“Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” a Netflix series, retraumatized the victims’ families, but it also affected Evan Peters.
Despite the controversy surrounding the film, “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” continues to generate enough interest that it is now only a few million hours away from reaching one billion hours of streaming. Despite the disturbing nature of the story, the series continues to draw viewers who want to learn more about Dahmer’s crimes.
But, for Peters, playing the serial killer role was not easy – but he wanted to nail it.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the actor revealed that it took months of preparation to feel the “darkness and negativity” that aided him in the series.
Peters allegedly wore Dahmer’s shoes, jeans, and glasses for months. He also put weights on his arms to imitate the murderer’s famous walk.
Despite achieving his goal, he admitted to being terrified of accepting the role.
Peters said:
“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.'”
The “American Horror Story” star immersed himself in the gloom of Dahmer’s life.
In the same interview, show co-creator Ryan Murphy explained why he thought the show was successful.
According to him, the success of “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” was due to the world being dark and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite his desire to tell the entire story to the audience, he admitted that he attempted to contact the victims’ families for research purposes. No one, however, responded to them.
Murphy recalled spending three and a half years writing and working on the Netflix series during an event at Los Angeles’ DGA Theatre (via Variety). Despite their efforts to include the families’ perspectives, they were forced to rely on researchers who learned about Dahmer’s crimes from other people.
On the other hand, the victims’ families would never want to be involved in the series because they have repeatedly accused Netflix and the creators of creating the retraumatizing series to profit from other people’s tragedies.