{"id":278606,"date":"2025-10-05T03:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T03:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/278606\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T03:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T03:16:11","slug":"inside-the-psycho-shower-scene-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/278606\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Psycho Shower Scene & More"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT:\u00a0<\/strong>This story discusses plot developments from \u201cMonster: The Ed Gein Story<\/a>,\u201d currently streaming on Netflix.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter seasons profiling Jeffrey Dahmer and Lyle and Erik Menendez, fans of Netflix\u2019s anthology series \u201cMonster\u201d are now binge-watching the just-released third season profiling serial killer Ed Gein. Played by Charlie Hunnam, Gein is haunted by his mother Augusta (Laurie Metcalf), egged on by a dark love interest, Adeline (Suzanna Son) and interacts with victims like Bernice (Lesley Manville) and Evelyn (Addison Rae). Meanwhile, he daydreams about the work of Nazi Ilse Koch (Vicky Krieps), who was rumored to flay Jewish victims and turn their skin into objects like lampshades. Interspersed with these stories is the development of horror hits like \u201cPsycho<\/a>\u201d and \u201cThe Texas Chain Saw Massacre,\u201d which were inspired by Gein.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll of this could fall apart in less capable hands, but Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan were showrunners on the season, which was entirely written by Brennan. Max Winkler is an executive producer this season and directed six of the eight episodes. A veteran of the Murphy-verse, Winkler also worked on \u201cThe Watcher,\u201d \u201cAmerican Horror Story,\u201d \u201cAmerican Horror Stories,\u201d \u201cFeud: Capote vs. The Swans\u201d and more. In fact, 48 hours after he spoke to Variety, he was headed off to work on the next season of \u201cMonster,\u201d starring Ella Beatty as Lizzie Borden.<\/p>\n

\n\tWinkler broke down many burning questions about \u201cMonster: The Ed Gein Story,\u201d including going in-depth about that fourth-wall-breaking moment, nailing the emotional final scene and, of course, the \u201cAll That Jazz\u201d-inspired musical number.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere are so many storylines in this series, between Ed\u2019s murders, Hollywood\u2019s interpretations of him, Ed\u2019s fantasies and more. How did you work with your DP and team to make sure that everything looked appropriate but also blended together as a cohesive whole?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe whole thing started with Ryan taking Charlie and me through the entire vision of what he wanted the show to be and feel like, and really asking the question, \u201cWho is the monster?\u201d Is it the American healthcare system? Is it his mother, Augusta Gein? Is it Ed Gein? Is it Ilse Koch? Is it the filmmakers who then got inspired by this? Is it the artists who made the comic books fetishizing Ilse Koch? Is it the filmmakers who then took what Ed Gein did, and then Hitchcock who put it into pop culture and changed movies and entertainment forever? We\u2019re still trying to put it back in the box now, as you see people online sharing videos of Charlie Kirk getting shot, just that being sent to you on Twitter without any warning. It\u2019s so big and heady, but it was all in Ryan and Ian\u2019s heads from the very get-go. <\/p>\n

\n\tSo [cinematographer] Michael Bauman and I were able to really chart out the murders exactly, especially the murders that are pop-culture inspired; they were always supposed to feel larger than life and always fetishized and real. When we redid the \u201cPsycho\u201d shower scene, it was always supposed to be Hollywood\u2019s version of what it actually is. Seeing Janet Leigh get killed is one thing, but actually what it felt like to put a brutally murdered woman on film screens and how people reacted to that, and how deeply upsetting it was, and how shocking it was then, and how desensitized we are now \u2026 we tried to give everything a visual language. <\/p>\n

\n\t[Cinematographer] Carolina Costa, with whom I\u2019d done my movie \u201cFlower,\u201d and Ian did the \u201cTexas Chain Saw\u201d stuff. They had a very specific independent 16 mm film inspiration for all the Texas stuff. And Bauman and I were really inspired by, weirdly, \u201cCapote,\u201d the movie. In that, the isolation is a monster. This poor man, who had undiagnosed schizophrenia in these giant sweeping landscapes with just the wind and frozen corn, and no one to talk to, an abusive mother, a brother who\u2019s out on the lam. Those landscapes from \u201cDays of Heaven\u201d and \u201cCapote\u201d were really important to us, just feeling the vastness of how small he is, and yet when you\u2019re in his head, how loud his brain is.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere are so many just dark moments for the actors. What is the best way you, as a director, are able to help them on the days when they have their most intense scenes?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tFor example, with Charlie\u2019s scene where he finally gets his diagnosis in Episode 7, he was really worried about that scene. We were coming towards the end of our production, and Charlie lost maybe 40 pounds for this part, and he wasn\u2019t eating. He was really in his head, and he was starting to not sleep a lot. I think we were all having a lump in our throat, feeling like this was going to be over, and wondering if we got it. When that part came, my instinct was to start on Charlie\u2019s coverage, and that we would never need a wide \u2014 let\u2019s just play it all on Charlie\u2019s face. I asked him if he was ready for that, and he said, \u201cYes.\u201d He did the take that\u2019s in the show, and I said, \u201cI saw what he went through to get there right before we started shooting, and while it happened, I was in the room there just watching, holding my knees with a tiny monitor, and I had chills.\u201d And I said, \u201cCut,\u201d and he was still really feeling emotional. And I came over and I just pat him on the back and said, \u201cWe don\u2019t need to go again if it\u2019s okay with you.\u201d And he said, \u201cOkay.\u201d So that was it. Anyone would know that you had gotten it in that moment, no matter who you are, and not having to say, \u201cWe have to go again,\u201d just because in my head, \u201cWe have to go again\u201d is the best thing I could have done, and just trust the actor.<\/p>\n

