After over a week at the top of Netflix’s most-watched list, and countless pieces written about its content, it’s fair to say the latest season of Ryan Murphy’s true crime series Monsters has really captured the world’s attention.
Having already split opinion right down the middle and sparked plenty of debate about its more graphic and salacious scenes, HuffPost UK managed to speak to the cast of The Lyle And Erik Menéndez Story about the making of the show – and its aftermath.
Here’s what we learned when we spoke to Cooper Koch, Nicholas Chavez, Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny…
The interview took place just days after Cooper Koch visited the Menéndez brothers in prison, which he said had been a ‘crazy experience’
Cooper admitted was “super nervous at first” but his meeting with the Menéndez brothers proved to be a “really amazing” experience.
He met with Lyle and Erik Menéndez, as well as a group of other incarcerated individuals, in the prison gymnasium, where the inmates shared their names and stories, and the brothers also gave a presentation about a “greenspace project that they’d been working on”.
“The thing that I really wanted to do was look both of them in the eye and tell them that I believe them and that I support them and I’m going to do everything that I can to advocate for them – and that in playing the role I tried to be authentic and just to have integrity,” he told us.
Cooper added: “They’re both so kind, really upstanding individuals. They’ve done so much amazing work on themselves in prison.”
Cooper ‘can understand’ where the backlash against Monsters has come from, but he stands by the show
“I don’t think it’s changed my point of view on the series,” he insisted of the ongoing controversies surrounding the show. “We always [intended to take] this Rashomon approach with all these different perspectives.”
“Our goal [was always] to really show all sides of the case – in my eyes, I sort of always saw it as the audience is going to be the jury and they’re going to be able to determine what they believe at the end of the show.”
“But I can understand and sympathise with how that would be jarring for people to see these other perspectives, and so I understand why it’s getting that sort of response,” he added.
“I think there’s a lot of support out there for the brothers, which I love.”
Nicholas Chavez admitted that working for the role was actually a big part of helping him get into character as Lyle
“It’s said in the first episode that José thought they could become a great family like the Kennedys,” he said.
“I think that there were many expectations of perfectionism within this family and I wanted Lyle’s physique to reflect that as well.”
He also took a similar approach when it came to Lyle’s toupée
Nicolas says “mask work” was an important part of his creative process.
“During this time in his life there were many expectations to wear masks in many different facets of his life,” he explained.
“The toupée, for instance, became very symbolic of this for me, a mask that was imposed on him by his father, and just because symbolic of the image that the Menéndez family wanted to project to the world about who they were.”
During the making of Monsters, Chloë Sevigny found herself becoming protective of her young co-stars
She says that between herself, showrunners Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, the show’s directors and her co-star Javier Bardem, “we all really wanted to protect the boys, first and foremost” and “make sure that they felt safe”.
“They had a lot to carry in the show and we felt like they were internalising it in a way,” she claimed. “We wanted to make sure that they had a way to kind of let go and turn it off and not internalise it too much.
“Javier was really supportive of them, and encouraging them, and we were saying how great how they were in scenes, but also how important it was to sit down, talk about the work, talk about ourselves personally, about our families and be open with one another.”
Chloë was also ‘really impressed’ with the support offered on set by Netflix
“The whole environment was very sensitive to the material,” she revealed. “Netflix has released a statement across the cast and crew that if any of the material we were dealing with was triggering in any way to anyone they would provide help and support for them.
Chloë revealed it this was “really the first time I had seen that on a set, and I was really impressed with the way they handled it”.
Javier Bardem had apparently been wanting to be part of a Ryan Murphy show since visiting his wife Penélope Cruz on the set of American Crime Story
“I had the chance to be on set back in the day in Miami for a couple of days, and I saw the quality of everybody behind and in front of the camera, and it was the first time I had access to a show like that on set,” the Oscar winner recalled. “Since that day, I was like, ‘I would love to make one of these’.”
The Spanish actor previously collaborated with Ryan Murphy on the film Eat Pray Love, but Monsters is their first time working together on the small screen.
“I’ve known Ryan since 2009, and I know how loving and caring and what a beautiful person he is,” Javier added.
Despite all the controversy surrounding Ryan Murphy’s Dahmer, the show was a big part of Javier Bardem saying yes to Monsters
Asked if he felt trepidation about signing up to play José Menéndez because of the backlash against Dahmer, Javier claimed “it was the opposite for me”.
“I binged the whole show in two nights, and I was mesmerised by the quality of it all,” he said.
“What I loved about it, among many other things, was what was underneath – the criticism of the homophobic, racist society back in the day, where if you were just a nice white guy, blond, you could more or less skate out of justice compared to other people.”
“And I knew that when he was bringing this show to us, there was way more than just a murder,” he continued. “It was something about trauma, abuse and relationships.”
Cooper Koch will ‘without a doubt’ be watching the Menéndez brothers’ authorised documentary when it debuts on Netflix next month
“Absolutely,” Nicholas agreed. “I’m really excited to see the perspectives that they share with this documentary.”
“I’m quite glad that Netflix is giving them this platform,” he added.
Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menéndez Story is now streaming on Netflix.