Just how did Southland actor Richard Crouchley prepare to play David Bain in TVNZ’s new drama series Black Hands? Southland App journalist Lucy Henry chats with the television series star.

Everyone in New Zealand has heard of the name David Bain.

Just at the mention of it, people are quick to think of the young 22-year-old on trial for the murder of his five family members, all the talk that surrounded it, his oversized glasses and his famous knitted jumpers.

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But how well do we really know David Bain?

Richard Crouchley, who plays David Bain in the series, is just 22-years-old himself.

He said he found that people knew of Bain but they didn’t really know him as a person.

“People kind of know him through assumption rather than actually kind of knowing his experiences,” Crouchley said.

“That was the biggest struggle…getting rid of all of the noise that surrounds him.”

Crouchley said he culled out of his mind biased online opinion pieces - from both sides of the spectrum - and got to work on learning who Bain was.

Through the show’s research and his own, he found out what Bain liked, what his hopes and dreams were as a young man in the early 1990s, how he was described by people who knew him at that time - all the things that “make you a human,” he said.

“It’s tricky because you can easily lean into seeing who he is now, but going through prison regardless is going to change you.”

“A lot of people have their assumptions [based] on David from who he is now, [rather] than who he was in ’94 and ’93.”

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Unlike journalist Martin Van Beynen’s podcast of the same name, which pours over the evidence given in the 1994 murder trial, the TV show Black Hands focuses on the months leading up to the murders, and delves into the relationships between the family members.

It was meant to pay homage to their lives rather than point the blame at "who did it", he said.

Crouchley is fascinated by people. Not passing judgment but understanding people instead is something that has always come naturally to him, he said.

“I can remember when I was a kid that if someone was mean to me, I’d often not get angry…but I’d be interested in why they did what they did.”

“I’ve always been quite clued into understanding or at least wanting to understand people rather than judge [them],” he said.

In this way, acting was, “one of the purest forms of psychology,” and his efforts to understand helped him to portray such different kinds of complex characters. 

Crouchley said Bain was a “big picture thinker,” and through the series, viewers will get to see much more of the kind of dreams he had.

Richard Crouchley as David Bain. PHOTO: Supplied

Changing Crouchley's appearance to morph him into a young David Bain was a big task.

He lost weight, had his hair chemically straightened, dyed, and thinned out.

He even had his hairline receded slightly. 

Then for two months during lockdown the filming was suspended, so Crouchley spent that time at his family home in Te Anau doing his best to maintain his new physical appearance.

“I had to maintain the same look, which was not the easiest,” he said.

While most people were taking multiple trips to the pantry during lockdown, Crouchley was eating one meal a day to stay lean and avoiding the sun to maintain Bain’s very pale look.

“I just gained really extreme roots from my hair dye job,” he laughed.

To get into character, Crouchley would adopt a certain facial posture and a subtle voice change to bring Bain to life.

Learning the lines was actually one of the last things he did, as “the most important thing is understanding and inhabiting the character,” he said.

Then he would use music.

“I had a playlist that I’d use, especially before intense scenes to get into a proper head space for it.”

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Now the show is airing, Crouchley is extremely proud to have been a part of it and hopes that it will be a beautiful piece of television that “stays around for a long time.”

“I think it’s really one of the strongest pieces of content that New Zealand has produced in a long time, which Is pretty exciting,” he said.

He said he hopes New Zealanders love it as much as he and the crew loved making it.

Black Hands airs every Sunday on TVNZ 1 at 8.30 pm.