When The Brittany Murphy Story aired on Lifetime earlier this month, articles upon articles slammed the movie for its bad acting, bad wigs, and ultimately bad writing (surprise!).
But among all of the negative press, actor Adam Hagenbuch seemed to receive the most praise for his portrayal of Murphy's boyfriend, actor/producer/that asshole who used to "punk" people, Ashton Kutcher.
"That makes me feel good," Hagenbuch says. "It's nice to know that I brought something to it and when you do something like this where you're playing a character that exists in real life, you want to be as accurate as possible. And I definitely did some work on it and there's also the thing where, like, 'Do I look like this person?'"
Hagenbuch, who grew up in Addison, attending Trinity Christian Academy, does look and sound much like Kutcher. He said several people have told him that, especially when he's sporting a cap, or at least something similar to those trucker hats Kutcher made popular during the MTV Punk'd days.
"It wasn't until I got the part that I really started looking at his mannerisms," Hagenbuch says.
Aside from Murphy's relationship with Kutcher, the movie's story line did leave some gaping holes. For instance, Murphy's two engagements prior to her late husband went unmentioned. It could be because the film was shot in 16 days. And from what Hagenbuch recalls, the script was written in about six weeks.
"It was as quickly put together as I've seen anything and that's not to say it was shoddily put together," he says, "but they were moving very quickly."
While there definitely was some controversy surrounding the film, like Murphy's father being vocal about his distaste for the production, Hagenbuch said it didn't bother the cast much.
"There was some discussion I remember because I specifically asked, 'Am I going to be sued by Ashton Kutcher?' And they were like, 'No. There's no chance of that.' They said there was a chance that they could get sued and they were in the process of getting sued by Brittany Murphy's father."
Hagenbuch wasn't sued and said the movie wasn't meant to be negative.
"The goal of the film was to try and bring some light to her body of work, so it was in no way a smear campaign," he says.
Now living in Los Angeles and working as a personal trainer, Hagenbuch is continuing to audition for roles after his guest spot on Rizzoli and Isles. While he has no permanent plans to return to Dallas, he said he hopes to come back for the holidays and to visit his old school and teachers.
