From co-creators Ryan Murphy & Ian Brennan, the original Netflix series Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story explores the gruesome crimes of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (played by Evan Peters) and how he became the monster that he clearly evolved into, taking the lives of 17 innocent victims. The 10 episodes are centered around the victims and their communities and spotlight how they were impacted by the systemic racism and homophobia that allowed for such horrific murders to continue for over a decade.

During a recent panel to discuss the hugely popular Netflix series, co-stars Peters, Richard Jenkins (who plays Jeffrey’s father, Lionel Dahmer) and Niecy Nash (who plays Glenda Cleveland, the woman who tried to stop Dahmer but whose calls to the police were largely ignored) talked about why they felt this story is important, preparing for a role like Dahmer, just how deep Peters went into the character and stayed throughout the shoot, centering the victims in the storytelling and why they felt a responsibility for getting that right, their experiences with shooting some of the most standout scenes, and what it’s like to be a part of a project that strikes a nerve with so many people.

Question: Niecy, you’ve gotten very emotional over the success of this show. Why is that?

NIECY NASH: The truth is, I cried like a baby. It is my prayer that, wherever Glenda Cleveland’s soul is resting, that she finally feels heard and she finally knows that her story has gone all around the world. That was important to me. Richard [Jenkins] asked me earlier, “When did it dawn on you that the weight of what you were doing really was for more than even this one character? It’s every woman. It’s every person who has never been heard. It didn’t really happen in my mind until after we started the filming process. I thought it was only one voice. And then, I realized, “Oh, I know a lot of Glenda Clevelands.” I’ve even been Glenda Cleveland before, in my life. She’s someone who was not believed and not considered.

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Image via Netflix

Evan, this show had been casting for awhile, but was unable to find its lead until Ryan Murphy decided to call and ask you to read the scripts. When you read those scripts, what went through your head? What made you decide to do the project? How did you prepare for the role?

EVAN PETERS: [Ryan] sent it to me and I read it, and the writing was brilliant. I was terrified. I really went back and forth on whether I should do it or not. I knew it was gonna be incredibly dark and an incredible challenge. [He] recommended that I watched the Stone Phillips interview for Dateline, where you really see how he speaks about what he did, and I was fascinated by that. I wanted to dive into the psychology of that extreme side of human behavior. So, I read as many books as I could, psychology reports, confessions, and timelines, all in an attempt to try to understand why he did what he did.

And then, of course, there was the physical side of it. We did four months of prep and six months of shooting. He has a very straight back. He doesn’t move his arms when he walks, so I put weights on my arms to see what that felt like. I wore the character’s shoes with lifts in it, and I had his jeans and his glasses, and a cigarette in my hand, at all times. I just wanted all of these external things to be second nature when we were shooting. I watched a lot of footage and I worked with a dialect coach to get down his voice, the way that he spoke. It was very distinct. He had a dialect.

I also went off and created this 45-minute audio composite, which was very helpful. I would listen to that every day, in the hopes of learning his speech patterns, but really, it was an attempt to try to get into his mindset and understand that, each day that we were shooting. It was an exhaustive search, trying to find private moments and things where he didn’t seem self-conscious, so you could get a glimpse into how he behaved, prior to these interviews and being in prison.

Niecy, is it true that you felt like you never got to know Evan during the shoot?

NASH: Yeah, he was so deep in character. People say, “What is Evan like?” And I’m like, “I don’t know. I don’t know the man.” He was in his process, and I respected his need to keep the distance and the tension, so that it played out on screen. Initially, I came in and was like, “Hey, how you doin’? Good morning!” And he was like, “Oh, no, ma’am.” And I realized that he was in his process, and I wanted to respect that and keep him there. I prayed for [him] a lot, for real. This was weighty. When you stay in it and you’re tethered to the material, bone to marrow, your soul is troubled, at some point. I could see him getting tired and I said, “I’m just gonna make sure I keep him in my prayers. This is a lot, and he wants to do it justice.”

PETERS: I really appreciate that. I loved working with [Niecy]. [She was] still very warm. [Her] grandmother has this amazing saying that really stuck with me because I was trying to push myself to my limits, but also respect them.

NASH: I told Evan, “My grand-mama always said, “Hang tough ‘til you get enough, and when you get enough, still hang tough.” I would just say, “You’re okay,” and send him on his way.

