‘Happy Face’s Khiyla Aynne Connects With Dennis Quaid In First-Look Clip As Actress Teases Dangerous Interaction
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EXCLUSIVE: Khiyla Aynne is ready for the spotlight, which she will have tonight on the Paramount+ series Happy Face when her character Hazel Reed does the forbidden.
Hazel is the granddaughter of serial killer Keith Hunter Jesperson, better known as the titular Happy Face killer; both characters are based on real people. Aynne spoke to Deadline about her experience playing a real-life person and the lengths production went to make her first interaction with Dennis Quaid, who plays her imprisoned grandfather, be as authentic as possible.
Watch a clip from their characters’ first interaction above.
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The CBS Studios-produced Happy Face is inspired by the true-life story of Melissa Moore, the Happy Face podcast from iHeartPodcasts and Moore, and the autobiography Shattered Silence, written by Moore with M. Bridget Cook.
Jumping off from Moore’s true-life story, the series follows Melissa (Annaleigh Ashford) and her incarcerated father, known as the Happy Face Killer (Quaid). After decades of no contact, he finally finds a way to force himself back into his daughter’s life. In a race against the clock, Melissa must find out if an innocent man is going to be put to death for a crime her father committed. Throughout, she discovers the impact her father had on his victims’ families and must face a reckoning of her own identity.
Moore’s children Hazel and Max Reed are played by Aynne and Benjamin Mackey, respectively.
DEADLINE: This series tackles heavy subjects. What was it like being on set of a series based on real-life events involving a serial killer?
KHIYLA AYNNE: Yes, it’s definitely a heavy subject matter, but we really kept it light and positive between takes. During breaks, we sometimes played Uno and joked around a bit. Our crew was really amazing, and the cast was wonderful to work with.
DEADLINE: Episode 5 is a pivotal moment for your character, Hazel. Her mom has successfully kept her isolated from her grandfather even though Hazel has asked a lot about him and shown interest in getting to know him. The two of you connect behind her back, as we can see in the video clip. What can you share about the significance of their chat?
KA: Yeah, episode 5 is pivotal for Hazel, and she has some pretty big moments. She is seen first talking with her grandfather, which I think viewers will be shocked about. Some probably will be screaming at my character, saying, “Stop! Why are you doing that? Hang up the phone.” I think what’s going through her head is that he doesn’t seem as bad as her mom and her family have made him out to be. You’ll see how he’s validating her when he says, “You’re not a kid anymore, and you can decide for yourself what you think of me.” She feels the opposite when her mother tells her what to think and what to do. Meanwhile, this man who’s been hidden from her is validating her and telling her that she can make up her own mind and think the way she feels is best.
DEADLINE: As an outsider looking in, though, 15-year-olds think they know everything and don’t realize their parents have their safety and best interest at heart. There have to be repercussions for Hazel, no?
KA: Definitely. Going back to episode one, we see Hazel’s desire to find out where she came from and who she is after she overhears her mother saying that her father is the Happy Face killer. That sparks something inside her as she’s on this journey of self-discovery. This gives her something even deeper to dive into: her family’s past and everything. When we see her speaking with Keith for the first time, we don’t really know where the relationship’s going or what this will mean. He has access to the outside world while being in prison, and for the larger story, Melissa is seeing whether or not they’re going to do a trial for the murder.
DEADLINE: What was your process for getting into character?
KA: It was a hard frame of mind to get into because I’d be speaking with a serial killer. That’s not a normal thing, so it’s very different. Our director, Ramaa Mosley, was very helpful with that. She made some amazing choices, which included having Dennis and I not meet before we filmed any of our scenes. I didn’t meet him for the first time until our show premiered at SXSW in Austin, Texas.
DEADLINE: You never saw each other on set?
KA: Never. We saw each other in passing one time during lunch, but we didn’t meet one another until SXSW. Ramaa chose that because she wanted our characters’ first time talking to be as real as possible. So in the scenes [airing tonight], those phones are real, and we were doing our scenes together but apart.
DEADLINE: Did you feel any pressure about playing a real-life person?
KA: Playing a real person comes with added pressure. It’s not a bad pressure, but you want to do a good job because you are portraying them in a slightly different version. You want to make them proud.
DEADLINE: Did you get to meet Melissa or Hazel?
KA: I didn’t meet Melissa or her daughter until after we finished shooting. When I met them, they were so welcoming, so lovely. I gave her entire family hugs. It was nice to see them face to face. We had spoken on social media, privately, before we met. Her daughter complimented the series and how I portrayed this version of her. That meant a lot to me. We hung out a lot in Austin.
DEADLINE: Before we go, can you tease what’s ahead for Hazel? She’s making big mistakes and involving other people. This can’t end too well.
KA: What I can say is Hazel has gone through hard times with the bullying she experienced in the previous episodes and hard times with her peers at school. So when [she starts talking to her grandfather], people start giving her attention and thinking she’s so cool. However, she’s making mistakes and letting these friends into her life. You’ll have to wait and see what else happens for the rest of this season.
