Nicholas Alexander Chavez revealed he was unaware of the infamous Menendez case until he auditioned for Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
The 25-year-old actor portrays Lyle Menendez in Netflix’s true crime anthology series, which chronicles the real-life case of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted in 1996 for murdering their parents, José and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menendez.
"I wasn't familiar with anything," Chavez told Entertainment Weekly at the Monsters premiere. "I actually had not heard of the Menéndez brothers."
He noted, "I wasn't even alive when this happened," as the brothers committed the crime in 1989, a full decade before he was born.
After Chavez’s audition for Lyle, he recalled reaching out to contacts who experienced the 1980s and ’90s to gather first-hand impressions of the case. "That was actually really interesting information to get," he described.
"I had to do extensive research," Chavez explained, emphasising the complexity of his character. "This guy is really compelling and complicated, and I wanted to be thorough."
Given the high-profile nature of the case, Chavez accessed "so much material" to study, including "watching court TV," which helped him understand his role.