Lifetime’s Jodi Arias movie, The Jodi Arias Story, will debut next month on the network, and thanks to last week’s verdict, you now know the ending.
An Arizona jury found Jodi Arias guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Travis Alexander, bringing to a close what became a sensational trial.
“Everyone watched it, we had a TV on set and we stopped filming,” Arturio Interian, VP of Original Movies for Lifetime Entertainment Services, said.
“It was a very quiet moment. It’s a very real and painful story, and we can’t forget that a young man was needlessly killed and Jodi threw her life away too.”
“Tania Raymonde, the actress who is playing Jodi, was stunned.”
The 25-year-old Switched at Birth star also witnessed, right then and there, her role of “murder suspect Jodi Arias” changing to “convicted murderer Jodi Arias.”
“It was surreal on the set,” he added. “I have done a lot of true-crime work, but this is the first time I have been filming when this has happened.”
He’s not joking. Lifetime’s true-crime credits, to name a few, include recent Amanda Knox, Drew Peterson and Casey Anthony movies.
In the case of Jodi Arias’ trial, watching the events play out as they filmed it made for heightened emotions on the set among the actors themselves.
“Jesse Lee Soffer, the actor who is playing [victim Travis Alexander], felt validated in an odd way,” Interian continued. “Everyone has really embraced their role.”
“He thought it was murder-one right from the get-go.”
As for how much melodrama Lifetime will inject into the movie?
“There are some things we are not showing in the film,” he said.
“Jodi made some very dark allegations were not necessarily based on truth. So, we are going to show her making those statements, but not scenes that support them.”
“We have a good sense of who [Travis Alexander] was, that he was a good guy and not the monster [Arias] portrayed him to be. He is the victim here.”
Arias, meanwhile, was convicted of premeditated murder, months after she famously said in an interview, “No jury would convict me. Mark my words.”
The film was originally going to end with Arias’ arrest, but that the increasingly twisted story being told at trial made it a must to include in the film.
The Jodi Arias Story will premiere on Lifetime in June.