In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Charlie Hunnam said he doesn’t like the horror genre and that being cast as Ed Gein felt “strange” to him.
“After I said yes, I thought I’d made a terrible mistake,” said the Sons of Anarchy star, who plays serial killer Ed Gein in the series Monster: The Ed Gein Story.
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Charlie Hunnam explained how he prepared to portray Gein in the Netflix series: “I started researching, reading every book about Ed Gein, and I totally panicked. […] It’s such a dark thing to inhabit that character,” said the British actor.
The series explores the crimes committed by Ed Gein in the 1950s. He became known as the “Butcher of Plainfield” or the “Plainfield Ghoul” after murdering two people and desecrating several graves.
Charlie Hunnam said he felt relieved when he found out the series would not focus on the gruesome details of the murders.
“In fact, we wanted to explore why he did what he did and try to find the human being behind the monster,” he explained.
“There’s a human thread that connects all of this, and you think: okay, it was a terrible path he took — as a consequence or reaction to something he lived through — but I understand what he experienced and how that must have felt,” he reflected.
“So the process was about building from that, trying to make him human and, honestly, avoiding judgment — but also being careful not to have too much empathy. It was really a balancing act.”
The actor revealed that even though he’s not a big fan of the horror genre, he had a positive experience filming the eight-episode series.
“We really challenged ourselves — we were genuinely trying to make something meaningful, not just something superficial or gory,” Charlie Hunnam explained.
Photos: Netflix Tudum. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
