The actor wanted to fully embody the criminal (Picture: Getty/Netflix)
Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has been the talk of the internet over recent weeks, since the Ryan Murphy series landed on Netflix.
Now, it’s been revealed that lead star Evan Peters went full method for the role, and even wore Dahmer’s clothes in preparation.
The true crime series has left countless people sickened with its portrayal of Dahmer’s crimes, with even Dahmer’s father, Lionel, claiming the show ‘glamorises’ his son’s gruesome murders.
Also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender who murdered and 17 boys and men between 1978 and 1991.
Dahmer was convicted of 16 murders and sentenced to life in prison back in 1992, before being beaten to death by a fellow inmate in 1994.
In the record-breaking Netflix show, Peters went to the extremes to ensure he was able to embody the killer, which he revealed during a Q&A.
He wore the killer’s real clothes and accessories for months (Picture: Getty)
The American Horror Story actor said he not only wore Dahmer’s clothes ahead of filming, but his accessories too, including his glasses, shoes, and jeans – and he did this for months.
In quotes obtained by Variety, Peters said: ‘I really went back and forth on whether I should do it or not. I knew it was going to be incredibly dark and an incredible challenge,’ while speaking during a panel with Murphy and co-stars Niecy Nash and Richard Jenkins.
When he was sent the scripts, he watched Dahmer’s 1994 interview on Dateline so he could ‘dive into the psychology of that extreme side of human behaviour.’
Peters went full method for the intense role (Picture: Netflix)
Speaking on the four months of prep and six months of shooting for the project, Murphy added that Peters wore weights around his arms and lifts in his shoes to replicated the physicality of Dahmer saying he ‘basically stayed in character, as difficult as it was, for months.’
Evans explained: ‘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.
‘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.
Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison in 1992 (Picture: Getty/AFP)
‘The way that he spoke, it was very distinct and he had a dialect. So, I also went off and created this 45-minute audio composite, which was very helpful. 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.’
He described the process as ‘an exhaustive search’ as he tried to find ‘private’ moments when Dahmer ‘didn’t seem self-conscious,’ so he could get a glimpse of ‘how he behaved prior to these interviews and being in prison.’
Nash, who plays Dahmer’s neighbour Glenda Cleveland, added that she wanted to ‘respect’ Peters’ preparation for the series and ‘prayed a lot’ for him due to the ‘weighty’ nature of the role.
Creator Ryan Murphy claims no family members responded to him ahead of the series being made (Picture: Getty)
‘When you stay in it, and you’re tethered to the material, like bone to marrow, your soul is troubled at some point,’ she said. ‘And I could see him getting tired. I just said, “Well, I’m just gonna make sure I keep him in my prayers, because this is a lot and he wants to do it justice”.’
The series has received a great deal of backlash, particularly from surviving members of victims families, who claim they were neither contacted nor consulted before production began.
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In response, creator Murphy says they researched ‘for a very long time,’ claiming to have reached out to 20 family members and friends for their input, but heard nothing back.
‘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.’
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‘I wanted all this stuff to be second nature.’