Ross Lynch Opens Up About Playing Jeffrey Dahmer
Though Halloween is here and soon gone, the scaring season isn't quite over, because the Jeffrey Dahmer film My Friend Dahmer is coming to a theater near you on November 3. Even just in the film's trailer, you get a sense of how disturbing the performance, based on an acquaintance of the notorious serial killer during his teenage years, is going to be.
For Ross Lynch, who plays the young Dahmer, the role was completely different from his claim to fame: The Disney Channel show Austin & Ally. And in an interview with Us Weekly, he opened up about portraying a serial killer, who he describes as a "tragically interesting" figure:
"When I was on Disney Channel, I was thinking of the projects that I wanted to do next. I wanted to do something that was darker, a more intense character. When the script fell into my lap, at the time, I didn’t know who Jeffrey Dahmer was. It’s a little bit before my time.
I started researching Dahmer and he’s tragically interesting. The crimes that he committed are, unfortunately, terrifying and devastating. But they are interesting."
While the entire conceit - portraying the bullied teenage Dahmer, before he systematically raped, killed, and mutilated 17 victims over more than the span of a decade - seems pretty horrific to take on, there was one scene that Lynch found extra difficult:
"There’s one in a car and basically the idea was that Dahmer was going to have this emotional break down. It was a very much emotionally taxing, exhausting scene. That scene never made it to the film, though."
As for Lynch's takeaway from the film:
"The most asked question about serial killers is, are serial killers born this way or were they bred this way? This may raise flags so when people see someone who seems a little out of touch or hard to grasp, they’ll try to engage them and help."
Watch a trailer for My Friend Dahmer below:
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