Movies & TV | Oct 30, 2022 07:59 PM EDT

Evan Peters Reveals He Did THIS To Perfectly Portray Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer's Role in the Netflix Series

By Alexandria Reeves

The Netflix series, "Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story," became retraumatizing to the victims' families, but it also affected Evan Peters.

Despite the controversies surrounding the flick, "Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" still makes enough buzz that it is now a few million away from hitting one billion hours of streaming. Although the story is disturbing, the series still attracts viewers who want to learn about the crimes of Dahmer.

But for Peters' part, playing the serial killer role was not an easy task to do - but he wanted to do it perfectly.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the actor revealed that he had months-long of preparation before he was able to feel that "darkness and negativity" that helped him in the series.

Peters reportedly wore Dahmer's shoes, jeans, and glasses for months. He also put weights on his arms just to copy the murderer's infamous walk.

Although he reached his goal, he admitted feeling terrified to accept the role.

"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, 'Okay, 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,'" Peters said.

The "American Horror Story" star engaged himself with the darkness of Dahmer's life.

"Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" Success Was Unexpected

In the same interview, program co-creator Ryan Murphy shared why he thought the series became a hit.

According to him, the world being a dark place and the COVID-19 pandemic led to the success of "Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story."

Although he wanted to bring the exact story to the viewers, he disclosed that he tried contacting the victims' families for his research. However, no one responded to them.

During an event in Los Angeles' DGA Theatre (via Variety), Murphy recalled spending three and a half years writing and working on the Netflix series. Despite their attempts to include the families' thoughts, they ended up relying on the researchers who found details about Dahmer's crimes from other people.

The victims' families would never want to involve themselves in the series, though, as they repeatedly accused Netflix and the creators of creating the retraumatizing series to capitalize on other people's tragedies.