“Monsters” star Cooper Koch on the 'terrifying and exhilarating' episode 5 shoot — see his personal script pages, photos

Cooper Koch admits he was "f---ing terrified" to film episode 5 of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, about the 1989 murder of José and Kitty Menendez by their two sons.

The installment — titled "The Hurt Man" — is a series standout because of the intimately focused way it plays out, filmed in one take and featuring only two actors: Koch, who plays Erik, and Ari Graynor as Leslie Abramson, Erik's defense attorney. Koch is the only one facing the camera, and for the entire 33-minute runtime, it slowly zooms in to eventually land on a close-up of his face at the end of a deeply emotional meeting in jail, after the brothers' arrest, where Erik details the history of abuse — mental, emotional, physical, and sexual — committed against him by his father (Javier Bardem).

Koch got the script in June 2023, when he was cast in the project, nine months before they filmed the episode in March 2024. "The script became the backbone of my prep because it was the backstory that I didn't have to write for myself, for the character," Koch explains to Entertainment Weekly, for an exclusive breakdown of two pages from his personal script for the episode (below). He read it daily, making thoughtful, inquisitive notes along the way. Even with all of the preparation, he was nervous about filming the episode but also "very excited to be able to just exist as him for that long and to finally say these words that I had been reading and working on and making my own for such a long time. It was a beautiful experience — but also terrifying and exhilarating."

Related: Cooper Koch says he didn't use prosthetic penis for Monsters full-frontal nude scene: 'Well-hung!'

And tough, especially because of the pressure he was putting on himself. "I wanted to be good," Koch admits. They shot eight full takes of the episode, four on a Thursday and another four on a Sunday, but "those first two were not my best. I was too aware of the camera and what was happening on the production side of things."

So they broke for lunch. "I felt like s---. I went to my trailer. I was so upset. I was like, it's not coming out." But he had a great support system in Graynor and director Michael Uppendahl, who he says gave him an "amazing pep talk." And it worked. "The third take, it all came out and it was so visceral, and I felt so good about that one."

When they returned on Sunday, Sunset Gower Studios was quiet. The second unit that had been filming other scenes on Thursday was off, and the lot was peaceful otherwise, giving them a chance to focus in a way they couldn't previously.

"Every take that day was different and alive and interesting. And I felt more confident having done the first day," Koch recalls. He also had a chance to watch footage and noticed that he didn't like how the episode ended, with his face in profile as he looked at Graynor. So he made an adjustment, angling his face more toward the camera while maintaining an introspective glance. "I'm not necessarily looking at her or talking to her, but I need to be [positioned] so that the camera can see what's going on," he explains, "and then I can just dart my eyes over to her because it looked more cinematic."

Related: Ryan Murphy responds to Erik Menéndez's criticism of Monsters: 'We do it very carefully'

The last of the eight takes is what made it into the episode, which he's seen five or six times, but not since the series debuted on Sept. 19. "I rented a theater with my family and some friends, and we binged the entire show together," he says, "I haven't watched it [again]." Will he give it another go at some point? He says he's been thinking about watching it "alone at home.... The show is sort of a yearbook for me of this time in my life that I so cherish and love so much and had some of the most amazing friendships and experiences."

Below, Koch, who recently earned a Golden Globes nomination for his performance, shares pages 1 and 10 of his script — as well as personal behind-the-scenes above — exclusively with EW, breaking down various aspects of his character and process.

1. At the top of the page, Koch noted a line he says near the end of the script: "What way you are and what way you're supposed to be." "That line, when I read it for the first time...and it even still makes me emotional," Koch says, his voice quivering as he stops to hold back tears. "That question is his whole being, so I wanted that to be at the beginning of the script, for that thought to carry me through the whole episode. Even throughout the whole show, I wanted that thought and those words to be my throughline because I've experienced that as Cooper, and for me, it doesn't have to do with abuse, but it has to do with my sexuality, and how I didn't know if I was supposed to be this way, or if I'm normal, or if I wanted to be this way or I didn't want to be this way. I resonated so hard with that. And I had those words in my trailer, too; they always made me connect to him and to his journey and the whole identity thing."

2. Koch split up the episode 5 script into six sections so he "could have a clear way of how the conversation would flow and would connect throughout these different beats." The first he called "Small talk" — "because they're really not talking about too much stuff yet," he explains. That's followed by: "The beginning," after Leslie asks Erik if he remembers when the abuse started; "Getting through it" comes next, as Erik tells Leslie what life was like when his father started raping him; in "Leslie's turn," she shares about her own father and assures Erik that he didn't deserve what happened to him; then Leslie asks about Kitty, in the section Koch labeled "Mom;" and finally, in "Who am I?," Koch examines Erik's exploration of who he is at his core. "Is he a tennis player? Is he an actor? Is he a model? Is he a screenwriter? 'Who am I?' I don't think he knew who he was," Koch says. "I'm not even talking necessarily about sexuality. Of course, that's a big part of it, but thematically, the backbone of the entire character [is figuring out], 'Who am I without the experiences that I've had as a human being?'"

3. Koch notes how Erik is excited to see Leslie again, having confessed to killing his parents to her at the end of the previous episode. "There's something about her that feels right, that feels like she is going to believe me and that she can help me," he says. "He's in a cell by himself all day, not talking to anybody, and then gets pulled out [for] this conference to talk about what's going on, with someone who he can maybe trust and be able to communicate with. So if you look at it in that sense, I was imagining it would feel refreshing for him. Daunting to talk about this stuff with her, but also at the same time, refreshing because there's maybe progress that could occur, or there's a further development for getting out of there."

4. "He started to know that something was not right, that what was happening was not normal," Koch says of Erik's admission to Leslie. "But at the same time, when it was happening, that was the only time he was getting what he wanted from his father, which was that love and kindness and acceptance."

5. Before any of the sexual abuse, there were massages and showers — which Erik, at the time, took as affection but later came to harbor much shame about. That was all in private, of course, but in front of family, José was verbally, mentally, and emotionally abusive — though he certainly didn't see it as that. "When your father is berating you, calling you a f-----, telling you you're a sissy, telling you to stop crying, telling you to not have any emotions because that's being weak, it's just bullying," Koch says. "But in private, he is sweet to you and loving to you and caresses you and wants to help you and make you feel good. And he tells you that he loves you. It's like, 'Oh my gosh, finally. This feels good. And he does love me, and he does accept me, and he is proud of me, and this means that he does care.' So 10 years later, looking back, the shame of that and the embarrassment that, that is what hits you and makes you so sad for this person."

6. Looking at Leslie is hard, all because of "the embarrassment of trying to defend someone who I know and she knows now is a horrible monster. It's shameful, and I want to hide from that.... And also, just to try and explain it is so complicated and tricky because of all of those emotions. It's hard to understand that if someone's so awful to you and then they're nice to you, then does that make it okay or not? And how do you live with that?"
   

Related: Monsters star Cooper Koch recalls acting teacher saying he wouldn't book roles because of 'gay voice'

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