Evan Peters went to great mental and physical lengths for his latest project.
The first-time Golden Globe nominee, 35, opened up about the internal struggle he had with taking on the role of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Ryan Murphy's Netflix series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story as the duo spoke to Variety.
"It was a real struggle. I was really thinking about it and trying to process it. I went back and forth a lot," Peters explained, noting that his trust in Murphy, 57, was ultimately what convinced him to take on the heavy topic.
"I knew that you're an incredible support system and I trust you and there's an honesty there," Peters told Murphy. "I knew that, with the goal in mind of finishing this thing as strong as I started it, that you would create a great safety net. If I fell down, I could get back up and we could finish this thing. I was up for the challenge."
Peters first worked with Murphy on the first season of American Horror Story, which premiered on FX in 2011. He also appeared in season 1 of Murphy's Pose, which debuted in 2018.
In addition to the mental toll that Peters faced while playing Dahmer, he also made an extreme physical transformation for the role, starting with a no-carb, no-sugar diet to drop 15 pounds.
"I didn't really have an appetite during the early stages of shooting," he explained. "Then I was working out for episode 3 when Dahmer gets into working out and gained about 20 pounds for the end in prison to show how he looked then."
And although his performance recently earned Peters his first Golden Globe nomination for best actor in a limited series, anthology series or television motion picture, the actor said he's looking forward to some more lighthearted roles in the future.
"I'm going to take a little break from darker roles and explore the light. It would be interesting to me to play something that is a little closer to home, a little more mundane and to explore the details of those kinds of experiences," Peters said.
Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is now streaming on Netflix.
