Elijah Wood thought he knew the Ted Bundy story — until he signed on for his new film.
The actor stars in “No Man of God” as FBI special agent Bill Hagmaier, who tried to get inside the twisted mind of the notorious serial killer through a series of interviews with an incarcerated Bundy during the 1980s.
“This was a part of (Bundy’s) experience that I had not heard,” Wood told the Daily News. “It was a story I had not known about, a relationship that I wasn’t familiar with.
“Most of what we know about Ted, or have seen in films or in documentaries, tends to be depicting his life as a serial killer or the subsequent trial, sort of portraying him to be this very charismatic, sort of mythologized kind of serial killer person,” the actor said. “But this was a story about a man stuck in prison in the last four years of his life, without his sort of strength and charisma to rely on anymore, and sort of grasping at straws to stay his execution.”
Directed by Amber Sealey, “No Man of God” is based on real transcripts from conversations between Hagmaier and Bundy, who confessed to killing 30 people in seven states from 1974-78. The actual body count may have been higher.
The handsome, heartless Bundy was executed in 1989.
Much of the movie, in theaters and available via on-demand and digital platforms, centers on those sit-downs between Hagmaier and Bundy, portrayed by Luke Kirby.
Wood, 40, believes the G-man got Bundy to open up because he passed no judgment.
“Bill presented a very different kind of approach,” Wood said. “I think what makes Bill so unique is that he’s just a human being looking to understand, and doesn’t kind of come in projecting an agenda.”
Wood, who starred as Frodo Baggins in the “Lord of the Rings” movies, says the real Hagmaier helped him and his co-stars prepare for their roles in “No Man of God,” even though the now-retired agent couldn’t come to the film’s set last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I did speak to him on the phone and he was an executive producer on the film,” Wood said. “He availed himself to Amber with any kind of question that she had for any detail, be it, like, the color of his shoes to how he was feeling on a certain day.
“He also spoke to Luke as well and provided a lot of information about Ted for Luke,” Wood said. “It was an incredible opportunity to have his blessing, and also know that he approved of the movie we were making and was there as a resource for accurate information as we were trying to get those details as right as we could.”
Wood was also an executive producer on the movie, and was intrigued by Hagmaier’s experiences.
“It was his faith in God and his relationship with his family that probably made it possible for him to get through the years of his job of encountering such unsavory aspects of the human condition,” Wood said.
“We, certainly in our film, had to project some degree of there being an effect that is had on him from his time with Ted. For me, some of the more important moments of the movie are just quieter, silent moments of him in between those meetings with Ted.”
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