Cooper Koch, who plays Erik Menendez in Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series “Monsters,” told TheWrap how he got into the role of the convicted murderer.

“I turned my trailer into Erik’s room, so I had clothes everywhere, and I had pictures of him on the wall, and pictures of me,” said the actor, who previously starred in “They/Them” and “Power Book II: Ghost,” among others, at the premiere in Los Angeles on Monday night.

Erik was 21 and his brother Lyle was 18 when they shot and killed their parents José and Kitty (played in the series by Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny) in 1989 after years of alleged abuse. Both brothers were convicted and are still serving life sentences in prison.

“I watched videos of myself when I was really little and I watched how my parents treated me, which gave me a certain level of gratitude for my family and my parents. I listened to (Erik) and watched him religiously. And I had my music, I had all kinds of journals, all kinds of things that helped me really feel like him and be him,” Koch said.

The actor, who hails from Woodland Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles, heard about the case as a child. Nicholas Alexander Chavez, who plays Lyle, had never heard of it before joining the cast.

“The first thing I did was call the people I love who were alive at the time and then ask them what their perspective and impression was,” said Chavez, who said he also watched footage from Court TV and “several” documentaries about the brothers.

“This show will present the facts from so many different perspectives,” he said of “Monsters,” which producers compare to “Rashomon,” the famous 1950 Akira Kurosawa film that shows a murder from three different angles.

“Ultimately, it will allow people to form their own opinions about this family and the events that occurred, and I think that’s one of the most compelling aspects of the show,” Chavez added.

Murphy’s regular actor Leslie Grossman, who appeared in his first series “Popular” as well as several seasons of “American Horror Story,” plays a key character who alerts the police to the brothers’ confession.”

“I play Judalon Smyth, the lover of Erik and Lyle Menendez’s therapist,” Grossman said. “She’s the one who goes to the police and lets the cat out of the bag because her boyfriend, the therapist, had no interest in continuing their relationship. So she pursued her own strategy and ended up becoming a key person in the first trial.”

Grossman added: “I don’t know if her motives were that pure. I don’t think she cared much about the brothers or the murders. I think she had a score to settle.” The actress added that Smyth may have wanted her 15 minutes of fame too. “Fortunately, we have the court records and we know that everything she did was true, and it’s wilder than any fiction that could have been written.”

Nathan Lane, who plays Vanity Fair correspondent Dominick Dunne in the series, vaguely remembered the trial in the 1990s, but added that he learned much more about what happened at the Menendez mansion in Beverly Hills.

“I mean, when you find out more … you can’t believe what happened,” the actor said. “I thought I had a certain opinion (on the case), but the deeper you dig, the more complex and disturbing it becomes. I think people are going to be surprised.”

“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is now streaming on Netflix.

The post ‘Monsters’ Star Cooper Koch Transformed His Trailer into Erik Menendez’s Bedroom to Get Into Character for Ryan Murphy Series appeared first on TheWrap.