Inside “The Hurt Man”: How Cooper Koch, Ari Graynor Filmed That Riveting ‘Monsters’ Episode

[This story contains mild spoilers to episode five, “The Hurt Man” in Monsters.]

While Netflix true crime drama Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story arrived to mixed reviews and courted controversy over its portrayal of the of real-life convicted murderers, the limited series about the Menendez brothers has received universal acclaim for its centerpiece bottle episode, which was approached with divergent methods by the two stars who appear in the riveting two-hander. 

Monsters’ fifth episode stars Cooper Koch as Erik Menendez and Ari Graynor as defense attorney Leslie Abramson, after the wealthy son of a top L.A. executive was arrested along with his brother for the 1989 murder of their parents. “The Hurt Man” — the episode, written by co-creator Ian Brennan, and named for Erik’s self-appointed nickname — is a single shot, 33-minute slow zoom into Koch’s face as he details the 12 years of sexual, physical and mental abuse he claims drove him to patricide. 

“I had a long time with that script,” Koch told The Hollywood Reporter of the scene in Brennan and Ryan Murphy‘s hit series, explaining how he had the script pages since June 2023. The episode was shot over two days in March. “I carried it with me everywhere I went. I read it every day, and sometimes before going to bed. And really, my approach to it was just taking all of the stories that he tells and all the memories that he recounts, and really trying to imagine what it would look like from his perspective.”

Koch went granular to get into Erik Menendez’s mindset, he said, zeroing focus on details from his stated recollections of the abuse, like what young Erik and his abuser were wearing at the time; the weather on those days; and the decor of the room in which the alleged abuse occurred, he added. This method helped Koch to access the emotions of an abused child — a topic he said he researched while working on his lauded performance. 

“That allowed me to be so present and open when we did go to shoot it,” he said. “You just kind of have to trust that those memories are created and that they’re there for you, and then when you speak about them, they’re truthful and real, and then you can access the kind of emotions that he was probably feeling.” 

Each of the two days of “The Hurt Man” shoot consisted of four run-throughs of the unbroken shot, in which Koch, as Menendez, reveals harrowing details of his father José Menendez’s (played by Javier Bardem) alleged abuse. Koch said it was as tough to shoot as it can be to watch.

“It was definitely exhausting,” he told THR. “But you know, that kind of reminds me of some advice that I got from one of my fellow actors on the project, Dallas Roberts [who portrays therapist Dr. Jerome Oziel], who told me in one of our rehearsals — the quote was: ‘You get too tired to lie.’ So if anything, the more exhausted you get, maybe the more truthful you become.”

Graynor, as Abramson, speaks only a handful of times as her character questions Koch’s Menedez in the episode. Her face is not even seen over the 30-plus minutes. But that didn’t make it a breeze for the actor, who detailed to THR the bond that developed between her and Koch while shooting the episode, and how she approached the difficult material.

“I avoided it for several months. I was intimidated by it,” Graynor told THR. “I felt like I really needed to know Leslie, really know who she was, and really know her in my body before I fully started prepping that episode, because there’s a lot of interjections. It’s a lot of listening. She’s being both his lawyer and therapist and human and mother, and there’s a lot of different parts in that, with not a lot of language, and trying to understand how she would hold all of that, and then really wanting to be there to support Cooper.”

Graynor called Koch’s work in the episode “completely unparalleled” and praised Brennan for delivering such a remarkable script that shows compassion for Erik Menendez and anyone who has suffered the type of abuse central to “The Hurt Man” and the series. 

“I think we both felt not only that it was a gift creatively, but that this was, hopefully, a gift, or something that is much bigger than us,” she added. “We sort of use ourselves to allow it to be something that also didn’t really have to do with us — to hold that space and, for me, to model that kind of compassionate listening.”

Graynor said that as they shot the scene, each day after, she and Koch would drive back to her home together, where the two actors would cry and laugh, and have cigarettes and sushi. 

“We talked, and really held it in this very sacred space together,” she said. 

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is now streaming on Netflix.