Cooper Koch says he "always wanted the audience to sympathize" with Erik in Netflix's 'Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story'

Cooper Koch and Sam Nivola recently met for Variety's Actors on Actors to discuss their incredible performances in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story and The White Lotus season 3. 

The second season of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s true-crime anthology series explores the case of real-life brothers, Lyle and Erik, who were convicted in 1996 for the murders of their parents, José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez.

Koch revealed how he and Murphy "sat down and had this amazing conversation about it all. It really calmed the nerves. We went upstairs and did the callback for two hours. We did three scenes and had conversations in between. It was very collaborative — one of the best audition experiences I’ve ever had." 

While the prosecution argued they were seeking to inherit their family fortune, the brothers claimed - and remain adamant to this day, as they serve life sentences without the possibility of parole - that their actions stemmed out of fear from a lifetime of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of their parents. Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story dives into the historic case that took the world by storm, paved the way for audiences’ modern-day fascination with true crime, and in return asks those audiences: Who are the real monsters?

He continued to express how he's "been with this story for so long," explaining, "My second audition ever was for the Law & Order series about them in 2017. And then I also had an audition for the Lifetime movie that they were doing the same year. I just felt this insane cosmic thing that was like, 'I have to play this part.' And this immense empathy. There are all of these weird parallels. We both went to Calabasas High School."