Charlie Hunnam is stepping into one of his most chilling roles yet in Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story.
The 45-year-old actor takes on the infamous 1950s murderer, whose gruesome crimes included grave robbing and using human remains to make household items and clothing.
At the series premiere in New York City, Hunnam opened up about the difficult transformation and what it took to embody such a disturbing figure.
“I mean, finding the truth was the whole process,” he told PEOPLE.
“We were much more interested in why Ed did what he did, rather than exploring what he did. Everybody sort of knows what he did, and it’s been chronicled in many films that he inspired and then direct adaptation to his life.”
The Sons of Anarchy alum said the team’s focus was on uncovering the deeper psychology behind Gein’s actions.
“We, I think, felt confident that if we remain true to that, of just trying to find the truth in reflecting back this bizarre, tiny, dark corner of the human condition that he manifested, that we were staying true to the traditions of storytelling, which is to try to help us understand ourselves because we’re all so bizarre, even the most normal of us. But Ed was very bizarre.”
Physically, the actor also committed to drastic changes. Hunnam revealed he dropped 30 pounds to mirror Gein’s frail and malnourished appearance.
“He’d been abused, he was left in isolation, so he had no real social context to reflect back to him, normal behavior,” he explained.
Another critical layer of the role came from exploring Gein’s fractured relationship with his mother, who, according to Hunnam, “told him every day of his life that she hated him because he wasn’t born the girl, the daughter that she always wanted.”
He added, “Imagining what the consequence of that would be when she was the only person he had a relationship with… that really informed the voice work that we did and how he would interact with his mother and the world, which was really trying to really be the daughter that she wanted.”
Despite the bleak subject matter, Hunnam said the actual experience of making the series was surprisingly uplifting.
“There’s the subject matter and then there’s the actual process,” he noted.
“We all felt really good about the work we were doing, and so actually in terms of the experience we had of trying to make this show every day, just the actual putting our craft into effect, it was actually really joyous and light.”
While he admitted it’s “a terrible headline” to describe the project as fun, Hunnam emphasized how rewarding it was to work with director Max Winkler, a close friend.
“We were proud of ourselves and we were reaching for something. And not every day, but more often than not, managing to grab a hold of it,” he said. “So it was really actually… a very satisfying and beautiful experience for me.”
Monster: The Ed Gein Story is now streaming on Netflix.