The Last of Us star on new John Wayne Gacy drama: "I think every one of us at some point was afraid to do it"

Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy – released last year in the US and now airing on ITV1 and ITVX in the UK – asks a chilling but reasonable question: how was one man able to kidnap and murder at least 33 young men and boys while, for years, "no one was the wiser"?

Between 1972 and 1978, the Norwood Park suburb of Chicago was unknowingly terrorised by Gacy. Outwardly, he appeared to be an ordinary family man – he had a wife and two children – and respected community figure involved in local politics and running his own construction company. But beneath his home, in the crawl space, were the remains of many of his victims.

"There'll be people who are just furious at the idea that this person was allowed to do this for so long," The Last of Us's Gabriel Luna, who plays real-life detective Rafael Tovar, told Radio Times.com.

Tovar was heavily involved in the investigation and the exhumation of remains from Gacy's house, where the serial killer would often entice his young victims.

"He was leaving a lot of evidence and a very heavy imprint on that city. He was covering a lot of ground," he continued. "And it was really just the inability of law enforcement – and the refusal to take these people seriously because of a few unifying factors: their sexuality, their place in society."

A number of his victims had been ostracised by their families because they were gay.

Given the grisly and upsetting nature of the story, Luna acknowledged that the cast had initial reservations. "I think every one of us at some point was afraid to do it," he added.

But it was the approach of showrunner Patrick Macmanus – who himself "said no three times" when approached to make it – that ultimately "drew everybody in".

"He was trying to challenge even himself to come at it in a completely different way, honouring the victims and their families, focusing on them," Luna said. "He really needed to feel that he could tell this story in this way."

"We can't cover all 33 of them, obviously, but we do have these little vignettes – short stories in every episode – where you meet some of the victims before they ever cross paths with John Gacy," said Michael Chernus (Severance), who plays the titular killer.

"I thought it would be important and impactful to be a part of something like that. John Gacy was never the thing that drew me in, it was playing him in service of telling this larger story," he explained, adding that his initial reservations came from how widely Gacy's crimes have already been documented.

"It's been covered ad nauseam in almost every kind of media format over the decades," he said. "But I think this is important because it's a reframing. We're hoping to correct some of the ways that the story has been told inaccurately."

One point of protest was Gacy's depiction as a "killer clown". He would dress up as Pogo to entertain sick children – which was "one of the first things that the media glommed onto," Chernus explained.

"It sold newspapers and it got people interested, but really that was a very small part of who he was – and he never dressed as a clown to lure children into his home," he said. "He used it as a mask to fit into normal society and make him seem harmless.

"And so I think we're trying to tell this story in a different way, and a more accurate way than it’s been portrayed before."

Luna agreed that while much of Gacy's story is already well known, the series still brings a fresh perspective.

"I think that there were some discoveries that we made that add to the pantheon of all the John Wayne Gacy coverage over the last 50 years," he echoed, particularly by focusing on those impacted.

"That is why we're telling the story – to give the victims faces, give them voices, restore their humanity. To reclaim that. I think it's important for us to engage with what we're afraid of. That's when the best results actually come forth."

Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy is available to stream on ITVX. The series is also airing weekly on ITV1 on Fridays at 9pm.

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