PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Charlie Hunnam is no stranger to dark, morally corrupt roles. After all, he spent six years as Sons of Anarchy‘s Jax Teller — a biker who didn’t hesitate to kill his own mother, stepfather and about 40 others over the course of 92 episodes. But in Hunnam’s latest project, his character is a far cry from the fictional heartthrob outlaw fans know him for. In Monster: The Ed Gein Story, which premiered on Netflix earlier this month, Hunnam steps into the skin of a real-life serial killer, grave robber and psychopath whose heinous acts upended the quiet town of Plainfield, Wisconsin in the 1950s.
Monster: The Ed Gein Story — the third installment of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s hit series that previously highlighted the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer [our review] and the Menendez brothers — follows Hunnam as the friendly, mild-mannered recluse who seemingly lived peacefully on a farm with his mother (Laurie Metcalf, Scream 2 1997). However, Ed Gein was hiding a house of horrors so gruesome, from exhumed bodies to furniture crafted from human skin, it would redefine the American nightmare. Driven by isolation, psychosis and an all-consuming obsession with his mother, Gein’s perverse crimes became the blueprint for modern horror in Hollywood, inspiring the likes of Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs.
At first, Hunnam was hesitant in his ability to pull this off, especially given his unfamiliarity with Gein. In fact, as he began researching the Butcher of Plainfield, consuming every book and documentary that’s out there, he felt like he’d made a horrible mistake in saying yes to this project. Every tidbit of information he learned was more terrifying than the last, leaving him at a loss for how to connect with this role. But eventually, he had a breakthrough.
During a recent Q&A attended by PopHorror, Hunnam said:
“I started to feel a sense of the man behind this when I got a copy of all his medical records. Ed spent 30 years in a hospital for the criminally insane and did these quarterly reviews for 30 years. All of that is chronicled in great detail. So I started to see just the sort of innocence and naivety and, I don’t want to say gentle because he did despicable things, but there was a real human who was grappling with the things that he’d done and trying to understand what made him do those things. I said, ‘Yeah, that’s a fucking good question, Ed! Why did you do these things?’ Then it just started to unravel in a more human way.”
In Monster: The Ed Gein Story, Hunnam is practically unrecognizable in every definition of the word. Physically, longtime fans may notice that he appears thinner in this series than in past roles. That’s because he dropped weight fast to look more the part. Reflecting on his first wardrobe fitting, he said:
“I went, ‘Oh, no, this isn’t right at all. I’m definitely 30 pounds too heavy to look right in these clothes.’ It was an unpleasant three weeks of lots of cardio and starving myself, but I managed to drop 28 pounds in three weeks.”
Of course, Hunnam also sounds completely unlike himself, speaking in a soft and slow manner. There’s little footage available of Gein’s actual voice, just a few tapes from when he was interviewed on the evening of his arrest. Therefore, Hunnam had the freedom to take some creative liberties. He said:
“We knew for sure that Ed’s only significant relationship was with his mother, whom he adored and idolized, yet she told him daily that she hated him because he wasn’t the daughter that she wanted. What would that consequence be? I wanted to figure out how that psychology of seeking love, affection and acceptance of this woman, who was his entire life, would inform his behavior. I thought maybe there was something in him, this affectation that he had artificially raised his voice to sort of be more palatable to his mother.”
An unexpected result? Hunnam’s Gein voice is now viral on TikTok, with husbands and boyfriends around the world doing uncanny impressions of his most iconic lines, including “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it” and “I’m only joshin’.” The series itself is also going viral, with creators making lists of the “funniest” moments (“sinful cold cuts” and the skin face dance are top contenders). While such videos — and shows like Monster — are certainly entertaining, Hunnam explained that society’s fascination with the macabre walks a fine line between entertainment and obsession.
“One of the central questions we’re asking in the show is, why do we tell these types of stories? What is the ethical responsibility? What is the value of it? What can be the consequence? Ed was very negatively affected by the images that came out of the second World War. He saw those atrocities that happened in Nazi Germany and it sort of scrambled his mind. And then we take [Alfred] Hitchcock and start asking the question later in the show, is Ed the only monster here? Or is Hitchcock one as well? He took this boy’s life, who was abused and left in isolation and suffering from mental health issues, all of which had this catastrophic consequence [and made Psycho]. Is Hitchcock the monster who took all of that and sensationalized it in a way for entertainment and darkened the global psyche? Because prior to Psycho, monsters were werewolves or Frankenstein. After Psycho, we became the monster. Are we the psycho at home for watching something like this show?”
While Hunnam is still trying to find answers to those questions, there’s one thing he knows for sure — he didn’t want Monster: The Ed Gein Story to glorify the man whose actions either ended or ruined numerous lives. Rather, the goal was to show that, oftentimes, monsters aren’t born…they’re made. This show doesn’t water down the evilness of Gein’s crimes by any means, but it does provide context as to why he became a schizophrenic adult with extremely dark tendencies. Hunnam, who felt compelled to visit Gein’s grave in Plainfield once filming wrapped up, said:
“We wanted to tell the story objectively and honestly, not sensationalize it, not to absolve Ed, but also not to vilify him. Just, what were you doing and why were you doing it, and also make it entertaining. But also, I think it’s important storytelling. We reflect back the human condition to ourselves and try to understand what the hell we’re all doing through telling these stories. That also applies to the darker parts of society. So [when I went to his grave], I just wanted to tell Ed, ‘I hope that we finally told your story honestly and, also, adios motherfucker, because you’re not coming on the journey with me moving forward.”
Visit netflix.com/MonsterGein for more information.
Photos courtesy of Netflix.
