Charlie Hunnam has revealed how he created the distinctive accent for serial killer Ed Gein in the latest instalment of Netflix’s anthology series: Monster: The Ed Gein Story.
The actor, best known for his roles in Sons of Anarchy and The Gentlemen, didn’t have any real material to draw from to build Gein’s voice, as the one recording of him was only discovered just before filming began...
The thing that I couldn't stop thinking about was Ed's burning desire to get the love and
affection and acceptance from his mother that he never got.
I was gobsmacked.
I had no indication that that's where this conversation was leading to.
And so I thought this sort of gentle, high-pitched voice.
What did you do?
You're the one who can't look away.
How much did you know about the true story?
Very little. I had a two-hour meeting, well, a three-hour meeting with Ryan Murphy.
Ostensibly, I thought, as a general meeting, to get to know each other.
I didn't know we were actually meeting to talk about Ed Gein.
But Ryan was in the process of breaking the story and figuring out his research.
So he had spent the whole day writing and came to the meeting just ten minutes late,
but was effusively apologetic for being late, and then just started telling me that he'd lost track of time
because he was in the sort of the creative, you know, splendor of discovering this story.
And he was so passionate about storytelling and the creative process.
And so we just started talking about Ed, and it was like watching a two-hour documentary,
where you can learn a lot about a character in two hours, listening to Ryan talk.
And then two hours in, it was this moment where he said,
so would you like to play him?
And I was gobsmacked.
I had no indication that that's where this conversation was leading to.
So that's all to say I knew very little about Ed prior to that conversation.
But Ryan, you know, Ryan did a fantastic job of bringing me into the material.
Yeah, absolutely.
And how was crafting the accent too?
Because it is so specific.
And I read that you watch kind of videos of Ed speaking to try and get into that voice.
Well, there are no videos of Ed.
There is one tape that's very obscure that was never released,
because A, Ed never stood trial for his crimes because he was deemed medically unfit
because of his, you know, psychological disorders.
But they'd also never read him his Miranda rights.
And he was also beaten up while he was in jail.
And so these tapes were just sort of put in a drawer and never released to the world.
But I'd heard about them, but nobody could find them.
I ultimately did find them, but only about three or four days before we started to shoot.
So that voice that I use grew out of my research.
And the thing that I couldn't stop thinking about was Ed's burning desire to get the love
and affection and acceptance from his mother that he never got,
who was the only person he ever had a relationship with in his life.
And she told him every day for 41 years that she hated him
because he'd not been born the daughter that she wanted.
So I thought if you don't have any other contact with the outside world,
you only have a relationship with one person,
and that one person tells you every day that she hates you because you're not a girl,
what would that do psychologically and emotionally?
And how would that manifest in the body?
And so I thought this sort of gentle, high-pitched voice might be a way that Ed,
you know, gave permission to his mother to love him.
