Voltage Pictures released the trailer for the Ted Bundy biopic Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile Friday, featuring a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo from The Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons.
Parsons appears in one shot as Larry Simpson, the lead prosecutor in the 1979 Miami trial that ended with Bundy convicted for his crimes in Florida.
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“This case is about catching a monster,” Simpson said in the scene.
The trailer for Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile was released a day before its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. It stars Zac Efron as Bundy, with Lily Collins as his girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer. John Malkovich plays Edward Cowart, the judge in the Miami trial. The rest of the cast includes Angela Sarafyan, Jeffrey Donovan, Grace Victoria Cox, Kaya Scodelario and Haley Joel Osment.
The film begins in 1969, and centers on Bundy’s relationship with Kloepfer, a single mother who falls for Bundy’s charms and cannot believe he is a killer. At first, their lives are perfect, but the facade crumbles when he is first arrested for his crimes.
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile was directed by documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger, who also helmed Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, which was released on Netflix Thursday. Michael Werwie wrote the script.
Bundy was convicted of 30 murders committed between 1974 and 1978 across seven states. He was executed by the electric chair in 1989. His crimes have been the subject of several documentaries, book and movies, including The Deliberate Stranger (1986) with Mark Harmon and The Riverman (2004) with Cary Elwes.
Casting Efron as the killer was a surprising move, but Berlinger said the choice played off Efron’s own charms.
“He still is a heartthrob to a certain segment of the population, and that’s what Bundy was,” Berlinger told Thrillist. “Playing with his real-life image, turning it on its head just as I was turning the whole convention of the serial killer film on its head to me was a very attractive idea.”
For Parsons, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is his latest project outside The Big Bang Theory, which ends this season. Parsons also won acclaim for his performance in HBO’s The Normal Heart, which earned him an Emmy nomination.
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile does not have a wide release date yet.
Photo credit: Voltage Pictures
