David Arquette talks dark new movie role and fatherhood

The always cheerful David Arquette sat down with AOL.com's Brian Balthazar to discuss his gritty new role as a serial killer in Lifetime's Happy Face Killer. Arquette plays real-life sociopath Keith Hunter Jesperson whose murderous spree in the 1990s left eight women dead.

"It was just something I don't typically get to play, so it was going to be fun to explore and just to try and find some humanity in him," he said. Arquette prepared for the role by studying interviews and reading all the material he could find on the infamous killer in an attempt to understand his tragic actions.

Arquette couldn't help but gush over the baby he and girlfriend Christina McLarty are expecting. He laughed off ex-wife Courteney Cox's accidental reveal of the baby's sex on Ellen. "She knew that they had known about the baby, but she didn't know if we'd announced the sex or anything."

Happy Face Killer premieres on Lifetime March 1st at 8PM EST.