The Way Brothers on Their Latest Stranger Than Fiction Docuseries ‘The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime Saga’
If you don’t remember that story about Everett Dutschke, a Mississippi karate instructor who mailed ricin to President Obama in 2013 and then attempted to frame Elvis impersonator/conspiracy theorist Kevin Curtis for the crime, don’t worry. The new Netflix three-part docuseries “The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime Saga” covers every inch of the stranger-than-fiction story that includes a cast of characters that rival those in “Tiger King.”
The docu begins with Curtis stumbling upon a severed head in a hospital refrigerator. That leads to a feud between Curtis and Steve Holland, a funeral home owner and Congressman who believes that he can publicly “fuck a bull moose” on the steps of a county courthouse and still win an election. The fight between Curtis and Holland becomes the catalyst for more feuds, which ultimately leads to utter chaos involving cars exploding, a house burning down, incarceration, cyberstalking, a drive-by shooting of an elephant, infidelity, and ultimately, the 2013 assassination attempt of President Obama.
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Helmed by “Wild Wild Country” directors Maclain and Chapman Way, “The Kings of Tupelo” is as dark as it is hilarious. (When investigating officers question a very scared Curtis in solitary confinement about ricin, the Elvis impersonator deadpans, “Sir. I haven’t bought rice in years. I never eat rice.”)
The Way brothers began shooting in Tupelo, Miss., the birthplace of Elvis Presley, three and a half years ago. Upon arrival, they were met with open arms by everyone in town, including Kevin Curtis and his brother Jack, who may have slept with Kevin’s ex-wife, Laura.
“When we first arrived in Tupelo for production, people immediately took notice of who we were and what we were doing,” says Macclain Way. “At first, I was a little nervous about telling them, “Hey. We are doing the 2013 Presidential assassination story,” because on face value, maybe that’s not a story that as a citizen of Tupelo, you would be enamored with Netflix making a high-profile documentary series about, but everyone’s reaction was the exact opposite. They were so excited, so stoked, so pumped about it.”
Variety spoke to Maclain and Chapman Way about finding another stranger-than-fiction story, the series’ motley crew of talking heads, and conspiracy theory films.
Was this story something that you read about in 2013 and held on to, or did someone suggest that you look into it?
Chapman Way: We wrapped “Wild Wild Country” in 2018 and had been looking for a follow-up of sorts. We had a faint memory of our country’s preeminent Elvis impersonator having been arrested for trying to assassinate President Obama, and that was kind of the only memory we had of it. So, we flew out to Mississippi, and the first thing we realized was what a fascinating little town Tupelo is. It is kind of like the forgotten stepchild to Graceland and Memphis. We eventually met with Kevin and his family and were off to the races from there. We quickly realized, “Holy crap, there is a lot more to the story than we remembered.”
In addition to Kevin Curtis and his immediate family, you were able to get candid, funny interviews with FBI agents, Congressmen, and local police officials, some of whom don’t come across well in the doc. How did you pull it off?
Chapman Way: We were born and raised in California, so it was a whole new experience to go to the South. But we realized very quickly that (Southerners) embrace their eccentricity. It’s something they are not ashamed of. It’s something they are proud of. So for them being a part of this batshit, crazy story is something very fun. Even if they might be the villain in someone’s story, they are still a main character in the story, and they embrace that. For us, as documentary filmmakers, you are beholden to your talking heads since there isn’t a script and there aren’t any actors. When we sat down with the subjects of this series, we immediately realized just how gifted they were at storytelling. We would go from one character to the next and all of them were hitting at like a very high, high percentage – giving us unbelievable zingers and lines. It was quite an experience as an interviewer.
Was there any hesitation about talking to Kevin and telling his story since it is implied in the series that he might have some addiction and or mental health issues he hasn’t necessarily worked out?
Maclain Way: As filmmakers, I’ve never wrestled too much with who do you platform? Who do you not platform? I think it’s all very important to hear, even if you are hearing from someone that you don’t agree with. For someone like Kevin, he felt like he had been muzzled for so long, and his family did as well. So, everyone felt like this was an amazing opportunity for Kevin to finally be able to tell his story. There was a lot of support from his friends and family in doing (this series).
This series covers human dismemberment, sexual perversity, and an assassination attempt, yet it is really funny. You made it look easy, but was it challenging to make this a humorous docuseries?
Chapman Way: There is a challenge to comedy in documentaries, and it mainly comes from the fact that you really can’t write the jokes. What’s interesting is we never find it funny when we are honestly laughing at our characters. That’s just not funny, and it doesn’t feel great. But, the characters in this series are generally funny human beings. They made me laugh in the interview chair several, several times. More times than any documentary I’ve ever done. All of them, across the board, were funny. Even Everett Dutschke, in his prison phone calls, could throw in a joke. As a filmmaker, when you work on something for as long as we did, your instinct is to show the audience a reflection of what you experienced when speaking with these people. So, for us, it was a no-brainer to include their humor, but it was still a challenge because sometimes laughs fall short. Comedy is subjective. But at the end of the day, we felt that if we were laughing at it and having a good time with it, we wanted to try and bring that to the audience.
Earlier this year, your doc “American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders” was released on Netflix. Like “The Kings of Tupelo” it is a a film that tackles conspiracy theories. Will your next doc also be about conspiracy theories?
Maclain Way: I’m not a conspiracy guy. It’s not something that super intrigues me. But I think what intrigued us with the story of “The Kings of Tupelo” was that there didn’t really seem to be any deep dive analysis into how and why and where this was all coming from. So, the opportunity for us to dive into the belly of the beast and learn more about how people find themselves in these situations with conspiracies and not just in an admonishing, finger-wagging kind of way, but really in a human way, was appealing. I find those types of documentaries interesting. They are a challenge, though. They’re a huge challenge because conspiracies are inherently confusing.
“The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime Saga” is currently streaming on Netflix.
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