Why Charlie Hunnam regretted agreeing to play Ed Gein

The actor was afraid that the role of the crazy killer in season 3 of Monster was “a horrible mistake” and feared for the rest of his career: “There may be no turning back.”

He goes far, very far in the incarnation of the “Butcher of Plainsville”.

Playing a cult serial killer is not trivial. And Charlie Hunnam realized this afterwards, after accepting the role of Ed Gein, crazy killer in season 3 of Monster on Netflix.

“Once I said yes, I told myself that I had made a terrible mistake,” the English actor confides to Entertainment Weekly. “I started researching, reading all the books about Ed Gein, and I found myself in total panic. I told myself that there might be no going back after that. It’s so dark, living in such a character.”

It must be said that Ed Gein’s story is particularly sordid and Ryan Murphy’s version of his life is quite terrifying.

But Charlie Hunnam ended up breathing when he discovered Ian Brennan’s scripts: “There was something that clicked while reading. We weren’t going to focus on what he had done in the smallest details, but on why he had done it, trying to find the man behind the monster.”

The ex-Sons of Anarchy star says he sought to “find the truth of Gein”, without excusing the inexcusable:

“There’s a human thread that ties it all together. You can understand what he felt and how he got there, without judging or feeling too much empathy. It was a real balancing act.”

And the worst part is that Hunnam doesn’t particularly like horror: “I don’t really like that genre, or dark, desperate stories. So it was a strange choice for me.” So much so that he was “stunned” when Ryan Murphy asked him to play Ed Gein during a two-hour dinner: “I heard myself say yes, I don’t know why… 99% I would say it was just because I like Ryan.”

Today, when all 8 episodes are online, Charlie Hunnam believes he has grown thanks to this dive into the shadows: “I learned that what we most need to find is hidden where we least want to look. The greater the challenge, the greater the reward.”