Evan Peters Is Begging To Play Someone Normal For Once

Evan Peters has been a working actor for a long time, but aside from some brief appearances in the world of Marvel cinema, he tends to get weighed down with darker roles. There’s just something about his eternally boyish face that makes him the perfect vessel for creepy characters — and he’s sick of it.

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, producer Ryan Murphy said that Peters told him he was longing to play someone “normal” or even star in a romcom. So naturally, Murphy cast him as serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer in Netflix’s Dahmer-Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Peters is something of a muse to Murphy, who first cast the actor as Tate Langdon in American Horror Story: Murder House, which you can tell from the title is not a cheerful romp.

Peters also recently co-starred in Mare of Easttown across from Kate Winslet, where he played a relatively normal police detective before (spoiler alert) getting shot in the head.

Give the man a break!

Murphy claims he tried to, but after auditioning 100 people for the role of Dahmer, he decided Peters was the best man for the job and sent him the script.

“He called me the next day, and he said, ‘It’s so challenging. It’s so difficult that I kind of have to say yes to it, even though I’m terrified of it,’” said Murphy.

There is obviously some obligation to seek out different roles that belongs to Peters. He has been talking about this for a long time and even told W back in 2018 that he was “dying” to do a comedy.

“It’s where my heart really lies, I think,” said Peters. “I love physical comedy.”

Peters also said then that Murphy had promised the next season of AHS would be “more of a comedic role.”

Suuuurrrre.

In another interview with GQ, Peters said he needed to take a break from AHS after Apocalypse for his mental health.

“I’m going to take a break, regroup, decompress, get back in touch with what I feel like I want to do” he said. “Not that I didn’t want to do any of those roles – they’re exactly what I wanted to do. It was just zero to 100 instantaneously.”

Peters continued, “I'm goofy, I'm silly, I like to have fun. I don't like to yell and scream. I actually hate it. I think it's disgusting and really awful, and it's been a challenge for me. Horror Story sort of demanded that of me. It's been all a massive stretch for me and really difficult to do. It's hurting my soul and Evan as a person.”

During that break, Murphy told Entertainment Weekly, “He and I talked after it, and we decided maybe it was time to do some comedy.”

Peters is still waiting on that.