Macmanus considered a few massive names to play Gacy. Yet “this was never going to be an ‘offer-only’ sort of a thing,” he says. The role was too spe
Macmanus considered a few massive names to play Gacy. Yet “this was never going to be an ‘offer-only’ sort of a thing,” he says. The role was too specific; the burden of getting it right was too great. Even with the caliber of talent throwing their hats in the ring, though, “once Michael came in, it was over.”
Early on, Chernus’s knowledge of Gacy was cursory at best—and, in retrospect, a bit misinformed. He knew that the press had deemed Gacy the “Killer Clown,” due to his time publicly performing in a local “Jolly Joker” clown club. “Mistakenly, you’ll see artwork on various pieces of media about him [in which] he’ll be holding a knife or something—and the more I dug into it, it’s just so inaccurate,” Chernus says. “It’s salacious, and it was cooked up to sell newspapers. While it fueled an international fear of clowns, it also, in some weird way, helped to humanize him.”
Through his deep immersion into Gacy, Chernus got to know the man as a “true psychopath”—a master manipulator, a chameleonic personality, an apparently dependable neighbor. He’d fix your flat tire, clear snow out of your driveway, make you feel at ease. “He was trying to blend in, in a way that’s different from other serial killers that we know about, where they were loners,” Chernus says. “He was really hiding in plain sight.” The actor felt anxious about walking that fine line and capturing Gacy’s geniality without making him seem charming or likable. He wanted to leave no room for sympathy. He didn’t want to glorify him.
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