2023 Emmy Nominee Evan Peters on Playing Jeffrey Dahmer Through Sleepless Nights in Netflix’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story

Evan Peters has developed a reputation as an actor who continually challenges himself in roles that are both expansive in expression (the American Horror Story series) and low-key (Mare of Easttown). In taking on the oft-told story of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Netflix’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Peters perhaps faced his greatest acting challenge. Aside from the fact that the show’s right to exist was brought into question before many who felt appalled at the idea of it ever saw it, Peters had to find a way to become a man whose actions were not only horrifying, but inexplicable. 

How did this uncharismatic, not particularly smart, and even sloppy killer of seventeen men get away with his crimes when they at times played out in plain sight? In our conversation, Evan and I discuss the challenges of playing a character like Jeffrey Dahmer, as well as the systemic issues that allowed this man to carry out his murderous actions for so long.

Awards Daily:This show surprised and upset all my expectations. I didn’t think another telling of Jeffrey Dahmer was necessary until I watched this version. With that in mind, you had to know that this show was going to be controversial and not just perhaps rejected sight unseen, but I think it was rejected by some without actually seeing it. Did you have any trepidation about taking this on? 

Evan Peters: I did. I initially was very apprehensive, but then I read it and the writing was brilliant and very careful to show many different perspectives—the victims, the victims’ family members, neighbors who tried to sound the alarm, all in service of trying to relay this message that the system tragically failed them on multiple occasions because of prejudice. I felt like that was really incredibly compelling and it made me really want to be a part of the project and to push myself, all in service of trying to relay that message. 

Awards Daily: In this series, Dahmer is sort of the linchpin around which these other social issues are being discussed. You are essentially the lead, but a lot of this show belongs to the victims as well. Were you ever concerned that the balance would not allow you to do what you needed to do in terms of time and being able to show the progression of Dahmer’s story?

Evan Peters: I felt like in the writing it was sort of all there. There was plenty of time to show that. We had one rule going into it that it would never be told from Dahmer’s POV. The DP, all the directors, writers, producers, cast, were all aware of this. I think the series, in the earlier episodes, was really an attempt to try to understand how he became what he became and why he became what he became, but the show is really not about that. The case of Jeffrey Dahmer is much, much larger than that.

Awards Daily: There are a number of things you can point to as a collection of possibilities of why he became a serial killer. The medical procedure he had as a youth where he may have been under anesthesia for an excessively long time, his mother’s mental illness, his father’s absenteeism, but there’s a mystery to it. Also the fact that, especially then, his sexuality–as it was for most people who were gay at the time–had to be hidden. There’s not a single ingredient in this stew to put your finger on. Did you find that kind of fascinating to explain but not answer? 

Evan Peters: Through all of the research, those are the facts that are out there and through all the psychology reports, you sort of are left wondering, yes. But it really felt like our job was to relay those facts and you could draw your own conclusion from them. I think he himself was confused about why he even wanted to do what he did. That was the key for unlocking playing the character in the series for me because what is the answer to that? It’s really a bigger question. I don’t know that you can answer it very quickly. It’s just very tricky. It’s a very difficult thing to try to break down. Sometimes you don’t know the answer. 

Awards Daily: I know that part of the title of the show is Monster, but I found Dahmer to be, as the way you played him, very human. There’s a tendency when we deal with people who are like Dahmer, who do these horrible things, to want to simplify them as monsters because they perform monstrous acts. But I think that kind of lets us off the hook from dealing with the fact that this was a human being who did these things. 

Evan Peters: He didn’t start the way that he finished. It was a long slide down as he put it, and it really was with a deterioration into this compulsion and alcoholism that he just completely lost control of himself. In the beginning, he’s a teenager and struggling with some of these impulses and I think with the help of alcohol, he is able to cross over and commit them. I think that it’s confusing and it’s frustrating and it’s terrifying. It’s all of those things and again I go back to him sort of having an awareness that it was wrong. It’s a very tricky thing to even articulate quite honestly.

Awards Daily: The alcoholism is something I wasn’t aware of, despite all the details that were out there about his case. It is the desire to dull your senses, so that you are separated from your actions on some level.

Evan Peters: Right. I think that was in the psychology reports. It was really an attempt to be able to cross over. I think it allowed him and enabled him to commit these atrocities, which he was aware were absolutely wrong. 

Awards Daily: A lot of times when we see productions about serial killers, there’s a certain colorful nature about them, whether it’s intended or not, for the purpose of entertainment. You played Dahmer as a bit of a dull blade. It seems to me a very difficult thing for an actor to do, to try to project the character and take away the things in a personality that make you gravitate towards leaning in. How did you arrive at that choice to play him that way?

Evan Peters: It was really through watching him in the footage that I could see. I always tried to remember that it was post-getting caught. He’s not drinking, he’s possibly medicated. So there’s those things in play. There was this short home video footage I found of him where he appears to be very normal. In all of the things that I read and watched and listened to, everybody said that he just seemed normal. That was the scariest part, that it could be anybody. There was nothing particularly exciting or charming about him other than that he seemed harmless. I think that was a big part of the trust that he was able to get very quickly and a huge form of manipulation that he would use to get what he wanted. It’s a terrifying and fascinating case, just reading the facts and learning about it and investigating it and researching it. I felt like it was important to almost get out of the way of that and sort of strip everything down and just try to play everything as simply and as matter of fact as I could, which I think was helpful in showing that he was, in many ways, a very average guy.

