‘Only Murders in the Building’ Season 2 Killer Originally Auditioned for a Different Role
Many viewers were surprised by the killer’s identity in Only Murders in the Building Season 2. Poppy was not someone who seemed like a murderer, primarily due to the performance of Adina Verson. However, Verson says they auditioned for a different role in the Hulu series, and Poppy wasn’t written into the series until much later.
Who is the killer in ‘Only Murders in the Building’ Season 2?
Season 2 of Only Murders in the Building centered around the murder of Bunny Folger (Jayne Houdyshell). Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short), and Mabel (Selena Gomez) begin the season as the primary suspects, but more is discovered as the season progresses. In the finale, it is revealed that Poppy, Cinda Canning’s (Tina Fey) assistant, is the real killer. She also turned out to be Becky Butler, the supposedly-dead woman from Canning’s podcast, All Is Not OK in Oklahoma.
Poppy faked Butler’s death to start a new life working for Cinda. After Poppy begins a love affair with Detective Kreps (Michael Rapaport), the two begin to plot a new mystery for a podcast that will earn them stardom. Poppy pitches a podcast about Rose Cooper to Cina, but she’s uninterested. So, Poppy creates her own story by murdering Bunny, stealing the painting, and framing the three lead characters.
Adina Verson auditioned for a different character
In an interview with TV Line, Verson talked about playing Poppy and how the character became a killer. The actor says when they auditioned for Only Murders, it was for Fey’s character. She didn’t get that role, but they were so impressed with Verson that they decided to write a new character for the series.
“Originally, I had auditioned for Cinda. It was clearly written for Tina Fey, but I think because of the pandemic — it was still towards the beginning, as TV production was just starting to come back after the original shutdown — they weren’t sure if Tina could do it, so they had some people audition just in case. Knowing that, I just had fun with the tape. A few weeks later, I had a [callback], and a few weeks after that, my manager called and said, ‘Tina is available, but they really liked you and they want to write you this role.’ So they wrote me Poppy, which was thrilling, but it also kind of threw me into an existential crisis. I was, like, ‘Well, they don’t really know who I am, so did they write it for me? Or did they write it for the character that I did as Cinda?’ I had no idea. But then it became clear who Poppy was, and I do pretty well playing self-hating beta woman. I don’t know why!”
Verson knew early in season 2 that Poppy was the killer
Many showrunners want to keep their cast in the dark on specific spoilers so nothing leaks. However, Verson says they knew the killer at the beginning of Only Murders in the Building Season 2.
“It was before we started shooting Season 2, and they had reached out to my agents about my availability. There was some weird stuff about not wanting to bill me a certain way, and my agents didn’t understand why. Finally, they were like, ‘OK, here’s the deal.’ But instead of having my agents tell me, John and [fellow executive producer] Jess Rosenthal had a Zoom with me, and that’s when they told me. They had an outline of the season at the time, so I didn’t know all the details, but I knew I was Becky Butler, and I knew I was the murderer. Going forward, I got every script a week or two before shooting started.”
