Mark Duplass writes every episode of The Creep Tapes as a loose outline, with no dialogue prepared in advance. That lets his serial-killer character invent each persona in the moment while Duplass does the same as an actor.
Duplass said his best work comes from taking something that already exists within him, then exaggerating it for the screen. For this character, he drew on a childhood spent absorbing television and movies until their stories became part of how he connected with other people.
“I’m of the age, I’m of the HBO generation,” Duplass said. “I grew up glued to that TV.”
He said the character takes that habit much further, living inside stories until he sometimes loses track of reality. Duplass “dialed it up to 1,000,” turning the familiar impulse to quote movies and adopt personas into the inner life of a killer.
