Queer as Folk star Charlie Hunnam to play serial killer in Ryan Murphy’s next Monster series

Charlie Hunnam, who shot to fame in Queer as Folk, has been cast in the next instalment of Ryan Murphy’s Monster.

Hunnam will play Ed Gein, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield, a serial killer and body-snatcher who became infamous in the 50s, when authorities discovered not only his murders, but that he had crafted household items and clothes from human remains.

Murphy, also known for his work on Glee and Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, made the announcement during a promotional event in Los Angeles for the anthology show’s second season: Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.

Gein, who admitted the murder of two women but was suspected of killing more, was the inspiration behind mother-obsessed character Norman Bates in Psycho, the deranged Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre‘s Leatherface. He died in a mental-health facility in 1984.

The third series, presumably Monster: The Ed Gein Story, is the first collaboration between Hunnam and Murphy. The former first caught the eye playing schoolboy Nathan Maloney in Channel 4’s landmark drama Queer as Folk in 1999.

He has gone on to play Jax Teller in Sons of Anarchy, as well as having roles in Pacific Rim, Rebel Moon, True Story of the Kelly Gang and the 2017 remake of Papillon.

The first series of Murphy’s Monster anthology drew criticism in 2022, when Evan Peters played serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, many of whom were young, gay and Black, usually drugging, raping and strangling them, before mutilating their bodies. Family members of his victims criticised the series, saying it had “re-traumatised them.”

However, Murphy claimed he had contacted the families before production but didn’t get a “single response”.

The series inspired a wave of interest in the serial killer, prompting people to dress as him on Hallowe’en, something which left the mother of Tony Hughes – murdered by Milwaukee Cannibal Dahmer in 1991 – heartbroken.

Series two is set to follow the Menendez brothers, who shot their parents dead at their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989.

It stars Nicholas Chavez as Lyle, and Cooper Koch as Erik, with Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny as their parents. Gay star of The Birdcage and Only Murders in the Building Nathan Lane will play investigative reporter Dominick Dunne.

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story should be available to stream on Netflix from 19 September.

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