‘Monsters’ star hadn’t heard of Menéndez brothers until audition

Nicholas Alexander Chavez portrays the infamous Lyle Menéndez in a new Ryan Murphy miniseries — but he didn’t know who his character was until he auditioned for it.

Nicholas Alexander Chavez at the premiere of ‘Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story’.

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Lyle Menéndez in 1994.

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In an interview with Entertainment Weekly at the premiere of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, the actor talked about the story’s subjects, who were convicted of killing their parents in 1996.

“I wasn’t familiar with anything,” Chavez said. “I actually had not heard of the Menéndez Brothers.”

The 25-year-old actor added that he couldn’t have had firsthand memories of the Menéndez siblings’ notoriety because their 1989 crime took place a full decade before his birth. “I wasn’t even alive when this happened,” he said. “As soon as I got the audition, I immediately called the people who I knew and loved who were alive during that time, and I asked them what they knew about it and what their impressions of it were, and that was actually really interesting information to get.”

Chavez went on to explain how he prepared to play Lyle. “I had to do an extensive amount of research,” he said. “This guy is a really compelling and complicated character, and I wanted to be thorough. He has left such a strong impression on me, and I’m very glad that there are so many materials out there that I could read. I was glad that I could watch the court TV, and I could really see a glimpse into what happened.”

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is the second installment of Murphy’s Monster anthology series, which premiered in 2022 with Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. The fictionalized retelling of the Menéndez siblings’ story also stars Cooper Koch as Lyle’s brother and partner in crime, Erik Menéndez; Chloë Sevigny as their mother, Kitty Menéndez; Javier Bardem as their father, José Menéndez; and Nathan Lane as journalist Dominick Dunne.

Chavez also discussed one of the most memorable and challenging sequences of the series. “There’s a scene where Lyle is getting his wig fitting [the real Lyle Menéndez wore hairpieces], and, in a way, Lyle’s wig symbolically represented the cover that he wears, or the mask that he puts on to the world — the perfect version of himself that he wanted everyone to perceive,” the actor told EW. “And the fact that this was a part of his appearance, and it was something that was imposed by his dad, I found it a really, really interesting scene. That was a hard day on set, but I was around some really, really talented and experienced people who were there for me. So it was great.”

Chavez made his screen debut as Spencer Cassadine on General Hospital in 2021. He’ll next star in Grotesquerie, another Murphy series debuting this month (though he’s not part of American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez, the third of Murphy’s series premiering this fall).

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

Additional reporting by Briana Edwards.