Former Disney star Ross Lynch has gone up against one of the hardest film assignments you can get — making a primative serial executioner amiable.
The “Austin and Ally” star plays Jeffrey Dahmer in “My Friend Dahmer” as a secondary school understudy, some time before he went on his lethal frenzies.
“Although you know he’s going to become a serial killer, it’s not hard to think of him as a human because he once was. And really, our film takes place at the time when he’s losing his humanity, when he’s becoming this monster. So, we have to start with him with his humanity,” said Lynch.
The 21-year-old on-screen character concedes he wasn’t comfortable with Dahmer, who assaulted, killed, and eviscerated 17 men and young men. He passed on in jail in 1994.
“Once you start reading one sentence about Jeffrey Dahmer, it usually leads to hours of researching the things that he did because they’re unbelievable, like the definition of the word unbelievable,” Lynch said.
While the new part was a radical takeoff for Lynch — he made a name on the music-filled drama for Disney — he knew it was imperative for his development as an on-screen character.
“It’s not as family friendly, but you know it’s interesting. I do have a lot of younger fans, but you find that a lot of their parents are really fans, too, because they end up watching the show and the movies, end up listening to the music in the car. So, a lot of the parents are equally almost as much of a fan,” Lynch said.