Charlie Hunnam visited serial killer Ed Gein’s grave to ‘say goodbye’ after filming Monster role
Charlie Hunnam has revealed he made a solo trip to Ed Gein’s grave to "say goodbye" to the disturbing role after filming Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story.
Charlie Hunnam made a personal pilgrimage to the grave of serial killer Ed Gein after wrapping filming on Monster: The Ed Gein Story.
The 45-year-old actor, best known for Sons of Anarchy, plays the notorious murderer and grave robber in the latest instalment of Ryan Murphy’s Netflix true-crime anthology - a dark reimagining that explores how Gein’s traumatic past and fractured psyche led to a string of grisly crimes in 1950s rural America and felt that visiting his burial place was the appropriate way to bid farewell to his character.
Speaking to E News!, he said: "This time was the most extreme decompression, because I was in Chicago, which is close to where Ed Gein lived in Wisconsin. So I drove up and spent the day and visited his grave and spent some time with him, which was a healing way to say goodbye and put a full stop at the end of the thing."
Hunnam went on to explain that his long-term partner, jewellery designer Morgana McNelis, has just one rule when it comes to him taking on such psychologically taxing roles: that he fully returns to himself afterwards.
The couple have been together for over 20 years, and McNelis had seen how deeply certain characters could affect him.
He recalled: "She got frustrated with me showing up and being a bit of a shell after doing a role. So, she said to me, probably about 10 years ago, ‘Here’s the rules of engagement: Go do your work. Be as selfish as you need to be, but then take some time, because when you get back, you better be ready to see me.’ Which is completely fair and really lovely."
Despite the darkness of the subject matter, McNelis remained fully supportive of Hunnam taking on the role, recognising the value in examining the shadow side of human psychology.
He said: "My partner had incredible conviction that this was an important thing to do. She’s a great fan of the psychoanalysts, so she understands shadow work and the value of staring into the abyss and confronting the darkness much more than I do. So she was an amazing support to me, saying, ‘You just got to go do this thing, you got to enter the cave and face the dragon.’"
Hunnam admitted he felt a deep responsibility in portraying Gein, who was convicted of two murders but suspected of many more, and whose crimes inspired films such as Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs.
He added: "I felt a huge obligation and responsibility because he was a real person, and also exacerbated by the fact that he had committed all of these terrible crimes.
"I wanted to find the truth of it. Right from my early conversation with Ryan [Murphy], we were less interested in what he did, but we really wanted to understand why he did what he did, and take the audience and take ourselves through that journey of understanding how a human being becomes a monster."
