Evan Peters dressed like Jeffrey Dahmer for months before filming Netflix series Monster
Evan Peters has opened up about his preparation to play Jeffrey Dahmer in Netflix’s recent true crime series.
The American Horror Story star appears as the serial killer and cannibal, who murdered 17 men and boys between the years 1978 and 1991, in Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
In a new interview, Peters admitted that he was “terrified” to play Dahmer and went to some extreme lengths to inhabit the serial killer.
“Doing the role, I wanted to give it 120 per cent the whole way through, so I brought in a lot of darkness and negativity,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
Peters described how, alongside doing extensive research and dialect work in preparation, he wore Dahmer’s shoes, jeans and glasses for months before filming.
He would even put weights on his arms to mirror the murderer’s style of walking.
“It was just having that end goal in sight, knowing when we were going to wrap and finally being able to breathe and let it go and say, ‘Okay, now it’s time to bring in the joy and the lightness and watch comedies and romances and go back to St Louis and see my family and friends and yeah, watch Step Brothers,’” he said.
His co-star Niecy Nash, who played Dahmer’s neighbour Glenda Cleveland, confirmed that Peters got deep into his character during filming.
“People will say, ‘What is Evan like?’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know that man,’” she joked.
Since Dahmer arrived on Netflix, many viewers have argued that the show was overly gruesome and exploitative of Dahmer’s victims.
Family members of Dahmer’s victims – including the mother of Tony Hughes, one of the men killed – have also condemned the show.
However, creator Ryan Murphy has this week claimed that he reached out to the families of 20 of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims before making the show, and “not a single person responded”.
“We reached out to 20, around 20 of the victims’ families and friends trying to get input, trying to talk to people and not a single person responded to us in that process,” he said.
“So 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.”
Murphy said he would be “happy” to pay for a memorial for Dahmer’s victims and claimed that he has been trying to “get a hold of people” to discuss the idea.
Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is on Netflix now.
