Monster: The Ed Gein Story's Charlie Hunnam reveals the reason behind his unique accent
"That voice that I use grew out of my research..."
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.
“That voice that I use grew out of my research,” Hunnam told RadioTimes.com, "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.
“She told him every day for 41 years that she hated him because he'd not been born the daughter that she wanted. I thought if you don't have any other contact with the outside world, you only have a relationship with one person, and that 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?
“So, I thought this gentle, high-pitched voice might be a way that Ed gave permission to his mother to love him.”
Alongside his own research into the infamous American serial killer, who murdered at least two women and exhumed corpses from local graveyards in the 50s, Hunnam also had a three-hour debrief from director Ryan Murphy that was like “watching a documentary”.
When asked how much he knew about the true story prior to being cast, Hunnam responded: “Very little. I had a three-hour meeting with Ryan Murphy, 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 10 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 sort of the creative splendour of discovering this story.”
Read more:
- Monster season 3's hypocrisy with Ed Gein means it's nowhere near as clever as Ryan Murphy thinks it is
- Who was Ilse Koch and did she influence Ed Gein? Monster season 3 character explained
Hunnam said Murphy was “passionate about storytelling and the creative process” and that he did a “fantastic job” of informing him about the real-life material.
“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,” he added.
Monster: The Ed Gein Story is now streaming on Netflix – sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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Authors
Jess Bacon is a freelance film, culture and TV critic and interviewer who is obsessed with everything from Marvel to Star Wars to the representation of women on-screen. Her work has been featured in publications such as Rolling Stone, GQ, Stylist, Total Film, Elle, The Guardian, Digital Spy, Dazed, Cosmopolitan and the i. She’s also interviewed the likes of Zendaya, Brie Larson, Amy Adams, Dan Levy, Aaron Pierre and Brian Cox. In between overanalysing her favourite new comfort watch or internet trends, she’s working on her debut non-fiction book.
