‘Monsters’ Star Nicholas Alexander Chavez Is Just Getting Started

Only so many people can say they’ve portrayed an infamous killer, and Nicholas Alexander Chavez is one of them.

The 25-year-old actor plays Lyle Menendez — who was convicted along with his brother, Erik, of killing their parents, José and Kitty Menendez, in 1989 — in Ryan Murphy’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. The preparation process was “a grueling one,” Chavez tells The Hollywood Reporter, noting extensive hours of research. In addition to reading books, watching documentaries, talking to those who knew the family and reviewing footage from the trials in 1993 and 1995, Chavez says he was “cognizant the entire time I was watching that people naturally behave a certain way when they’re on trial for their life, and they may not behave the way that they would in their day-to-day lives.” Because the show centers on the brothers’ lives outside of the courtroom, Chavez explains his character and the show overall are a “heavily researched interpretation of what might have been.”

Monsters also ignited renewed interest in the real-life case, which saw the Menendez brothers resentenced in May following a months-long battle, making them eligible for parole after being incarcerated for more than 30 years. Having grown so close to the case, Chavez told THR shortly before their resentencing that Erik and Lyle “probably deserve another day in court” and that he’s “remaining quietly hopeful for them.”

Though Chavez started his acting career on the long-running soap opera General Hospital in 2021, it’s in the past year that it really started to flourish, also thanks to a second role in Murphy’s FX horror mystery Grotesquerie, in which he starred as Father Charlie Mayhew, a young priest with murderous passions. “All of us just got to play around in this completely imaginary space that really has close to no rules. Like, whatever impulse you feel is probably correct,” he says of the series that stars Niecy Nash-Betts. “It was cool to come from a very, very defined Ryan Murphy sandbox to a playground that could just be anything.”

Below, Chavez opens up about his whirlwind career this past year, the success of Murphy’s Monsters and Grotesquerie, playing Lyle Menendez and his dream role. He also teases his next project, the I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot set for release in July.

Going back to the beginning, what made you first want to become an actor?

For me, it was about more of a culture as opposed to performing. I got involved with my high school speech and debate program. It’s kind of like its own world, but it can be thought of a little bit like competitive acting in a way, which seems like those would be really mutually exclusive concepts, but in that world it somehow works. But the friends that I made in the speech and debate program were like the first people that I really gravitated towards, and really found a home, we were kind of just nerds in a way. … So all those things just kind of came together for me for acting and I fell down the rabbit hole more and more, but that was probably like the core of it, it just felt like a culture that I really wanted to be a part of. 

As it’s not even been a year since Monsters was released, what do you make of the successes you’ve seen since then?

It’s actually hard to make heads or tails of it because it’s just such a strange thing to experience. First and foremost, we put a ton of work into the show, so seeing that other people resonated with it in a way that felt really meaningful to them, that they felt a sense of connection to, if not the Menendez family, then the trauma that they went through and a sense of empathy with that, like, that was cool. The other thing, I just reflect back on how cool this experience was for me too. I had so many firsts, but the fact that I got to work with such an all-star cast on what was kind of difficult material, and I had to wake up to that challenge every day, that was kind of cool. I mean, so, so, so much has changed. I look at my life a year ago or two years ago, and it’s just night and day, so it’s hard to isolate just any one thing. But I’m just so grateful that it worked out (Laughs). You get into acting not really quite sure, and maybe you have family members who are raising eyebrows that you’re like, “Are you sure?” So I’m very glad that it worked out the way that it did. 

When you were cast as Lyle Menendez in Monsters, knowing it’s a heavy story, how did you go about preparing to portray a real-life person?

The preparation process for Lyle Menendez is a grueling one, because you have to do extensive amounts of research, right? So I think I read every book that was ever put out about the Menendez brothers. I watched every documentary that I possibly could, but the biggest handicap is that pretty much the only footage that you have of them is the court TV footage. So I was cognizant the entire time I was watching that people naturally behave a certain way when they’re on trial for their life, and they may not behave the way that they would in their day-to-day lives. And most of our show takes place in the day-to-day, outside of the courtroom, as a way of informing the case, so I had to make a very close reading of the script. I had to have a lot of conversations with Ryan and with the writers, Ian Brennan and David McMillan, and really understand the direction that we wanted to take the character, and lean into the fact that it’s an interpretation. It’s a well-researched estimate of what might have been, you know what I mean? So that was really, really interesting in terms of undertaking that, but then I tried to support it with as much real-world stuff as I possibly could. I talked to so many people who interfaced with the Menendez family directly, like babysitters, folks who would just run into them in town because their dad was a record label executive, so they’re kind of steeped within the Hollywood infrastructure. So long story short, it was a mixture of heavy, heavy, heavy research and then collaborating with the other creatives involved, and ultimately admitting to ourselves that on some level, this is a heavily researched interpretation of what might have been. 

Did you find it easier knowing you had Cooper Koch, who plays Erik Menendez, going through this experience with you?