\t\tAre there any certain scenes or parts of the show that struck you as especially difficult to shoot?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tEverything that happened in the snow in Chicago in the coldest few days of the year. I cannot believe the actors\u2019 faces even moved. It was -16 degrees. We needed snow. It didn\u2019t look like it was going to snow, and we couldn\u2019t afford to cover everything in snow with visual effects or with a snow machine. That Sunday it snowed, and we started shooting that Monday at 6:30 in the morning, and it gave us everything we needed.<\/p>\n

\n\tI was really happy with what we got to with the emotions in the finale, the sort of \u201cAll That Jazz\u201d moment where he\u2019s confronted with what he\u2019s wrought. All Ed Gein ever wanted was for his mother to be proud of him, and to get there was difficult. We shot that all in one day. That was like a 17- or an 18-hour day. By the end of it, when we said cut, everyone just broke because it was our second-to-last day of shooting in Chicago.<\/p>\n

\t\tDo you think about empathy differently after working on this project?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI think about a guy like Ed Gein, who has just always been a weirdo, a monster, a freak. And what Ryan is interested in, which is fascinating, is, \u201cWell, how did they get to be that way? Are people born evil?\u201d Since the beginning of time, humans have killed people, and humans have done evil shit. We\u2019re looking at it today in the news all the time. We look at the images of bodies in the newspaper, in the pilot \u2014 just bodies stacked upon bodies stacked upon bodies. He says, \u201cThey look like wood.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe dehumanization of human beings is where we get into real trouble, and we stop forgetting that every single life is important. Now, I have a harder time having empathy for Vicky\u2019s character. I have a harder time having empathy for Laurie Metcalf\u2019s character. But I did have empathy for Ed Gein when I did research and understood the kind of abuse he had endured, the generational trauma he had endured, and how lonely it must feel to have these voices in your head and not know where they\u2019re coming from or who to talk to about it.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat was it like reimagining some of Hollywood\u2019s most iconic moments, like the shower scene from \u201cPsycho\u201d?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWe never tried to paint them by numbers. We tried to put our own spin on it. The shower scene is significantly more brutal because our perspective of it is via Hitchcock, the monster for bringing this into movies that were not like that before. So I loved those sets. I loved the young actor playing Anthony Perkins, Joey Pollari, who I think is incredible. He himself felt like a monster because he had these feelings of being a homosexual and didn\u2019t know who to talk to about it, and his own therapist told him that he should get a lobotomy. I have a very big affinity for old backlot movies, so getting to shoot those \u2026 anytime you get to shoot a bunch of guys in gladiator costumes, with them walking around taking a lunch break and smoking a cigarette, is a great day of work.<\/p>\n

\t\tCould you break down Ed\u2019s breaking the fourth wall moment when he talks to the audience?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWith the invention of the television, it\u2019s when Charlie looks in the camera at the Anthony Perkins scene and says, \u201cYou\u2019re the one who can\u2019t look away.\u201d He\u2019s turning it on the viewer and saying, \u201cAre we the monsters because we\u2019re watching this?\u201d I know we are because we\u2019re making it. But our point of view is it\u2019s the monetization and fetishization of these really fucked up people, and it\u2019s really heady.<\/p>\n

\t\tHow did you develop the very end of the series?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe very last shot of the whole show, with them on the porch, was the very last thing we shot, and I had no idea we were going to do it. We were doing little bits and bobs back in L.A. because we missed some things when we went off to Chicago. I don\u2019t know where it came from, but I just said, \u201cLet\u2019s go onto the porch.\u201d And I just knew that \u201cOnly a mother could love you\u201d should be the last line of the series, because it\u2019s just a whole \u201cRosebud\u201d for why Ed did what he did in our version. And we didn\u2019t know we were going to do it. Michael Bauman, who\u2019s a literal genius and the DP who just shot \u201cOne Battle After Another,\u201d made that morning light that was all on a stage. I just said, \u201cI want that line and I\u2019ll tell you when to say it, Laurie.\u201d Props weren\u2019t prepared, but we made them some lemonade, gave her something to knit \u2014 I think that was actually something she knitted that she had brought from home.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs far as our \u201cAll That Jazz\u201d moment, it\u2019s one of my favorite movies of all time. What the finale asks is, \u201cAll right, so maybe Ed was troubled, and he\u2019s not purely evil. But here\u2019s what it brought.\u201d By introducing Ted Bundy, he was somebody that all killers could agree was pure evil: No motive, no dark backstory, literally horrible. We really wanted to show what pure evil looked like. We shot that in a totally different way with no music, really dark. I just always laughed when he\u2019s having that dream sequence and he\u2019s seeing all those people and Charles Manson\u2019s like, \u201cWe got Bundy, fucker!\u201d These guys are so fucked up, but Ted Bundy is so fucked up that he\u2019s not chill with them. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe end was that we had one choreographer from Chicago. We knew what the song was going to be, and everyone was very tired. It was the very end of our shoot. It was Charlie\u2019s birthday, just by circumstance. It was just a wild, wild day that was probably the longest day of shooting I\u2019ve ever had. And credit to our line producer, Louise Shore, whose head looked like it was about to explode, but she knew that we needed to get it right. We just kept going and made sure we got hotels for everybody next to the set so people could just sleep there, and we just kept shooting until we got it right. <\/p>\n

\n\tThis interview has been edited and condensed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT:\u00a0This story discusses plot developments from \u201cMonster: The Ed Gein Story,\u201d currently streaming on Netflix. After seasons…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":278607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[171,101741,123896,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-278606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-monster-the-ed-gein-story","10":"tag-psycho","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115319392524393824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}