Jodi Arias Murder Conviction: Lifetime Movie Cast Was Glued to Verdict, Actor Playing Travis Alexander "Felt Validated"

Exclusive: Network's VP of Original Movies tells E! News they had no idea that the Arias saga would take off with the media the way it ultimately did

Nancy Grace wasn't the only one hanging on every word when Jodi Arias was found guilty of first-degree murder this week.

"Everyone watched it, we had a TV on the set and we stopped filming," Arturio Interian, VP of Original Movies for Lifetime Entertainment Services, which has been developing The Jodi Arias Story since March 2012, exclusively tells E! News. 

"It was a very quiet moment. It's a very real and painful story, and we can't forget that a young man was needlessly killed and Jodi threw her life away too. Tania Raymonde, the actress who is playing Jodi, was stunned."

The 25-year-old Switched at Birth star also witnessed, right then and there, her role going from "murder suspect Jodi Arias" to "convicted murderer Jodi Arias."

"It was surreal on the set when the verdict came down," Interian continued. "I have done a lot of true-crime work, but this is the first time I have been filming when this has happened."

Lifetime's true-crime credits, to name just a couple, include Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy and Drew Peterson: Untouchable.

"Jesse Lee Soffer, the actor who is playing [victim Travis Alexander], felt validated in an odd way," Interian continued. "Everyone has really embraced their role. He thought it was murder-one right from the get-go."

And, even though Lifetime's true-crime movies are famed for cramming as much melodrama and scandal into the finished product as possible, Interian said that there are certain places they were not willing to go.

"There are some things we are not showing in the film," he said. "Jodi made some very dark allegations against Travis which were not necessarily based on truth. So, we are just going to show her making those statements in the trial, but we do not have scenes to support them."

"We talked to people close to Travis for research purposes, but we have not spoken directly to his family," the exec explained. "But we have a good sense of who he was, that he was a good guy and not the monster [Arias] portrayed him to be. He is the victim here."

And Arias has been convicted of premeditated murder, months after she famously said in a jailhouse interview, "No jury  would convict me. Mark my words."

"We actually filmed the cast as they watched the verdict," Interian said, noting that the production is shooting in Los Angeles until Tuesday. "We were shooting a scene [at Jodi's grandmother's house] when the verdict came down, and so we stopped that to let the moment unfold."

Interian told E! that the film was originally going to end with Arias' arrest, but that the increasingly twisted story being told at trial—and the media's continued fascination with Arias' case—definitely played a role in the decision to include the trial in the movie.

"We knew the story was interesting but we never could have guessed the media would get hold of it in the way they did," he said.

"We have not heard from Jodi, which is surprising, because she seems very media savvy."

The Jodi Arias Story will premiere on Lifetime in June.