‘Monsters’ Nicholas Alexander Chavez Says ‘I Feel for’ Menéndez Brothers, Talks Reaction to Series (Exclusive)

At the premiere of Grotesquerie, the actor tells PEOPLE magazine that he thinks the response to the series has been “mixed,” as it “should be.”

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story star Nicholas Alexander Chavez said he sympathized with the Menéndez brothers following the premiere of the Netflix series.

In an interview with PEOPLE magazine at the New York premiere of another of Ryan Murphy’s latest projects, the series Grotesque — On Monday, September 23, Chavez, 25, was in talks to take on the role of Lyle Menéndez in Monsters and whether he was nervous about the series’ upcoming premiere.

“I really feel for the brothers, the fact that this was the most traumatic moment of their lives and then having it televised for the whole world to see, I imagine it would be incredibly difficult,” Chavez told PEOPLE about the series premiere.

Related: See the cast Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story Hand in hand with the real people they play with

Lyle and Erik Menéndez (played by Cooper Koch in the series) are incarcerated at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in California after killing their parents, José and Kitty, on August 20, 1989. The brothers maintain that they murdered them because of ongoing mental, physical, and sexual abuse.

Erik recently criticized the show’s portrayal of him and Lyle in a Facebook post, calling the “facts” about their lives “inaccurate.”

“I felt we had moved beyond the lies and pernicious portrayals of Lyle’s character to a caricature of Lyle based on the horrible and outright lies prevalent on the show,” Erik said in the post.

When asked if he spoke to Lyle during the filming of the show, Chavez replied that he had not and that he only learned about Erik’s reaction.

“No, I haven’t,” he told PEOPLE magazine on Monday, when asked if he had been in contact with Lyle.

Related: Lyle and Erik Menendez Trial Expert Says Ryan Murphy’s Book Has Incest Thread Monsters The series is a “fantasy”

He said he realized that reactions to such a show were likely to be “mixed, as they should be.”

“It’s a sensitive topic, and I imagine everyone is creating their own interpretation of what happened, as we imagined and intended it to happen,” Chavez told PEOPLE of the backlash.

The Menéndez murders have made headlines for years and have been the subject of numerous documentaries. The brothers say the killings followed years of alleged sexual abuse by their father, a Hollywood executive. They say their mother ignored the abuse.

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Authorities say the brothers were motivated by greed, citing lavish spending — including expensive watches, cars and tennis lessons — they committed after the killings.

“It was a media spectacle from the very beginning,” Lyle said in a clip shared by PEOPLE from the upcoming The Menendez Brothers documentary, which will premiere on Netflix on October 7.

“So it wasn’t us who told the story of our lives,” Erik said. “Two kids don’t commit this crime for money.”

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story is now available on Netflix. Grotesque The first two episodes premiere on Wednesday, September 25 at 10:00 PM ET/PT on FX.

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Read the original article on People.