When Nicholas Alexander Chavez started researching his position as Lyle Menéndez for Monsters, he paid particular consideration to the “masks” that Lyle’s dad Jose compelled him to make use of when he started shedding his hair.
That “masks” is how Chavez refers to Lyle’s notorious toupée, which former Vainness Truthful author Dominick Dunne as soon as described as a “state-of-the-art hairpiece, or toupée, or wig, or hair substitute, as his very costly rug was variously known as” that went on to turn out to be “a continuing prop within the trial, virtually as vital as the 2 lacking Mossberg 12-gauge shotguns the brothers used to blow away their dad and mom.”
“I actually noticed this wig as masks of kinds,” displays Chavez to Deadline. “It’s not one which he imposes on himself. It’s imposed by his father and the perfectionist commonplace that Lyle has to reside as much as. It’s a masks that hides a deeply, deeply wounded inside youngster who surfaces in episodes 4.”
Earlier than embarking on the position of a lifetime, Chavez says he poured over books concerning the Menéndez Household whereas doing a bit of outreach of his personal in Los Angeles.
“If you’re engaged on a undertaking concerning the Menéndez brothers, particularly dwelling in Los Angeles the place they lived, you meet an amazing many people who find themselves one diploma or two levels of separation away from others who immediately interfaced with them,” Chavez tells Deadline. “It was fascinating as a result of a number of of the individuals who I met with instructed me that they may inform that Lyle was sporting a bit. And while you put on a bit, there’s sure habits that goes together with that. You type of angle your head in a really, very particular manner, possibly even subconsciously, to attempt to preserve distance between it and the individual that you’re speaking to.”
Titled “Kill or Be Killed,” episode 4 of Monsters seeks to offer some solutions for what led to the (embarrassing) toupée. Whereas Lyle reveals to the attorneys that he was molested by his dad (Javier Bardem), the episode then exhibits his character discovering within the bathe that he was shedding his hair. So Jose takes him to a specialist to get fitted with a hairpiece.
“You look nice in that,” Jose says to Lyle within the episode.” “You need to reach enterprise? You wanna go into politics? Then you definitely’ve acquired to have an excellent head of hair.”
“What if I don’t need to put on a wig?” says Lyle.
“We will talk about this at residence,” replies Jose sternly. “You’re sporting a wig. That’s the way in which it’s going to be.”
Although it’s by no means articulated within the restricted collection, Chavez acknowledges the hair loss was possible because of the profound quantity of stress that Lyle was beneath. “I can solely think about it will need to have been such an anxiety-inducing expertise. When elements of the way in which you current your self begin to disintegrate … while you don’t have these exterior validators of your id to lean on … it actually brings out nasty realities that is likely to be dwelling inside you. So I felt like possibly subconsciously, when the masks of who he pretended to be began to slide, the kid beneath began to come back by means of an increasing number of.”
Whereas capturing the restricted collection, Chavez admits that he by no means really wore a wig. “They used my actual hair for nearly your entire manufacturing, however styled it to seem like it was a toupée by teasing it. The one time the place it’s not my actual hair is that if there’s a gag. So if the wig comes off, just like the scene on the dinner desk, or the scene the place it will get snatched off whereas I’m within the jail showers, they might put the bald cap on.”
And sure, the second when Kitty snatches off the toupée is predicated on real-life occasions. Lyle Menéndez really testified in court docket that “she reached, and she or he grabbed my hairpiece and she or he simply ripped it off.” That’s when his brother, Erik, realized the grim reality.
He “didn’t know I had a hairpiece. I used to be fully embarrassed in entrance of my brother,” in keeping with the testimony.
In Monsters, Kitty rips off Lyle’s toupee throughout a household battle on the dinner desk. It prompts the brothers to confess to 1 one other how they have been abused by their dad, which led to their resolution to shoot their dad and mom.
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