22 January, 2024 Siobhan Marie Day 0 Comments 3 categories

Jonathan Groff discusses "Mindhunter" with the Build Series at Build Studio on October 18, 2017 in New York City. Photo by Roy Rochlin/FilmMagic

Jonathan Groff on the Netflix Drama Mindhunter…

On October 18, 2017, Jonathan Groff sat down with BUILD Series to discuss his new Netflix psychological thriller drama, Mindhunter at the BUILD Studio in New York City. In the series based off of the 1995 true-crime book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, Mindhunter revolves around FBI agents Holden Ford, played by Groff, and Bill Tench, played by Holt McCallany, along with psychologist Wendy Carr, played by Anna Torv, who operate the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit within the Training Division at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Together, they launch a research project to interview imprisoned serial killers to understand their psychology with the hope of applying this knowledge to solve ongoing cases.

Jonathan Groff attends the Build Series at Build Studio on October 18, 2017 in New York City. Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images

Jonathan Groff attends the Build Series to discuss his show 'Mindhunter' at Build Studio on October 18, 2017 in New York City. Photo by Daniel Zuchnik/WireImage

Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit is a 1995 non-fiction crime book written by retired FBI agent John E. Douglas and his co-author Mark Olshaker. Description The book details Douglas's "criminal-personality profiling" on serial killers and mass murderers, which he developed over decades of interviews with known killers. The book includes profiles of the Atlanta child killer, David Carpenter, Edmund Kemper, Robert Hansen, and Larry Gene Bell, and suggests proactive steps on luring culprits to contact the police

John Edward Douglas (born June 18, 1945) is an American retired special agent and unit chief in the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was one of the first criminal profilers and has written and co-written books on criminal psychology, true crime novels, and his biography.

Mark Olshaker (born February 28, 1951) is an American author from Washington, D.C. who frequently collaborates with FBI agent John E. Douglas in writing books about criminal and investigative psychology. In 1995, they formed Mindhunters, Inc. and later released Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit, which was made into a Netflix series Mindhunter in 2017. Olshaker worked with public health scientist, Michael Osterholm, detailing the medical system's lack of preparation for another pandemic in their book Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs. In his New York Times article "We’re Not Ready for a Flu Pandemic", Olshaker criticized the lack of funding the government invested in developing a flu vaccine, citing the National Institutes of Health only received $32 million and Biomedical Advanced Research received $43 million for such research in 2017. Olshaker is a supporter of victims' rights.

Jonathan Groff in "Mindhunter" (2017) Photo Credit: Netflix

Holt McCallany in "Mindhunter" (2017) Photo Credit: Netflix

Anna Torv in "Mindhunter" (2017) Photo Credit: Netflix

The FBI Academy is the Federal Bureau of Investigation's law enforcement training and research center near the town of Quantico in Prince William County, Virginia. Operated by the bureau's Training Division, it was first opened for use on May 7, 1972, on 385 acres (156 ha) of woodland. The academy was opened for the purpose of training the new agents after FBI agents were granted the power to arrest, and to possess a firearm, in 1933. As the newly armed agents needed somewhere to train, the Marine Corps granted them access to their firing ranges in Quantico, Virginia. After outgrowing the Marine Corps firing ranges the FBI was granted permission to build their own firing range and classroom on the base. Over time they added new sections such as a whole new wing, kitchen, and basement. But with the rapid growth it still was not enough for their needs.

Holt McCallany, Anna Torv, and Jonathan Groff in "Mindhunter" (2017) Photo Credit: Netflix

The Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) is the original name of a unit within the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Training Division at Quantico, Virginia, formed in response to the rise of sexual assault and homicide in the 1970s. The unit was usurped by the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) and renamed the Behavioral Research and Instruction Unit (BRIU) and currently is called the Behavioral Analysis Unit (5) (BAU-5) within the National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC). The BAU-5 currently works on developing research and then using the evidence-based results to provide training and improve consultation in the behavioral sciences—understanding who criminals are, how they think, why they do what they do—for the FBI and law enforcement communities.

Holt McCallany and Jonathan Groff in "Mindhunter" (2017) Photo Credit: Netflix

Joe Tuttle, Anna Torv, and Robert Aramayo in "Mindhunter" (2017) Photo Credit: Netflix

The interview is a little over a half hour in discussion, where Groff discusses everything from his favorite scenes in the series to the contradictions of his character, the ambitious young FBI agent Holden Ford, where his special agent interviews notorious serial killer Edmund Kemper, who is the first to assist Ford and Tench in understanding how a serial killer’s mind works. The first season takes place from 1977 to 1980, in the early days of criminal psychology and criminal profiling at the FBI. Cameron Britton has a recurring role in this season as Kemper.

