Dahmer: Evan Peters stayed in character for months while filming Netflix series

The true crime mini-series Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is one of the biggest hits the Netflix streaming service has ever had, so a lot of subscribers have spent a good amount of time watching Evan Peters inhabit the role of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Peters sat in on a panel with co-stars Niecy Nash and Richard Jenkins and Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story co-creator Ryan Murphy last Saturday, and during the panel it was revealed that Peters stayed in character for months while making the show.

Four months of prep and six months of shooting were required to bring Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story to the screen, and during that time Peters wore weights on his arms and lifts in his shoes to match the real Dahmer’s physicality and did extensive research to get his dialect right. Variety reports that Peters said, “(Dahmer) has a very straight back. He doesn’t move his arms when he walks, so I put weights on my arms to see what that felt like. I wore the character shoes with lifts in them, his jeans, his glasses, I had a cigarette in my hand at all times. I wanted all this stuff, these external things, to be second nature when we were shooting, so I watched a lot of footage and I also worked with a dialect coach to get down his voice. The way that he spoke, it was very distinct and he had a dialect. So I also went off and created this 45-minute audio composite, which was very helpful. I listened to that every day, in hopes of learning his speech patterns, but really, in an attempt to try to get into his mindset and understand that each day that we were shooting. It was an exhaustive search, trying to find private moments, times where he didn’t seem self conscious, so you could get a glimpse into how he behaved prior to these interviews and being in prison.“

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Peters added, “Doing the role, I wanted to give it 120 percent the whole way through, so I brought in a lot of darkness and negativity. 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, ‘OK, 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.’“

All the research and the time spent in the darkness worked out, because Peters gives a captivating performance as the awful person he was playing.

Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story was created by Ian Brennan and American Horror Story co-creator Murphy. The ten episode limited series tells us about

real-life serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. Primarily told from the perspective of Dahmer’s victims, the series will reportedly take place from the 1960s to early 1990s. Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story will also explore the incompetence of the Wisconsin police during the murder investigations, allowing Dahmer to continue his killing spree.

Peters, Nash, and Jenkins are joined in the cast by Molly Ringwald, Michael Beach, Michael Learned, Penelope Ann Miller, Shaun J. Brown, and Colin Ford.

Murphy and Brennan wrote the first four episodes of Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story together. Other writers credited on the show include Janet Mock, David McMillan, Reilly Smith, and Todd Kubrak. Mock is a director on the show, as are Paris Barclay and Carl Franklin.

What did you think of Peters’ performance in Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story? Let us know by leaving a comment below.