Posted in: Peacock, TV | Tagged: Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy

Devil in Disguise: Angarano, Dale & Sullivan Discuss Difficult Scenes

Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy's Michael Angarano, James Badge Dale & Chris Sullivan on difficult scenes, Showrunner Macmanus, and more.

Anytime you work on something cathartic like a true crime drama, especially as someone as infamous as serial killer John Wayne Gacy, there's always going to be a plethora of emotions an actor will go through, given the extreme subject matter in Peacock's Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy. It hits even the most seasoned of actors like Michael Angarano, James Badge Dale, and Chris Sullivan, who play defense attorney Sam Amirante, chief investigator Joe Kozenczak, and District Attorney Bill Kunkle. As creator Patrick Macmanus wanted to put greater emphasis on the lives Gacy (Michael Chernus) affected and the heroes that brought him to justice, Angarano, Dale, and Sullivan spoke to Bleeding Cool about working with Macmanus and the efficient and relaxed set her ran, and how the macabre nature of the subject matter along with the grind caught up to them by production's end.

Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy Stars Reflect on Macmanus and Their Most Difficult Scenes

What was it like working with Patrick Macmanus as a creative?

Sullivan: Patrick is extremely intelligent, but he also has great levity to him. He has a laid-back demeanor but also could be very self-deprecating. He's a little bit of everything, extremely motivated, and extremely excited to be working to tell these stories. He's an excellent collaborator.

Angarano: Creatively and in terms of the set he runs, incredibly concerned, responsible, and self-aware of his privilege and his place. I think everything about how he runs a set and how it's a trickle-down effect on how he treats actors, crew, his writers, his directors, and the opportunities he gives to everybody. It's a full-on democracy with him.

Dale: "Collaborator" is the keyword. It feels like he surrounds himself with talented people who believe in a story, and he props them up and he says, "Go, do your thing, and I trust you." That's an amazing gift to give to your artist and your collaborator.

Sullivan: I'll add "unfairly handsome." Yeah, too handsome to be that good a writer.

Dale: Hard to sit down at the video village with him.

Angarano: Great head of hair.

What scene did each of you feel was the most difficult to get through as your character?

Angarano: There were several. My first two days of shooting were Gacy's confession. To be fair, any first day is so weird, but that was particularly intense. I would say for me, again, it's all streamable, so I don't think there's a spoiler. It's Sam's last scene, where he gets the call from Gacy. This is right before he gets executed. It's just me in the scene, and I was able to get a recording of Chernus, so I was listening to him in real time. It was the only scene I walked away from, not understanding what just happened.

I talked to Patrick about it after, and I said I don't know if we got that. I don't know what that was, and I felt a lot then, and I felt a lot after. It was my last day of shooting, so it was also maybe the grief of the job being over, but I realized I felt part of this weird guilt: "Did I do enough?" I realized it took me a long time to realize what I was feeling through Sam. I was feeling this guilt, shame, and grief for Gacy, and it was really weird. I didn't really intellectualize that before, but as I was listening to it, that was a hard scene for me, because in terms of understanding, it was so complicated. It was a very complicated scene for and a complicated moment for Sam, which I, as an actor, had a difficult time understanding until weeks later.

Sullivan: In the later episodes, I had a few scenes that were complicated as Kunkle was trying to put his case together to sit with actors like Sprague Grayden (Bessie Stapleton) and other actors as a prosecutor trying to put together his case in the face of extreme grief was painful for me individually, even though it seemed fairly easy for Kunkel than it was for me, let's put it that way. To visit young people in the hospital or a grieving mother and to say, "Listen, I know that you've had the worst thing possible happen to you, but I'm trying to win a case here, so if you could bend my way, that would be very helpful." Those were complicated scenes.

Dale: It's funny how stories compound on top of each other, and sometimes you don't realize the effect they're having on you until the end. Like Michael (said), I had a funny feeling when I left, and we did shoot in a bit of a chronological order. We approached it in the early '90s as the last thing we would shoot, and what are we left with? We were left with this is the sum of the work that we've done, the sum of the work that our characters have done in the name of good. There's always a strange feeling when you leave a job, and within ourselves as actors and artists, you're part of this community, and then we all split up, and we go to the next one.

We're circus performers, and as we're taking down our tents in this circus. There was a different current, and it was difficult, and once again, I'm looking at Marin [Ireland], and Marin's looking at me, and I'm getting the truth reflected. All my hopes that I'm trying to push out to here and have the truth being reflected to me. Good work should be difficult work.

Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy, which also stars Gabriel Luna, Greg Bryk, and Thom Nyhuus, is available on Peacock.

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