Jonathan Groff discusses "Mindhunter" at the Build Series at Build Studio on October 18, 2017 in New York City. Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images

Jonathan Goff filming"Mindhunter" (2017) Photo Credit: Netflix

Cameron Britton and Jonathan Groff in "Mindhunter" (2017) Photo Credit: Netflix

Cameron Britton as Edmund Kemper in "Mindhunter" (2017) Photo Credit: Netflix

Edmund Emil Kemper III (born December 18, 1948) is an American serial killer convicted of murdering seven women and one girl, between May 1972 to April 1973. Years earlier, at the age of 15, Kemper had murdered his paternal grandparents. Kemper was nicknamed the Co-ed Killer, as most of his non-familial victims were female college students hitchhiking in the vicinity of Santa Cruz County, California. Most of his murders included necrophilia, decapitation, and dismemberment. Found sane and guilty at his trial in 1973, Kemper requested the death penalty for his crimes. Capital punishment was suspended in California at the time, and he instead received eight concurrent life sentences. Since then, he has been incarcerated in the California Medical Facility in Vacaville.

Jonathan Groff, and Cameron Britton in "Mindhunter" (2017) Photo Credit: Netflix

Groff also discusses with BUILD Series the casting of the notorious serial killers that are featured in the first season with Britton, the featured serial killers in this season that Ford and Tench interview include Montie Rissell played by Sam Strike, Jerry Brudos played by Happy Anderson, Richard Speck played by Jack Erdie, and Dennis Rader also known as BTK, played by Sonny Valicenti.

Montie Ralph Rissell (born November 28, 1958), also known as Monte, is an American serial killer and rapist who raped and murdered five women between 1976 and 1977 in Alexandria, Virginia, where he lived.

Jerome Henry "Jerry" Brudos (January 31, 1939 – March 28, 2006) was an American serial killer and necrophile known as the Lust Killer and the Shoe Fetish Slayer who committed the kidnap, rape, and murder of four young women between 1968 and 1969 in Salem, Oregon. He is also known to have attempted to abduct two other young women. All of Brudos's murders were committed inside either his car or the basement or garage workshop of the two homes in which he resided during the period he committed his murders. Each victim was killed by strangulation; several victims were photographed before and/or after death, and three of his victims endured post-mortem dismemberment. Brudos is known to have engaged in acts of necrophilia with his victims' bodies and to have retained selective body parts — invariably the severed breasts or feet — of three of his victims to both demonstrate his domination and to satiate his sexual fetish for women's feet, lingerie, and shoes. Sentenced to three consecutive terms of life imprisonment, to be served at the Oregon State Penitentiary, Brudos died of liver cancer while incarcerated at this facility in 2006. Brudos became known as the "Lust Killer" due to the primal motive behind his crimes; he also became known as the "Shoe Fetish Slayer" due to his lifelong shoe fetishism.

Happy Anderson as Jerry Brudos, also known as BTK in "Mindhunter" (2017) Photo Credit: Netflix

18 Jul 1966, Dallas, Texas, USA --- The Dallas County Sheriff Department released two different mug shots of Richard B. Speck, 25, the accused slayer of eight student nurses in Chicago. Chicago Police Supt. O.W. Wilson said July 16 "identification was positive based on finger prints." The suspect was later discovered July 17 at a hotel in Chicago's skid row section. Speck is shown in a 1965 photo (top) and in a 1961 photo (bottom). --- Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

Jack Erdie as Richard Speck in "Mindhunter" (2017) Photo Credit: Netflix

Dennis Lynn Rader (born March 9, 1945), also known as BTK (an abbreviation he gave himself, for "bind, torture, kill"), is an American serial killer who murdered at least ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. Although Rader occasionally killed or attempted to kill men and children, he typically targeted women. His victims were often bound, sometimes with objects from their homes, and either suffocated with a plastic bag or manually strangled with a ligature. In addition, Rader stole keepsakes from his female victims, including underwear, licenses, and personal items. He often sent taunting letters to police and media outlets describing the details of his crimes. After a 13-year hiatus, Rader resumed sending letters in 2004, leading to his 2005 arrest and subsequent guilty plea. He is currently serving ten consecutive life sentences at the El Dorado Correctional Facility.

Sonny Valicenti as Dennis Rader, also known as BTK in "Mindhunter" (2017) Photo Credit: Netflix

BUILD Series also discusses with Groff the cerebral nature of the series, and the challenges of making it engaging to viewers. Most viewers assume that because the Netflix series is about serial killers, they assume the series will have gratuitous killing with blood and gore, but the series deals with the late 1970s when the FBI was learning about criminal profiling and how to better understand the criminal mind. So the series does not have any gratuitous violence because when Ford and Tench are interviewing the notorious serious killers, it is occurring while they are already serving time on their sentences after their mass murder sprees, some even decades later. Mindhunter focuses on the cerebral minds of these killers and the lifestyle, trauma, motives and even natural evil that motivates them to kill.

Groff and BUILD Series also discuss his relationship with his co-star in the series, Holt McCallany, who plays veteran FBI special agent Bill Tench, and for whom he spends a majority of his screen time with intensely emotional and visceral scenes that include notorious serial killers and Ford and Tench’s conversations about how their criminal minds work. Groff also discusses the parallels between his personal life and the Netflix Series, as well as his favorite scene in Mindhunter, and lastly he discusses with BUILD Series what his favorite project in his career has been this far.