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Image via Netflix

Richard, want made you want to do this role and this project?

RICHARD JENKINS: [When Ryan] called me and I said, “Well, what’s it about?” He said, “Jeffrey Dahmer.” And I went, “Ugh.” And then, he said, “Read it.” So, [he] sent me the first three episodes, which is all that they had written, and it immediately interested me because, as a father, it’s an incredibly complex human that they’ve written. It’s one of the most complete people I’ve ever played. It was just really amazing. I kept thinking to myself, “If Jeffrey Dahmer is your son, do you stop loving him?” And you don’t. How do you deal with the fact that Jeffrey Dahmer is your child? Is it your fault? Did you not see something? Lionel Dahmer wrote a book, called A Father’s Story, that’s absolutely beautiful. It’s a beautifully written book, and it’s a cautionary tale to say, “I missed this stuff, but if you have kids, don’t let this stuff go by. Listen to your children when they’re trying to tell you something.” The last thing I thought about a Jeffrey Dahmer [project] is that it would be so human, but that’s what [Ryan] wrote. It was beautiful.

Niecy, in digging into what made the monster and who was complicit in that, how did you feel about centering the victims in the storytelling?

NASH: I felt responsible to get it right. You’ve gotta experience things through this woman’s eyes because she laid eyes on it all. She was the town crier. She was the nosy neighbor. She was the one that said, “Are y’all seeing what I’m seeing? Is nobody gonna do the thing?” My hardest day was probably when the police came and walked the baby back into the apartment. I just kept saying, “This really happened. You saw this child, but because of a Black woman doing the complaining, which is the racism of it all, and because there was a homosexual relationship, which is the homophobia of it all, this baby was walked back into this house and met his demise when he didn’t have to.” There were many days I left the set with tears in my eyes because of the weight of all of these things happening and knowing that all of it didn’t have to.

Richard, after Jeffrey Dahmer is convicted, there’s a scene where your character goes to his son and says, “I’m responsible and I take responsibility.” What was that like to shoot?

JENKINS: That terrified me. It didn’t terrify me. Yeah, it terrified me. I didn’t know what was gonna happen. It’s really where this character was led, to this spot. We got there, and I looked in my son’s eyes, and I just told him that. Evan is brilliant in this. I work with a lot of actors, and he’s really great, as is Ms. Nash. There are some brilliant performances in this. I think the reason that it’s so popular is that actors were not just given their space, but they were expected to find the lives of these people. Nothing was hurried. If you weren’t ready, you had the time to get ready. It was an extraordinary experience. But that moment, I knew what I was gonna say, but I didn’t know how I was gonna say it, which happens most of the time. It was an extraordinary day for me.

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Image via Netflix

Niecy, what do you remember about shooting that very last scene in episode seven with Glenda and Jesse Jackson? What were you feeling, after months of this material, when somebody just turned to you and saw you?

NASH: I say it a lot in my marriage, but in that moment and in my instrument, I felt fully seen. I felt like Glenda was fully seen in that moment. Somebody hurt her. He said, “I’ll listen. I’ll be the one.” It had not happened, up until that point. They’d said, “Ma’am, you’re abusing 9-1-1. Stop calling here.” The police walked the baby back in. All of these things happened. And then, when somebody finally says, “I’m listening,” and it’s a person of note who didn’t have to spend the time and could have been off doing any other thing, just to have someone go, “I’ll hear you,” it was just the weight of the world, coming off her shoulders, in that moment, and finally finding a soft place to land.

Evan, what do you remember about shooting the sandwich scene with Niecy Nash? Do you remember much about that day?

PETERS: Not really, no. I do remember that [she was] amazing in that scene. It was hard to figure out what my character was doing there. Why was he doing this? He wanted her to take back the complaint, but at the same time, he was gonna try to punish her for that, while also knowing that she had all of the power. It was really amazing to see [her] character stand up to Jeffrey Dahmer and put him in his place, and he really had no choice, but to walk out. It was beautiful to shoot.

Niecy, what was that day like for you?

