In the acclaimed Netflix miniseries Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Evan Peters has been candid about what it was like to portray Jeffrey Dahmer.
The real crime series’ 35-year-old lead actor made an appearance during a Q+A panel and discussed his part as the American serial murderer who killed 17 boys and men between 1978 and 1991.
The American Horror Story actor revealed during the conversation that he went to great measures to make sure he could embody the killer for the record-breaking programme, which was viewed 701.37 million hours in the first three weeks of its release, according to Daily Mail.
The Kick-Ass actor revealed that after receiving the scripts, he studied the serial killer’s 1994 Dateline interview to prepare for the role and “dive into the psychology of that extreme side of human behavior”.
The director joined in and added that Peters “stayed in character” for months by wearing weights around his arms and lifts in his shoes to mimic Dahmer’s physical appearance during the four months of prep and six months of filming for the project.
“He has a very straight back. He doesn’t move his arms when he walks, so I put weights on my arms to see what that felt like. I wore the character shoes with lifts in them, his jeans, his glasses, I had a cigarette in my hand at all times,” Peters said.
“I wanted all this stuff, these external things, to be second nature when we were shooting, so I watched a lot of footage and I also worked with a dialect coach to get down his voice. The way that he spoke, was very distinct and he had a dialect,” he continued.
“So, I also went off and created this 45-minute audio composite, which was very helpful,” he said. “I listened to that every day, in hopes of learning his speech patterns, but really, in an attempt to try to get into his mindset and understand that each day that we were shooting.”
In order to understand how Dahmer behaved prior to his interviews and his time in prison, the Mare of Easttown actor described the filming procedure as “an intensive quest” as he looked for “private” times when the murderer “didn’t seem self-conscious.”
Nash, who plays Glenda Cleveland, a neighbour of Dahmer, noted that she “prayed a lot” for Peters and wanted to “respect” his preparation for the role.
She remarked, “I wanted to respect that and I wanted to keep him there. I prayed for you a lot, for real, because this is weighty. And when you stay in it, and you’re tethered to the material, like a bone to marrow, your soul is troubled at some point”.
The second-most watched English Netflix series of all time, the series drew criticism from surviving victims’ family members and others on social media for not consulting them before filming started.
The Hollywood Reporter states that in response to those allegations, Murphy stated that he undertook “quite extensive research” and purportedly contacted 20 members of his family for their opinions, but received no response.
“We relied very, very heavily on our incredible group of researchers who… I don’t even know how they found a lot of this stuff. But it was just like a night-and-day effort to us trying to uncover the truth of these people,” he shared.
The man who killed Jeffery Dahmer explain why he did it.
Featured image credit: AFF / Alamy
