Charlie Hunnam has opened up about why he thought taking on the role of Ed Gein in Monster was a "horrible mistake".
The 45-year-old actor, known for his iconic role as Jax Teller in Sons of Anarchy, portrays the serial killer in the third season of Netflix’s Monster anthology series.
However, after agreeing to the role, Hunnam found himself overwhelmed by the dark subject matter, which revolves around one of America’s most notorious killers.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, he recalled his initial reaction after accepting the role: "Once I said yes to this, I thought I'd made a horrible mistake. I started researching it, reading all the books about Ed Gein, and I fell into a full panic.
"I just thought there might be no coming back from this. This is so dark, to inhabit this character," he added.
The Human Side of Ed Gein
The actor’s concerns were heightened as he delved into Gein's disturbing history, but he calmed down when he realized that showrunner Ian Brennan’s approach was not focused on the gruesome details but on exploring the "human being behind the monster".
"There was sort of a breakthrough when I started reading the scripts and realizing that we were not going to be focusing on what he did and doing a deep dive on that, we're really gonna be focusing on why he did what he did and trying to find the human being behind the monster," Hunnam explained.
Though Gein’s crimes, which inspired iconic horror films such as Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, are infamous, Hunnam took a careful approach in his portrayal.
"There's like a human thread that connects all of this. You go like, right, that was a really bad avenue that you went down as a consequence or reaction to this thing that you experienced, but I understand what it was that you experienced and how that feels," he said.
"And so it was sort of building on from that and just trying to make it human and honestly trying not to judge him, but being careful not to have much empathy for him - it was a real tightrope to walk," he added.
Challenging the Role with Passion
Despite the heavy subject matter, Hunnam found moments of joy during filming. He shared how the intense nature of the project allowed the cast and crew to challenge themselves creatively.
“We were really trying to do something good with this, it wasn't just like some superficial, gory... whatever," he explained. "We were really trying to apply ourselves in everything we knew about the human condition and everything we knew about filmmaking, and we managed on several occasions to rise to the level of our ambition."
This approach to the project gave the English actor a sense of fulfillment, describing the experience as "amazing" and filled with "joy" as they reached the level they had hoped for in their artistic pursuit.
The series also stars Laurie Metcalf as Gein’s fanatically religious mother, Augusta, and features Suzanna Son as his only friend, Adeline Watkins.
“What we did over and over throughout was ask ourselves why Ed did what he did,” Hunnam explained in a recent interview. "We definitely didn’t want to sensationalize this or make a show that was gratuitous or glorify what he did.
“I had to understand him. That was the thing. I didn’t have to like him, but I had to try to find my own sense of the truth, of what I thought he was and who I thought he was,” he continued. "And I ended up not feeling protective of Ed, but protective of my perception of who he was."
Monster: The Ed Gein Story is now streaming on Netflix.