Charlie Hunnam on getting ‘specific’ Ed Gein detail right in Monster season three

Charlie Hunnam has discussed his portrayal of serial killer Ed Gein in the upcoming series, Monster: The Ed Gein Story.

The series focuses on the body snatcher from Wisconsin whose crimes inspired films like Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs. The Ed Gein Story follows on from the successful first two seasons of Ryan Murphy‘s anthology series, Monster, that covered Jeffrey Dahmer and Erik and Lyle Menendez.

In a profile with Variety, Hunnam described making the voice “really specific.” The entertainment industry bible reports the voice as being “ethereal, a bit flute-like,” likening it to “Elmer Fudd with half a hit of helium.” Essentially reading as child-like in sharp contrast to Hunnam’s well developed and masculine physique.

“The voice needed to be really specific,” the Queer as Folk actor said. “But I don’t think any of us really had an idea of what that was,” he added referencing the rare existence of audio recordings of Gein, who was arrested in 1957.  

Max Winkler, who has directed six of eight episodes of The Ed Gein Story, told Variety that while “our best researchers couldn’t get,” tapes of Gein, Hunnam managed it.

Hunnam was able to obtain a copy of a 70-minute interview with Gein from Joshua Kunau, the producer of the documentary, Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein. Hunnam was able to use the interview, recorded the night Gein was arrested, to capture the killer’s voicer. “I started to see him through a series of affectations to please his mother. That’s where the voice came from,” he said.  

He told Netflix’s Tudum the voice came from “what Ed thought that his mother wanted him to be.” In the series Gein’s mother, Augusta (Laurie Metcalf), tells Gein she had wanted a daughter.

The Sons of Anarchy star also shared how the whole production didn’t feel “that dark most of the time.” But he did keep Gein’s voice up while filming. “I wasn’t acutely aware of it being annoying to people,” he told Variety. “And I didn’t stay in it in a way that was a labor. I was just having fun – I shouldn’t say having fun. I was enjoying the process.”

Ed Gein, aka the Butcher of Plainfield, was a serial killer and body-snatcher who was active in 1950s Wisconsin. When authorities arrested Gein in 1957, they discovered he had used human remains to craft household items and clothing.

Gein admitted to the murder of two women but was suspected of killing many more. He died in a mental-health facility in 1984.

Monster: The Ed Gein Story is streaming on Netflix from Friday 3 October.

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