Tiera Skovbye stars alongside Amanda Peet as Betty Broderick in Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story. As Betty’s marriage unravels in the present day of Dirty John, the show flashes back to the early days of Betty and Dan Broderick’s relationship. While Betty and Dan did love each other at one point, the problems between them started very early.
Betty supported Dan through both medical and law school. They also had 5 children together. After 17 years of marriage, Dan hired Linda Kolkena at his law firm. Dan divorced Betty and married Linda. Dan and Betty’s divorce battle was brutal. Eventually, Betty shot and killed Dan and Linda in 1989.
HollywoodLife talked EXCLUSIVE with Tiera about her feelings towards Betty after having played the complex woman. Despite the fact that Betty did commit murder, Tiera “absolutely” empathizes with that Betty went through. “I mean that she was pregnant 9 times. She sacrificed so much for her family and for Dan, and then the rug kind of got ripped from underneath her. It’s definitely devastating. They both made some tough decisions and went down some dark paths, but I definitely think that this woman was broken and heartbroken and devastated by everything that she had gone through for this man, and how he could just so easily take it all away from her.”
Tiera revealed that she learned a lot from Amanda’s portrayal of Betty, since Amanda had already started filming before she did. “I actually got to go on set and watch her for about a week and a half before I started filming,” Tiera said. “So Amanda definitely had a lot more to do, a lot more research. I just really followed her lead and let her lay the groundwork for what I was going to do. Because there isn’t a ton of information out on younger Betty and there’s no videos or anything of them, it was very much relying on the writers and then following the nuances that Amanda had already created for the character, which was so fun to watch.”
The actress did do her own research as well. She read the book Until the Twelfth of Never and watched as much as she could about the trial. “Even though that wasn’t the time that I was playing her, I still wanted to layer in everything that she ends up going through,” Tiera continued. “Following in the footsteps of what the writers had really wanted us to portray, I think what was important about the younger years was showing the love and commitment that they did have for each other.” Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on USA Network.