Menendez Brothers Series ‘Monsters’ Star Javier Bardem Says Netflix Show Is About the ‘Consequences of Trauma’

Rance Collins

September 22, 2024 at 1:00 AM·4 min read

“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is asking viewers to be the jury for the Menéndez brothers. The infamous Beverly Hills siblings murdered their parents in 1989, and were convicted in 1996, but today’s more comprehensive understanding of sexual abuse has sparked renewed interest in the case.

“[The show’s] about the consequences of trauma,” Javier Bardem, who plays the father, José, told Variety at the series Los Angeles premiere on Monday. “Unless [it is] properly addressed and healed, it’s going to have a huge, horrible, dramatic effect on generations to come.”

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The cast and creatives of the series described its “Rashaman” approach to the story.

“We wanted to really present a lot of different points of view, and then let the audience sort of decide what to take,” writer and producer David McMillian said. “We are talking about real people … many of them are still alive. We want to make sure that our narrative is grounded in the facts.”

“You can’t make a moral or emotional judgment on anybody,” said Carl Franklin, who directed the first two episodes. “You have to basically take the material and put yourself inside of it and present the strongest case for each one of the actors, for all points of view.”

The creators took great pains to recreate the time period, which Los Angeles-native Leslie Grossman, who plays key witness Judalon Smyth, professed was spot-on.

“My sister-in-law was in class with Erik. I could name 10 people off the top of my head that knew those brothers. It was wild to revisit it in this way and remember very vividly what it was like to be in L.A. at that time,” Grossman told Variety.

Composer Thomas Newman partnered with his daughter Julia to set the tone of late-1980s and early-1990s L.A.

“These places you drive through every single day are part of this broader story about murder and family,” Julia explained. “This story really is tapped into the fabric of Los Angeles.”

Jess Weixler, who plays Lyle’s attorney Jill Lansing, said that the brothers are viewed through a more sensitive lens than during the trials 30 years ago.

“There is something very different about this case now than there was then, in how people approach [particularly] abuse in that way for men … I don’t know if it would have changed the outcome [of the trial], but I do think it would have been [treated] more meaningfully and less like a ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketch,” she elaborated.

Producer Ryan Murphy, who has a history of lining actors’ mantles with Emmys, cast Cooper Koch and Daytime Emmy-winner Nicholas Alexander Chavez as the titular brothers – Erik and Lyle, respectively. While neither spoke to the long-incarcerated Mendenezes, they each consumed interviews, documentaries, books, articles and the entirety of the televised trial.

“You’re sort of creating trauma for yourself, which is difficult to carry, but ultimately very rewarding and fulfilling to understand and empathize with a person who’s been through something so, so difficult and tragic,” Koch said.

Koch asked viewers to watch out for the fifth episode, entitled “The Hurt Man,” of which he is particularly proud.

“The hurt man is what Erik calls himself growing up,” he added.

“This show creates such conflicting emotions,” Chavez said. “I think that’s what has made this case so compelling for so long. I’m really interested to see what the public consensus is – or even if there is a consensus.”

Nathan Lane spoke to Griffin Dunne about playing his late father, the late legendary journalist Dominick Dunne. “I said, ‘Well, how would you like to see your father portrayed?’ And he said, ‘I’d like people to know what a passionate advocate he was for the victims, and how that trial changed his life, professionally and personally,'” Nathan Lane said. “So when I started getting these episodes, I was like, ‘I think he’ll be very happy.’ Because that was a through line for the entire character and and especially in episode seven, which explains a lot about Dominick.”

With “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez” premiering earlier this week and “Grotesquerie” next week, Murphy has a lot in the pipeline. Murphy recently announced that Charlie Hunnam will portray notorious serial killer Ed Gein in “Monster” Season 3. “There are too many monsters in the world,” McMillian said. “It’s not just about choosing a monster, but also finding a way to make that story fresh for a different generation.”

See more photos from the “Monsters” premiere below.