
HA: Fingers crossed that Apple TV will let us finish telling our story. We’re still waiting for their decision. Assuming we get that opportunity, I’m really looking forward to Solomon facing the consequences of his actions. Regarding the end of Season 2, I don’t disagree with Michael. I have more of a bias because I can understand the motivations for his actions and betrayals. But at the end of the day, he chooses the path of destruction, and knowingly. I think he felt stuck and that was his only way to pull himself out of the hole.
From observing him from the outside, we understand there are many different ways to act and react that can be more caring and more empathetic, but he felt trapped. Oddly enough, in Season 1, when he felt trapped in that conference room, he went in the opposite direction and told the landlady not to sign. He did speak from a more compassionate side of himself. I think sadly, a fallout from that experience may have certainly informed why he chose to ignore that voice inside of himself in the second season because he had been, in his version, in his mind, rock bottom so much so that he confronts his enemy, Abe. But we haven’t seen him deal with Abe’s death yet either; we’ve seen the moment he finds out. There must be some sort of internal and external reaction to that because he understands how deeply and indirectly he caused that. I always hope for the characters, but at the same time, it’s understanding that the path to redemption can be incredibly thorny.
This interview was edited and condensed for length and clarity.
