Evan Peters’ ability to completely transform himself for a number of incredibly dark roles over the years has certainly not gone unnoticed. As such, fans were both shocked and excited to see that Evan Peters would be using his talents to transform into none other than real-life serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. As such, Evan Peters took some interesting steps to prepare for the role, which included even wearing Jeffrey Dahmer’s clothes.
As noted via E! Online, Evan Peters “even wore his character’s costume shoes, jeans and glasses for months to get into the role.” This was in addition to weights on his arms so that he would “emulate Dahmer’s walking style,” and “extensive research and dialect training.” So, with all that in mind, Evan Peters clearly went all in with trying to recreate the demeanor of Jeffrey Dahmer. Of course, it was also noted that such actions as wearing Jeffrey Dahmer’s clothes “took a toll” on Evan Peters.
Here’s what he had to say with how he combatted the darkness of portraying Dahmer:
“Doing the role, I wanted to give it 120 percent the whole way through, so I brought in a lot of darkness and negativity,” he explained. “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 watch Step Brothers.'”
It’s definitely difficult to find yourself in a challenging role – and even more so when it’s based on a real-life person who committed horrible crimes. Nevertheless, it’s great to see that Evan Peters has managed to “bring in the joy and the lightness” now that his work on the series is over. He’s certainly earned a break. Of course, knowing how often he tends to play these types of roles for Ryan Murphy, we’ll probably see him back in the horror genre sooner or later.
Evan Peters stars in the series as the titular Jeffrey Dahmer. The cast of Dahmer also includes Niecy Nash, Penelope Ann Miller, Shaun J. Brown, Colin Ford, and Richard Jenkins.
The new biographical series Dahmer is currently available to stream on Netflix. Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional updates as we have them.