‘Happy Face’ fact check: What’s true (and what’s not) in serial killer crime series
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The horrors surrounding “Happy Face” are bone-chillingly true.
The Paramount+ crime drama series delves into the seemingly all-American upbringing of Melissa G. Moore, which is terrifyingly upended when she discovers that her truck driver father, Keith Hunter Jesperson, is the serial murderer known as the Happy Face Killer. Jesperson is spending his life sentence in an Oregon prison for the murders of eight women from 1990 to 1995, and might have committed even more.
But much of the eight-episode series, starring Annaleigh Ashford as Melissa, is heavily dramatized. “Happy Face” is “inspired by a true story,” according to an opening disclaimer, and indulges in significant license.
“It’s a true-crime story based on true events,” says Dennis Quaid, who plays the wire-rimmed glasses-wearing Jesperson. “Melissa had to reconcile the loving relationship she had with her father as a child with the monster her father was in reality. That’s where our story comes from.”
Here’s what’s drama and what’s true in “Happy Face,” (first two episodes now streaming, then weekly on Thursdays), as told by the real Melissa, an executive producer on the series, author, true-crime journalist and victim’s advocate who lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband Steve.Watch it here: Stream your favorite shows, the biggest blockbusters and more.
The ‘Dr. Greg’ talk show premise: Those dogs don’t hunt
The series portrays Melissa as an unassuming makeup artist on the “Dr. Greg Show” where she’s convinced to get her imprisoned father to reveal new murder victims, preferably on camera. Moore first told her story on TV for the “Dr. Phil” show in 2008 and has appeared as a crime correspondent for “The Dr. Oz Show.” She even had an early stint at cosmetology school. But the “Dr. Greg Show” aspect is pure fiction.
Moore’s story garnered attention with her 2018 true-crime podcast “Happy Face.” But she first told it in her 2009 book “Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer’s Daughter.”
“That was my chance to have a reckoning with my own story and tell it,” Moore tells USA TODAY.
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Many childhood moments really happened, even the spaghetti sauce sighting
Many of the scenes from Melissa’s childhood reflect the innocence of growing up as one of three children of Jesperson and their mother, Rose Hucke (the couple divorced in 1990). There are happy moments with her father (he called her Missy). But many memories have turned sinister in retrospect. A scene where hidden duct tape rolls out of from under her father’s truck cab bed happened, she says: “It was an industrial-sized roll.” Also true: The scene in which a teenage Melissa visits her recently divorced father in Portland, Oregon, and notices a red substance on the ceiling fan. He chalks it up to spaghetti sauce, but the 1990 trip was right after Jesperson’s first known murder. “I had no idea that I was in a crime scene,” says Moore. “I’m speculating that was blood.”
‘Happy Face’ father-daughter prison visits are amped
The tense prison visits between Moore and her father are heavily exaggerated for drama. Melissa says she’s seen her dad in prison twice, first when he was charged with killing his then-girlfriend Julie Winningham in 1995. “He said, ‘Missy, my best advice is to change your last name.’ That’s when I knew he was guilty,” says Moore, who followed it. “We would learn that next summer that he committed seven more murders.”
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Moore says her only 2005 prison visit, accompanied by her then-husband, prompted Jesperson, now 69, to immediately ask his daughter if she wanted a motive.
“Do you want to know why?” Moore recalls him saying, but she declined to hear his explanation. “So then he started talking to my husband about mortgages. It was bizarre.”
“I still want to know why,” she says. “But I thought he would just play games.”
The Happy Face name came from notes from the killer
Quaid incorporates a leering smile as Jesperson, especially when speaking to his daughter in scenes shot in a defunct prison. However, the Happy Face Killer nickname came from taunting notes Jesperson left authorities, which featured a pre-emoji written smiling face, as depicted in the series.
“He’d even leave messages on bathroom walls with the happy face. That was kind of his I.D.,” says Quaid. “He’s not smart but thinks he’s this master manipulator.”
When researching the role, the 6-foot-tall Quaid never sought to meet the 6-foot-6-inch Jesperson in prison. “I have and had no interest in meeting him,” says Quaid. “I think I’d just get a bunch of b.s. anyways.”
Melissa’s children were curious about their unknown grandfather
“Happy Face” shows Melissa making a call on a burner phone to her father in prison, ordering him to stop writing letters to her children. This verbal confrontation didn’t happen, but the discomfort of her children finding about their granddad was real. Moore says her kids naturally started asking about their never-spoken-of grandfather when they were teenagers. Jesperson wrote about the kids in letters to her, and some sent to her husband.
Her father “really wants to have this family reunion. That’ll never happen,” says Moore.
Some of Jesperson’s letters were reflected in the series’ conversations between the father and daughter, including their first prison visit, where he says, “Missy, you gonna come over here and do my makeup? Make me look pretty for the camera?”
“My dad had written that to me, saying that if I ever came to visit, to let him know,” says Moore. “Because he wanted to look really good, camera-ready.'”
