MICHAEL STUHLBARG

Dopesick

As Richard Sackler, president of Purdue Pharma, Stuhlbarg gives a chilling, subdued performance on Hulu’s limited series. As the series unfolds — and Sackler is identified as the architect of the opioid crisis, having developed the highly addictive OxyContin — his power and influence begins to dwindle, even within his own family.

“There was one scene that on the page did not necessarily seem like it would be too much of a challenge, but the day turned out to be a very strange shoot,” Stuhlbarg says of a moment in the seventh episode, when Sackler breaks the news to his father, Raymond (Lawrence Arancio), that the FDA’s regulation of the drug will mean a huge profit loss for the company. “It’s a very pivotal moment when he finally says things to his father that he never said before. We started with a very moderate place, and then [creator Danny Strong] led us to go for it — to raise the volume and the pace and dive into the melodrama. The temperature of the scene grew to a very loud pitch until it got to the point where he says this untenable thing to his father, [who then] leaves the room by slamming the door.”

Stuhlbarg admits that finding the tone of the scene already was difficult, especially after midnight on a long day of production that involved a farcical moment with a set malfunction. “That door was the only entrance into the room, and that door locked when he slammed it,” he says with a laugh. “They could not for the life of them get the door open again. It might have just been pure exhaustion on everyone’s part, but not being able to get that door open and everyone just collapsing for 45 minutes. … It was a very odd, strange and memorable evening.”

Michael Stuhlbarg on Dopesick