‘Monsters’ Star Nicholas Alexander Chavez Addresses Grim Backstory of Lyle Menéndez’ Hair Loss

deadline.com:

When Nicholas Alexander Chavez began researching his role as Lyle Menéndez for Monsters, he paid special attention to the “mask” that Lyle’s dad Jose forced him to use when he began losing his hair.

That “mask” is how Chavez refers to Lyle’s infamous toupée, which former Vanity Fair writer Dominick Dunne once described as a “state-of-the-art hairpiece, or toupée, or wig, or hair replacement, as his very expensive rug was variously called” that went on to become “a constant prop in the trial, almost as important as the two missing Mossberg 12-gauge shotguns the brothers used to blow away their parents.” “I really saw this wig as mask of sorts,” reflects Chavez to Deadline. “It’s not one that he imposes on himself.

It’s imposed by his father and the perfectionist standard that Lyle has to live up to. It’s a mask that hides a deeply, deeply wounded inner child who surfaces in episodes four.” Before embarking on the role of a lifetime, Chavez says he poured over books about the Menéndez Family while doing a little outreach of his own in Los Angeles. “When you’re working on a project about the Menéndez brothers, especially living in Los Angeles where they lived, you meet a great many people who are one degree or two degrees of separation away from others who directly interfaced with them,” Chavez tells Deadline. “It was interesting because several of the people who I met with told me that they could tell that Lyle was wearing a piece.

And when you wear a piece, there is certain behavior that goes along with that. You sort of angle your head in a very, very specific way, maybe even subconsciously, to try to keep distance between it and the person that you’re talking to.” Titled “Kill or Be Killed,” episode 4 of Monsters se