Evan Peters on the Darkness of Playing Jeffrey Dahmer

Evan Peters struggled to separate his role as Jeffrey Dahmer in Netflix’s latest smash thriller, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.

In a Netflix-moderated talk on Saturday, Peters, 35, discussed playing the serial killer.

“Doing the role, I wanted to give it 120 percent the whole way through, so I brought in a lot of darkness and negativity,” he said, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Peters revealed that he spent months dressing like Dahmer, including donning his clothes and glasses, and that he also put weights on his arms to mimic the murderer’s gait. He continued by saying that he first toyed with the idea of accepting the role and that, when he did, he was afraid.

The American Horror Story actor struggled with the gloom of Dahmer’s existence while keeping his eyes fixed on the show’s conclusion. Even while he performed the role, he had the concept of a comedy film.

“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,’ ” Peters said.

Niecy Nash, who played Dahmer’s keen-eyed and suspicious neighbor in the series, joked about how deep Peters was in the role. “People will say, ‘What is Evan like?’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know that man,’ ” she said.

Since its debut, the show has drawn negative and positive criticism, and it has even caused some controversy. Some have accused Dahmer of desensitising viewers to violent content.

Despite the criticism, the show was one of the most watched programmes on Netflix ever and debuted in the top spot during its first week of availability.

The series gives viewers a deeper look at Dahmer’s victims, at least 17 men and boys who were raped, killed, and dismembered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, between 1978 and 1991. It also highlights Tracy Edwards, the one victim who escaped and ultimately played a significant role in Dahmer’s capture.

According to The Associated Press, Dahmer confessed fully to authorities after his arrest in July 1991, admitting to a “total of 17 slayings.” He was initially charged with four counts of first-degree intentional homicide and then, the following month, with eleven more murder charges.

In September 1991, Dahmer entered a plea of “innocent and innocent by reason of mental disease,” but in January 1992, he amended it to “guilty but insane.”

He was given 16 life sentences in jail in 1992 after it was determined that he was sane and had no mental illness at the time of the murders. His time in prison was brief because in 1994, Christopher Scarver, another prisoner, fatally beat him.

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