Menendez Brothers Series ‘Monsters’ Star Javier Bardem Says Netflix Show Is About the ‘Consequences of Trauma’

variety.com:

Rance Collins “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is asking viewers to be the jury for the Menéndez brothers. The infamous Beverly Hills siblings murdered their parents in 1989, and were convicted in 1996, but today’s more comprehensive understanding of sexual abuse has sparked renewed interest in the case. “[The show’s] about the consequences of trauma,” Javier Bardem, who plays the father, José, told Variety at the series Los Angeles premiere on Monday. “Unless [it is] properly addressed and healed, it’s going to have a huge, horrible, dramatic effect on generations to come.” The cast and creatives of the series described its “Rashaman” approach to the story. “We wanted to really present a lot of different points of view, and then let the audience sort of decide what to take,” writer and producer David McMillian said. “We are talking about real people … many of them are still alive.

We want to make sure that our narrative is grounded in the facts.” “You can’t make a moral or emotional judgment on anybody,” said Carl Franklin, who directed the first two episodes. “You have to basically take the material and put yourself inside of it and present the strongest case for each one of the actors, for all points of view.” The creators took great pains to recreate the time period, which Los Angeles-native Leslie Grossman, who plays key witness Judalon Smyth, professed was spot-on. “My sister-in-law was in class with Erik.

I could name 10 people off the top of my head that knew those brothers. It was wild to revisit it in this way and remember very vividly what it was like to be in L.A.