Awards Daily: I once read an interview with Omar Sharif where he was talking about Dr. Zhivago and his direction from David Lean was to do nothing, and in his brain he couldn’t figure that out. Then he said when he  watched the movie back, he wished he’d done even less. (Laughs). Did you ever have a concern about whether you were effectively coming across in a dramatic sense because you weren’t accessing certain tools that you would normally use as an actor?

Evan Peters: It was always sort of an exploration, on a scene by scene basis. Our directors were fantastic. Our cast was fantastic and sort of all experimenting in the room to try to find those different levels. Carl Franklin, our first director, played around in the early days of having the emotion that you or I would have in a circumstance, but then swallowing it and seeing what would bubble up. You always tried to remember that this was a person who reacts completely differently from how you or I would react in a situation. It’s a very confusing and intriguing thing to watch. It was a little scary in that you feel like, okay the answer here is to almost do nothing, which can be a truly terrifying, vulnerable feeling as an actor, but sometimes that’s the best choice that you can make. 

Awards Daily: For me, the best episode of television I saw last year was episode six, “Silence,” which is probably the episode you’re in the least because so much of that is about Rodney Burford’s character, Tony Hughes. That was that one moment where you felt like, if Dahmer maybe could have been allowed to be himself, if he could have trusted himself, things could have potentially turned out differently. In those scenes that you and Rodney have that are so one-on-one and so intimate and there’s this desire that Dahmer has to try to really connect with somebody for what may be the first time in his life and that person gives him something back. 

Evan Peters: That was my favorite episode to read and to work on. For me, Rodney was really the key. I think Rodney was just so fantastic in that part. He is a fantastic human being and incredibly inspiring and funny and just a really cool guy and I felt like that was the key to the episode. He brings out something that I don’t think Jeffrey Dahmer knew he had in him. It challenges him to question what he’s been doing, but I think far too late, unfortunately. To me, that episode also unlocked another key for the character in the series in that we really see Dahmer struggling with the decision of what he should do and what he’s done. It sort of unlocked the series. In the first five episodes, you’re still trying to figure it out. And then by six you think you understand why he’s doing what he’s been doing and it’s an absolute tragedy. I mean, it’s just horrible. It was a very difficult episode to work on. But again, I learned a lot and I had an amazing time working with Rodney and all of the cast in that episode. It was just amazing. 

Awards Daily: Rodney did not have what we would call real acting experience before this series. He’d done some reality work before, but that was about it. I spoke with the director of “Silence,” Paris Barclay, and he heaped a lot of praise on you for helping Rodney with little things like making sure he hit his mark and other aspects of the filming process that come naturally to actors after years of practice, but not necessarily for somebody who has talent but is a novice at the technical pieces.

Evan Peters: That’s incredibly nice of Paris to say. I really liked Rodney and I really liked working with him a lot, and I found him to be a really great guy. I just wanted to help him and make sure that he was learning. He’s finishing up college and he wants to come out to LA and be an actor and do it full-time. So that’s exciting, and I wanted to help him and be there for him and teach him what I could. I’m still learning myself, so I told him to take everything with a grain of salt. But, you know, it’s an interesting profession. It has its own special challenges but it really is an incredible one. Rodney was so natural and so fantastic in that part. I really have to give him credit for anything that I did in that episode, because I was genuinely just reacting off of him. I found it easy to do scenes with him. Any of those little things like hitting your mark or any of that stuff is an easy thing to learn compared to what he was bringing to the table just so naturally. So, yeah, it was really an incredible experience. 

Awards Daily: There were many times where we now know that Dahmer could have been stopped far earlier, but due to white privilege, people looked the other way or didn’t take him as seriously. He’s drunk, with body parts in the backseat of his car in a bag, and the police let him drive home knowing he is drunk. And then of course the worst of it was the young boy who was injured by Dahmer, all but naked in the street, and clearly in dire straits, that the police actually returned to Dahmer. Did you find all of this astonishing yourself? 

Evan Peters: Yes. The main reason I think I signed on to do this series was that I read it and my jaw dropped and I was in a state of stunned disbelief from the moment I read it and continue to be today. It just really is mind blowing that those things were able to take place and that it could have been stopped. One person losing their life is already a tragedy, but it just didn’t have to go on to seventeen young men. It’s just an unbelievable case. Truly. 

Awards Daily: Did you have any sleepless nights playing this character?

Evan Peters: Yes. I definitely had sleepless nights playing this character. It was truly one of the hardest parts and series I’ve ever undertaken and I really struggled with it, throughout. I really have to give credit to our DP, our directors, our makeup and hair department. The crew was very tight knit and small, and very intimate. The set was incredibly quiet and respectful. Everybody had in mind this message that we were trying to relay about how the system just tragically failed. It was difficult, but working with everybody was empowering. We all had this same goal in mind. I just genuinely hope that some good came out of it. I really, really do. 

Awards Daily: You’ve worked with Ryan Murphy many times. What you and Ryan have put together here is something much more serious and much more thoughtful and detailed and expansive than just the typical “he killed this many people, and this is how it happened” kind of thing. Does it feel good to start to see critics and audiences start to tilt in your collective  direction and see the quality of the work?

Evan Peters: Thanks for saying that. I certainly hope so. Again, it was really the intention to show that the case is so much bigger than just Jeffrey Dahmer and how or why he became what he became. It is the repercussions and the consequences and the failings and the tragic loss of life. I think it’s a cautionary tale and I give a great deal of credit to the amazing writers and obviously Ryan Murphy for spearheading this. I’m very grateful because I’ve only ever hoped that something good would come out of this and that it would be received for its message and its intent of what we originally set out to do. That’s really all you can hope for with a series like this.