If you are an actor out there, the story of Evan Peters will be absolutely inspirational. He was a kid from Missouri who fell in love with movies and the characters he would see in them, and a chance meeting with a casting person gave him the impetus to beg his parents to let him move to Hollywood at just age 15. In his second audition he got the job, and eventually achieved his goal of meeting the Olsen twins (or at least one of them).
It hasn’t stopped for Peters since then in a young career that has already won him an Emmy for Mare of Easttown and a Golden Globe earlier this year for his acclaimed work as serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story on Netflix. He is also a producer on the limited series with Ryan Murphy and was careful about his, and the show’s, approach to telling the story of this notorious killer. From adopting his physical attributes to staying in character throughout, Peters put his all into the part, but in this week’s episode of my Deadline video series The Actor’s Side he tells me it is going to be his last walk on the dark side of humanity for a very long time. You can’t blame him. Murphy has also put him in numerous seasons of American Horror Story as a variety of unsavory characters, even including another serial killer, and Peters feels it is time for a change.
He loved playing his Emmy-winning role of Det. Colin Zabel opposite Kate Winslet in Mare, a normal guy who met a tragic and shocking end, and he tells me he learned a lot from the experience of working with the veteran star. He even has already been part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe playing Peter/Quicksilver in several X Men movies, as well as WandaVision, and there is much, much more to come.
To watch our conversation and get the “actor’s side” of things from Peters, click on the video above.
Join me every Wednesday during Emmy season for another edition of The Actor’s Side.
