Dennis Quaid recently opened up about how his wife, Laura Savoie, reacted to his chilling new role as serial killer Keith Hunter Jesperson in the Paramount+ series Happy Face. The actor admitted the role was unsettling for Savoie at first.
“It was a little iffy there for a couple of hours afterwards because, you know, that’d be creepy for me, too,” Quaid told Fox News Digital. “But she knows me,” he added with a laugh.
Quaid portrays Jesperson, a Canadian-American truck driver who murdered at least eight women in the early 1990s and gained notoriety as the “Happy Face Killer” after signing letters to law enforcement and media with smiley faces.
Quaid and Savoie, who is 39 years his junior, married in 2020 after getting engaged in 2019. The actor credits their lasting bond to their shared Christian faith. “God is in our relationship,” he said. “I think that’s the real secret of it. Having God in your relationship is essential, I think.”
Quaid, who has been married three times before, reflected on his past relationships, including his high-profile marriage to Meg Ryan, with whom he shares a son, Jack. He was also previously married to actress P.J. Soles and real estate agent Kimberly Buffington, with whom he has twins, Thomas and Zoe.
Speaking of Jack, Quaid couldn’t be prouder of his son’s rising acting career. From early roles in The Hunger Games to his breakout performance as Hughie Campbell in Amazon’s The Boys, Jack recently landed his first lead role in the action film Novocaine.
“Seeing his movie lead the box office was fantastic,” Quaid said. “I couldn’t be prouder. The guy is on a trajectory to go way past both me and his mother, I think. I hope so. And I think he will. He’s such a great guy.”
Quaid also praised Jack’s determination to make it on his own in Hollywood, revealing he once offered to help him get an agent. “He said, ‘No, Dad, I want to do it myself.’ He’s really earned it. Done it all himself.”
As for Happy Face, the eight-part series premieres March 20 and is based on the story of Jesperson’s daughter, Melissa Moore, who discovered at age 15 that her father was a serial killer. The series draws from Moore’s 2009 memoir Shattered Silence and her 2018 podcast Happy Face.
Quaid chose not to meet Jesperson in preparation for the role. “Usually I like to — if I play a real-life person — I like to meet them. But this guy, I didn’t want to meet him,” Quaid explained. “He’s in a hole in prison in Portland, where he should be. And I really didn’t want to give him any kind of entertainment or feelings of excitement.”
Instead, he gained insight into Jesperson through conversations with Moore, whose experience forms the emotional core of the series. Quaid described the tension between Moore’s childhood memories and the horrifying truth she learned as a teenager.
“They had a very loving, sweet, affectionate relationship,” he said. “And then at the age of 15, she finds out her father’s a serial killer. So how do you reconcile that in your brain? It doesn’t fit.”
Moore, he said, has spent her life trying to “right a wrong that cannot be righted.” Despite the trauma, she has reached out to other victims’ families — and even to children of other serial killers — to build a supportive community.
“She’s really struggled and fought just to be normal in this life,” Quaid said. “I really admire her… Nobody really understands, except people who’ve gone through what you’ve gone through.”
Quaid’s co-stars James Wolk and Tamera Tomakili, who play Moore’s husband and coworker, also shared their admiration for Quaid’s work. Wolk called him “a generous actor” and “very kind and professional,” while Tomakili described his energy on set as “inspiring.”
Both emphasized that the show does not glamorize violence. “It shows the other side — the people who are actually affected by it and how they move forward through it,” Tomakili said.