00:00The Menendez cast is weighing in on the controversy surrounding the Netflix series about the Menendez brothers case.
00:06Cooper Koch, Nicholas Alexander Chavez, Nathan Lane and Ari Grainer weighed in to defend the show after Eric Menendez and the extended family condemned the new hit series.
00:16Monsters, the Eric and Lyle Menendez story is a portrayal of the two young men who killed their parents in 1989.
00:22But since its release, it turned into a back and forth between the show's creatives, including creator Ryan Murphy, defending the series.
00:28And the Menendez extended family not happy with the depiction.
00:32Viewers have also called out the series for an unfair depiction specifically and most controversially an implication that the two brothers were secretly lovers.
00:40A suggestion made at the time of the trial by Dominic Dunn, played by Lane in the series, who covered the trial for Vanity Fair.
00:46Koch told THR,
00:47I wanted Eric's point of view to be a through line the entire time, even when I was in other people's point of view.
00:53I wanted Eric to always be sympathetic and always feel like a victim, even though he had done something horrific.
00:58And I never wanted to discredit what he had done, but I wanted people to understand that he was a victim in all of this.
01:04As for the incest innuendo uproar, the series breakout star suggests an important read of one scene to clarify the script's intent.
01:12In the scene after Dominic Dunn explains all of these theories at the chateau, it cuts to the shot from behind him,
01:17where all of his friends, where he was telling the stories to, are gone and the lights are out.
01:21And the candles are still burning, which to me shows that the people that he's telling this to are like,
01:25Come on, Dominic, what are you saying? I hope people can understand that it's trying to show that no one believed that it's like that.
01:30This is an insane theory.
01:32On the topic of Menendez's angry letter denouncing the series, veteran actor Lane said he's entitled to his opinion.
01:38I think if he had been a producer on it, he could have said, well, this didn't happen or this did happen.
01:43And this is my point of view. But I think you certainly get a lot of different points of view on this show.
01:47And one must remind people that it's a dramatization and not a documentary.
01:52Chavez, who portrays Lyle Menendez, added,
01:54I think it's really interesting that the show chose to tell the story from so many different perspectives.
01:59It's a truthful way to tell the story, right?
02:01Both men are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for the double murder of their parents.
02:06As dramatized in the series, their defense at their joint trial was a revelation that they were victims of years of sexual and emotional abuse
02:13from both father Jose and mother Kitty Menendez.
02:16For more on the cast thoughts, head to the article on THR.com.
02:21And for the latest entertainment news and updates, keep watching The Hollywood Reporter News.
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