NASH: I was looking forward to it, as an actor, because there was so much unknown. I did not know how [he was] gonna play it, which ultimately informs how I play it because it’s a dance. There’s reciprocity in that part of the process. That was the one scene where we do have the confrontation, or the face-to-face that I was looking forward to the most, but was also scared about the most because it was definitely going to put a stamp on what we were doing. I just tried to steel myself and said, “Well, let me see what he does, and then I’m on. It’s a dance, so let’s go.” When I was able to take that breath, when he finally walked out that door, she had tried to put her big girl pants on, but I felt like Glenda’s knees were shaking and everything. She was trying to act like she wasn’t scared. He hit that door, and she ran over there and locked it, and my shoulders went down. I was sharing that space with Glenda.

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Image via Netflix

What was it like to do Dahmer and Reno 911!, at the same time?

NASH: That’s a great question. I was born funny. That’s an innate thing. You can’t go to a class where they teach that. Finding the joy in pain has been a trick that I’ve been using for a long time. I come from a very trauma-filled youth. I always knew I could make people laugh, and I always knew I was funny, but I used it as a coping mechanism in my pain. I would laugh to literally keep from crying. I knew that standing in that space, of the pain of the Glenda Clevelands of the world, that I needed an outlet. I needed a way to lighten my experience. It was just a happy coincidence that Reno 911! was filming at the same time. I was like, “Well, let me put on my big booty and come see what’s going on.” It felt like the perfect gift. I got to lay heavy into the thing that they said I couldn’t do, and then take it off and play with my friends and do the thing that I know I was also born to do. It served me, in the moment, because some of the days were very, very heavy. I’m grateful that, unlike Evan who had to keep it on the entire time, I could take it off and put it back on.

Richard, what was the most difficult scene for you to shoot as Lionel Dahmer?

JENKINS: I think it’s that scene after he’s convicted, where I tell him that it was my fault. It was interesting because I only had 30 seconds, or maybe a minute, to tell him the most important thing I’ve ever told him in my life, because they’re gonna take him away and put him behind bars. That’s a brilliant way to put you in that situation, to tell your son the most important thing you’ve ever told him, but you don’t have any time. After it was over, I was thankful that that’s where I got a chance to do it, as opposed to some place where I had all the time in the world. It was all hard, but a fun hard. Sometimes there’s a joy in pain. When you’re there, you feel a joy that you could get there and that maybe it’s connecting. That’s the way I paint. I can’t sing, I can’t dance, and I can’t paint. This is what I do, and hopefully, an audience sees it, understands it, and can say, “I’ve been there, myself, too.” I know it sounds weird, but this was a joy to do.

Evan, after everything you did to get into this role and to stay in it during the shoot, how did you get out of it?

PETERS: Doing the role, I wanted to give it 120%, the whole way through, so I brought in a lot of darkness and negativity. Really, it was just having that end goal in sight, knowing when we were gonna wrap and, and finally being able to breathe and let it go and say, “Okay, now it’s time to bring in the joy and the lightness, and watch comedies and romances, and go back to St. Louis to see my family and friends, and watch Stepbrothers.

NASH: Evan Peters, me and you in a rom-com, right after this.

PETERS: Let’s go. I’m down.

Taking on such dark and meaty roles, what do you do to keep yourself grounded?

PETERS: That’s a good question. Having the end goal in sight and knowing that the project was gonna be finished and pacing it out was helpful. I have all sorts of different things that I do, in my everyday life, to keep me a happy, functioning, normal person. At the end of the day, it is a job, and you have to compartmentalize. When I go home after a shoot, it’s about comedies and lighthearted things, and songs and making music. All those things really help to keep me afloat.

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Image via Netflix

Do any of you have any thoughts about why has the show touched such a nerve with viewers?

JENKINS: I have no idea. You take something, and you embrace it, and then you let it go, and you move on to the next thing. This has never happened to me before, with anything I’ve ever been in. If anybody knew why it happened, it would be happening all the time, and it isn’t. But it’s a beautiful surprise.

NASH: The industry has been kind to me, but I was definitely told, “You have a lane, and it’s comedy. Stay over there because that’s what you know how to do.” So, to be in this project and to act alongside the likes of these beautiful actors and hold my own in this space, I feel like I proved to the industry that I’m not just a one-trick pony. I always knew it, but I feel like people finally see me, like I see myself.

Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is available to stream at Netflix.