1 of 5 | Melissa Roxburgh, seen at the 2025 Film Independent Spirit Awards, stars in “The Hunting Party.” File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo
Melissa Roxburgh says the serial killer at the center of the season finale of The Hunting Party, airing Monday at 10 p.m. EDT on NBC, disturbed her on multiple levels.
Roxburgh, 32, plays Bex Henderson, an FBI profiler helping to re-capture serial killers who escaped from a top secret underground prison, The Pit. Monday’s episode features Eliza Coupe as Jenna Wells, a chemist who poisons her victims. Advertisement
Jenna also assumes her victims’ identities to get close to them.
In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Roxburgh pointed out the added level of violation this imposes on Jenna’s victims.
“Probably the most invasive way of killing someone is to become them because not only are they being killed, but their identity is being taken,” Roxburgh said. “I just think there’s nothing more icky and disgusting than someone taking who you are.” Advertisement
The Hunting Party featured 10 “icky and disgusting” killers this season, including one who called his victims’ families while he murdered them and another who made one victim watch him kill his previous victim.
Roxburgh said The Hunting Party crew keeps things light when they’re producing such dark material.
“Behind the scenes, we’re all laughing and joking,” she said. “So I get to shake some of it off which is nice.”
Guest star Coupe also brought a macabre sense of humor to Jenna, Roxburgh said. The Happy Endings and Future Man star used quirky comedy to make Jenna more disturbing.
“That lends to the creepiness in a way because she’s just so bold about it,” Roxburgh said.
In the season finale, Bex also meets Col. Eve Lazarus (Kari Matchett) for the first time. Roxburgh said the military never expected Bex to figure out they were involved with The Pit.
“Bex is pretty bullheaded,” she said. “I think she was brought in as a profiler and none of them thought that she would get so high up the ladder with talking to people.”
The Pit raised questions from Bex immediately, when she discovered a killer she caught was kept alive after she attended his execution. In subsequent episodes, she has discovered The Pit was conducting experiments on prisoners. Advertisement
Though Bex agrees the convicted killers need to be recaptured, she also takes issue with using them as lab rats.
“They were human guinea pigs in a way,” she said. “The fact that this was a funded program is just so interesting.”
That empathy also serves Bex well in profiling her subjects, Roxburgh said. Empathizing with their background does not mean excusing or forgiving them for killing.
“She comes through it from a lens of why these people got to the point that they think that it’s okay to do what they’re doing,” she said. “That’s her whole approach into their minds.”
NBC had not yet renewed The Hunting Party for a second season at the time of this interview. The show leaves several questions to be answered in a potential Season 2.
“I want to see where the team goes,” Roxburgh said. “I just want to see what the new killers are and how creative the writers can get with it.”
