Cooper Koch, the star of Ryan Murphy series Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menéndez, revealed whether he would be interested in portraying Luigi Mangione in an upcoming project.
When asked about his fans’ pleas for him to play the 26-year-old Ivy League grad, who was charged with murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the actor, 28, admitted that he’s not currently interested in playing another accused killer.
‘I think I have to take a departure from the crime scenes and do something else,’ the Swallowed actor told Entertainment Tonight on Tuesday.
Still, he admitted he found the online chatter ‘hilarious’ and ‘can see’ the physical resemblance between him and Mangione.
Before rising to fame in his latest role portraying Erik Menéndez, 53, in Ryan Murphy‘s Monsters, Koch had auditioned to play Erik ‘seven years ago for the Law & Order series and for the Lifetime movie.’
‘I got to the final rounds in both and I ultimately didn’t get it. But I felt like I had to play this part,’ he told GQ earlier this month. ‘I got the audition [for Monsters] and I watched the trial videos for the first time.’
Cooper Koch, the star of Ryan Murphy series Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez, revealed whether he would be interested in portraying Luigi Mangione in an upcoming project
After researching the Menéndez brothers’ case, in which they were sentenced to life behind bars for their parents’ murders in March 1990, Koch said he ‘was so moved’ and ‘believed them immediately.’
‘It was then that I found all the similarities and I became quite obsessed with the case and with their story,’ Koch continued. ‘I was taping and taping, auditioning and auditioning, for seven years. Then finally you get the one that is supposed to happen.’
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EXCLUSIVE
Luigi Mangione DID have an accomplice, claim two top investigators…and there are three key clues
At this time, two high-profile documentaries about Luigi Mangione are in the works as America’s fascination with the alleged assassin continues to grow.
Anonymous Content and Jigsaw Prods confirmed to Variety that they are pursuing a series on the case, while producer Stephen Robert Morse is also creating a show.
Morse, who produced Netflix’s ‘Amanda Knox’ and directed ‘How to Rob a Bank’ about bank heist master Scott Scurlock, will lay out the perspectives of those at the center of the murder, including he victim, his family, and Mangione himself.
It will also explore the moral arguments that have sparked heated discourse in the weeks following the shocking assassination in Manhattan on December 4.
Morse has also said the documentary will give context about America’s controversial private health insurance system.
‘This case is complex and raises important questions about vigilantism, the devastating cost of a privatized healthcare system and the inevitability of violence when peaceful change is seen as impossible,’ Morse told Variety.
‘I think I have to take a departure from the crime scenes and do something else,’ the Swallowed actor told Entertainment Tonight on Tuesday; pictured in his role as Erik Menéndez
‘My goal is to present a balanced exploration of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s assassination, showing all sides of the story while respecting the profound loss of life and its impact on everyone involved.’
‘Every story is multidimensional, and I believe in treating all participants with kindness and fairness. This approach has always been central to my projects,’ he added.
Morse’s production company, Morse Code group, has appealed to the ‘family, acquaintances, coworkers, witnesses’ involved in Mangione’s story to get in touch.
Anonymous Content and Jigsaw Productions, which is run by director Alex Gibney, also announced on Monday that they would be making a documentary.
The series will look into what led Mangione to allegedly kill and what the slaying of Brian Thompson says about modern American society.
Still, he admitted he found the online chatter ‘hilarious’ and ‘can see’ the physical resemblance between him and Mangione (seen earlier this month)
Ivy League engineering graduate Mangione was arrested on December 9 moments after eating a hash brown in an Altoona, PA McDonald’s.
Cops closed in on the alleged killer after an employee at the restaurant recognized him from surveillance images NYPD shared online in the wake of the Midtown Manhattan shooting.
He was later charged with second-degree murder over the slaying of Thompson, 50, just before 7am on Wednesday outside the Hilton hotel where the exec had been set to make a speech to finance heavyweights later that day.
Cops closed in on the alleged killer after an employee at the restaurant recognized him from surveillance images NYPD shared online in the wake of the Midtown Manhattan shooting.
Mangione appears to have led police on a 280-mile manhunt from New York City’s 6th Avenue to the small Pennsylvania city of Altoona, around 100 miles east of Pittsburgh.
The gunman left a trail of overt clues about his motive, including ammunition etched with the words ‘delay’ ‘deny’ and ‘depose’ and a bag of Monopoly board game money in his backpack left in Central Park.
At this time, two high-profile documentaries about Luigi Mangione are in the works as America’s fascination with the alleged assassin continues to grow; Mangione pictured last week
Anonymous Content and Jigsaw Prods recently confirmed to Variety that they are pursuing a series on the case, while producer Stephen Robert Morse is also creating a show; Mangione pictured this month
Officials believe the bullet etchings refer to the ‘three Ds of insurance’ – tactics used by American insurance giants to reject patients’ claims.
This motive appeared to be even more clearly outlined in a handwritten manifesto cops seized from Mangione during his arrest, which the NYPD’s chief of detectives Joseph Kenny said expressed ‘ill will toward corporate America.’
‘To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country,’ Mangione wrote in the three-page document. ‘To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone.’
‘I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done,’ Mangione added in the document. ‘Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.’
Mangione also allegedly had a ghost gun believed to be the rare World War Two era-inspired 9mm pistol used in Thompson’s murder, which the New York Post reported was a Swiss-made Brugger & Thomet VP9, and a silencer.
Mangione will next appear in court in New York at a later date.