Charlie Hunnam Unmasks His Transformation Into Ed Gein for ‘Monster,’ Reveals Sarah Paulson’s Advice

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[This story contains some spoilers from Monster: The Ed Gein Story.]

It’s fall, so that means another season of Monster from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan‘s anthology series is upon us, and this time, the horror series follows the life of the infamous serial killer of the 1950s, Ed Gein, who inspired classic horror films Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs.

For the show to land, everything falls on the performance of its title character, played by Charlie Hunnam. To step into the world of Ed, and try to understand him, the Sons of Anarchy star spent months researching the murderer to do his role justice and “not glamorize” the horrific things Ed is known for, such as murdering women, wearing their faces and digging up graves.

“I read every single book that had been written about him, and there was a lot of books. I read all of the court transcriptions, all of his medical records. And then I read the scripts over and over to understand what would drive a human being to do some of the pretty wild things he did — pretty despicable acts,” Hunnam told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this week at the series’ New York City premiere. “We were really very serious about trying to understand the man and not just sensationalize this, and certainly not glamorize it at all.”

While preparing for the role, he said he didn’t seek out advice from Evan Peters, who starred as Jeffrey Dahmer in the first season of Monster, because they had never crossed paths. Instead, he found help from another American Horror Story veteran.

“I’ve never met Evan Peters. I’m an enormous fan of his work. I would love to get to meet him, but I never had an opportunity to. I did bump into Sarah Paulson, who’s worked with Ryan Murphy a lot and tackled some pretty dark characters and she’s an old friend of mine from way back in the day,” Hunnam said. “So I asked her advice about navigating it and she was really kind and basically said, ‘Challenge yourself. Don’t be afraid. It’s inside you, just look deep and find it.’”

The series kicks off with viewers seeing Ed kill his brother Henry (Hudson Oz), but not realizing it until later because of his undiagnosed schizophrenia, where he imagines he’s talking to his brother — after he just murdered him. Once his mother, Augusta (Laurie Metcalf) finds out her son is dead, she has a stroke and later dies. All of this leads to becoming secluded in Plainfield, Wisconsin, where the murders ramp up. As Hunnam describes, “It’s really about mental health and the consequences of abuse and isolation.”

His dedication to portraying Ed was praised by co-star Suzanna Son, who plays Ed’s love interest in the show, the very morbidly curious Adeline Watkins. “What a gift to work alongside Charlie. He was in character, I would say 80 percent of the time, and that made my job all the easier because he’s building the world for me to live in,” she said.

Tyler Jacob Moore, who portrays the real-life Sheriff Schley who arrested Ed in 1957, added, “The first day was shocking. It never got easier to deal with him as Ed, because he was Ed when he was on set — the voice, his demeanor,” Moore told THR. “I was just genuinely shocked. Him being Ed in those moments was horrifying.”

Similarly, Brennan also told THR about how Hunnam brought “a deep sense of care” for the character. “From the very first time I sat down with him, I was like, ‘This guy is attacking it from the right angle.’ He was very much not interested in just playing a villain or a goul. He really wanted to find the person beneath all this illness,” Brennan said. “It’s just a spectacular performance. There’s a moment in episode seven, which was just one take, and it completely makes the whole show.” While it wasn’t clear what exact scene Brennan was referring to, there is a pivotal moment in episode seven where Ed is finally diagnosed with schizophrenia and gets medicated.

Brennan (co-creator of Glee, Scream Queens, Hollywood, The Watcher), who wrote all the episodes and co-directed it with Max Winkler, previously told THR in an interview published in August that this season of Monster was the one he was most impressed with creating. “It’s a really rich, very weird, extremely upsetting, very emotional, deeply funny season of television. I think it’s the most impressive season of television that I’ve ever been involved in,” he said.

All eight episodes of Monster: The Ed Gein Story are now streaming on Netflix.