It felt very comforting to have someone kind of going through the experience in parallel with me, because anytime something would happen or one of us would be having a good day or an off day or something like that, we always had the other person to go to. Actually I thought so much about Evan Peters throughout this whole project because he had Niecy [Nash-Betts], but Evan was the sole antagonist of [Murphy’s] Dahmer, obviously, he didn’t really have that. So I imagine that would have been quite difficult for him, and I felt very, very lucky that I had Cooper and he came to play. He was also just there to talk afterwards and was a great scene partner. 

Coming off the momentum of Monsters, you also saw even more success with Murphy’s other series, Grotesquerie. Can you talk about your experience with that show? 

It was really lovely, that’s a great cast of folks. We were just talking about Evan and Niecy ‘cause I got to work with Niecy on that project, and she’s just such a fantastic actress and really brought a lot to that role and to that series. And to get to work alongside the Broadway star Micaela Diamond — that was really, really cool — and professional football player and Taylor Swift lover, Travis Kelce. And what was especially cool about working on that project coming away from Monsters is Monsters was about real-world events, whereas Grotesquerie was the brainchild of Ryan Murphy. So it felt like all of us just got to play around in this completely imaginary space that really has close to no rules, like, whatever impulse you feel is probably correct. So it was cool to come from a very, very defined Ryan Murphy sandbox to then go into like a playground that could really just be anything. 

And it made me realize, this is why my favorite directors work with the same actors and the same cinematographers over and over and over again. They already have that artistic rapport, they have that relationship, so it’s just very easy for them to pick up, like they don’t have to go through all of those first-day icebreakers.

Looking ahead, what was it like joining the I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot and being a part of the new generation for such an iconic ‘90s horror film?

All of the horror fans are gonna come for me as soon as they see this, but I had no idea what I Know What You Did Last Summer was before they came to me with the idea (Laughs). I live under a rock — please don’t give me a hard time about it — but we started talking about it and then I turned to my girlfriend who’s like the biggest horror movie nerd of all time, and her whole face lights up, her jaw drops and she’s like, “We gotta go watch watch the movie right now.” So we go into the living room where our TV is and we throw it on and it was just so much fun. I grew up a Scooby-Doo kid, so to see Freddie Prinze Jr. doing a different thing other than Fred, that was a lot of fun. So I got back on the phone and talked to the director [Jennifer Kaytin Robinson] and was listening to her pitch the direction that it should go in, and I was like, “Yeah!” I was just so excited, so I flew down to Australia and we filmed the thing and I just had a really great time.

Do you think fans of the original film will appreciate the remake just as much?

I think so. I think that people are just gonna have a fun time. I think the key is don’t overthink it. It’s a popcorn flick, like just go have fun. 

What are you most excited for fans to see once the film comes out?

I don’t think I’m spilling any state secrets to say the deaths are pretty amazing. 

Having been a part of several successful shows, and now the I Know What You Did Last Summer remake, what have you learned about yourself as an actor?

So much of the fun of this for me is just in figuring it out, like it’s this big puzzle and I have to figure out how to make it work, and I just love that (Laughs). I’ve also learned that I’m way more interested in technically what’s happening behind the scenes than I ever thought I would. I’m starting to get more and more interested in different camera lenses and understanding what we’re switching to, what exactly the shot is, because the further I get along in my career and the more people that I work with, the better I understand that the more I know what the other creatives are envisioning, the better the end result is going to look. I think there’s sometimes a tendency, because actors get caught up in this whole, oh well, I’m feeling what I’m feeling and I wanna make sure that they’re gonna get that, and the top priority is the acting — which there’s an argument to be made for, by the way, because without that you don’t have a movie — but it is about more than that, right? There are a lot of people who are doing a lot of different things to try to make the prettiest picture possible, and the more that I practice integrating all of those things together, the better I become. 

Does that mean you would like to step into director’s shoes in the future?

I’m writing a picture right now, which I shouldn’t even be talking about, but it’s pretty fun, kind of dark comedy space. I think that one might be interesting to direct, but we’ll have to see how it comes together, but I’d love to do that. 

Is there a dream genre, role or project you have yet to do?

I always say dark comedy just because I think it’s such a nuanced genre. I talk a lot about the joy of having to wrap your head around something and usually dark comedy is the hardest just because it’s so nuanced and it’s so hard tonally to get exactly right for people to be both unnerved, unsettled and also think it’s funny. I also just love a good grab-the-gun, get-the-girl action movie. I think that those are so much freaking fun, and I think I’d just have a blast doing all the fight choreography and stuff like that. 

What’s your perfect day off work look like? 

I have the benefit of living with all of my favorite people. I live with my best friend, my younger brother Mike, my girlfriend, and we just hang out. We’ll kick it at the pool, we go to the beach and we go see a movie, grill up some steaks at home. That’s my kind of day. 

If you had to describe what makes Nicholas Alexander Chavez, Nicholas Alexander Chavez, what would you say?

I think it’s just a love for what I do for a living, you know what I mean? Like you can’t take it away from me.