On October 28, Erik and Lyle Menendez's defense team submitted a request for clemency for the brothers, who in 1996 were convicted of first-degree murder in the 1989 killings of their parents José and Kitty Menendez. Public sympathy for the brothers and general interest in the case were sparked by Ryan Murphy's scripted series Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez and the subsequent Netflix documentary The Menendez brothers which both shed light on the physical, emotional and sexual abuse the brothers suffered at the hands of their father. And while freeing the brothers, who could have been released from prison as early as Dec. 11 after a review of their case, was not Murphy's direct intention in telling their story, the public response, he says, was in somehow foreseen.
“I can't say I wasn't surprised, because when we finished shooting and I saw the episodes, I thought they were incredibly powerful in many ways,” Murphy said at Netflix's FYC panel for the series in Los Angeles on November 2. “That's always been the point of the show, to show different complicated points of view, but I really thought what it did in raising and asking questions about sexual abuse was very, very powerful. And I think, whether you like it or not, there is a movement of young people who want to talk about it in a way that wasn't available in 1989. So, believe it or not, it doesn't matter at all. I think what it did, and that's why I wanted to make it, was start a conversation about that topic. And people were really drawn to it, and a lot of people got involved and made their opinions known after seeing the show, which was very, very interesting.
Kim Kardashian has been one of the most outspoken celebrities on the topic, writing an essay for NBC News calling for Lyle and Erik's release after meeting them in prison.
“Kim Kardashian called me a month before the show came out and asked me to see it, and I said, sure, she's a friend, and she's someone who's very interested in prison reform, and she immediately got involved, and the district attorney and governor's offices were flooded with a lot of reactions from people who had great opinions about the show,” Murphy explained during the panel. “So I think it led to something interesting, and more important to me, when you do something, whether people love it or hate it, doesn't it make sense, does it start a conversation about something? I think the show definitely did that in a way [co-creator] Ian [Brennan] and I was very proud of it.”
The performances of Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch, who play Lyle and Erik respectively, in the series played an important role in capturing the audience's sentiment. Both actors were new to the Ryan Murphy universe: Chavez later starred in Murphy's FX horror series Grotesque – and, to some extent, the trial of the Menendez brothers.
“I wasn't familiar with the story until I got the audition and then once you get it, you're trying to do an accelerated search process,” Chavez said. “You try to learn as much as you can as quickly as you can so you don't make a fool of yourself in the room once you audition for Ryan Murphy. It's been an ongoing journey in terms of what we've been able to learn and then marry that with the scripts that have been written for us.
The casting process was a long one, with Murphy and casting director Tiffany Little Canfield spending six months searching for their Lyle and Erik.
“I immediately thought, yeah, those are our guys,” Murphy said when he came across the Koch and Chavez hearing tapes. “In a process like this, you have to have a lot of approvals, and when you audition online and in the studio, you usually bring five or six people on each side, and you see them all, and then there's a conversation, but I didn't .” I don't want to do it because I felt like if I didn't have these two guys, I just wouldn't want to do it. So for the final comeback they showed up and it was just them. And they were a little shocked, just sitting in a room looking around. And I was open and said, 'I believe in you and I don't want you to feel like you have competition because for me and Tiffany, you don't have any.'”
Hearing about the multiple auditions Chavez and Koch went through to get their parts, Javier Bardem, who plays Father José in the series, joked about how things would have gone if Murphy hadn't made him an offer.
“Thank God I didn't audition for this; I would never have gotten hired,” he said. “I'm so bad at auditions. It's amazing what an actor goes through to get a job. How hard it is to sustain creativity when the pressure is so great. In the case of you guys , knowing that it could be a life-changing experience as it is, and being able to give your best, it always amazes me that an actor can actually perform in an audition,” he added, praising Koch and Chávez.
The topic of safety was regularly raised during the panel discussion, with actors highlighting how their fellow cast members and crew supported them as they tackled the difficult topics the series tackles. This is especially true of episode five, “The Hurt Man,” which, in its entirety, is a conversation between Erik and his lawyer Leslie Abramson, played by Ari Graynor, during which he details the sexual abuse he suffered during the his childhood. .
“I absolutely couldn't have done it without her,” Koch said of Graynor, who was only shown from behind in the episode as the camera focused on Erik. “She had such a beautiful space for me, and she became Leslie, which I think allowed me to be Erik. I am the only person who was able to see his performance and I feel so lucky to have been able to witness it.