Who Plays John Wayne Gacy in Devil in Disguise? Michael Chernus' Role Explained
The award-winning theater, film and television actor embodies one of history's worst serial killers.
It's been 47 years since the name John Wayne Gacy first burst into the public consciousness as one of America's worst serial killers. In 1978, Gacy became a suspect in the disappearance of Des Plaines, Illinois teenager Robert Piest and was eventually charged for his murder, and that of dozens of other young men.
In the decades since, Gacy has become one of the most famous serial killers, also known for his now-unsettling in hindsight charity work as "Pogo the Clown" and "Patches the Clown," which led to his nickname the "Killer Clown." Gacy's story is an awful tragedy for his many victims and their families who had to navigate their grief amongst wall-to-wall media coverage of his crimes. Peacock's scripted, limited series Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy, which debuts October 16, is an opportunity to revisit Gacy's crimes through the lens of the investigators on the case and his victims.
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Showrunner Patrick Macmanus (Dr. Death) cast Obie and Peabody Award-winning actor Michael Chernus (Severance) to portray Gacy as the grounded, terribly disturbed man that he was, and to imbue the damage the killer wrought on his community and the country with tremendous consequences.
Who is Michael Chernus?
Born in Rocky River, Ohio, Michael Chernus is a native Midwesterner. But he left for New York City when he was accepted at the Juilliard School where he earned his BFA in their Drama Division. After graduation, Chernus became a very familiar face in Off-Broadway productions, starting in 2004 as an understudy in A Number. Chernus focused on taking roles in new plays, and in 2011 won an Obie Award for Outstanding Performance by a Featured Actor for In The Wake.
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By 2014, Chernus reoriented his career towards film and television where he appeared in both independent films like The Meyerowitz Stories and The Family Fang, along with mainstream hits like Spider-Man: Homecoming and recently A Complete Unknown. On television, he was in the casts of Manhattan, Patriot, Tommy, Dead Ringers and currently, Severance as pompous self-help author, Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale.
Just this summer, Chernus returned to New York Off-Broadway theater after an 11-year break. He played the outside the action narrator in the acclaimed new drama, Well, I'll Let You Go by Bubba Weiler.
Chernus on the challenges of playing Gacy in Devil in Disguise
Playing a real life killer brings with it unique challenges. There's a responsibility to the victims, their families and the people who lived the actual events and still carry that trauma. In the case of John Wayne Gacy, it's been decades of salacious coverage that has reduced the man to clown motifs and boogeyman lore. What's been lost is recognizing how Gacy turned his own self-loathing into psychological manipulation of others, and the real stories of the lives lost by his hands.
Chernus told NBC Insider that the news media and true crime storytellers helped reduce Gacy to a horror story which has dehumanized the man's actions and more importantly, the consequences that his killings have had on a wide swath of victims still processing their trauma to this day.
"He becomes this other thing, and it can become fantasy so it's no longer real," the actor said of those who laud Gacy as a cult figure instead of a serial killer. "I think it allows people to then want to buy his paintings, or get a tattoo of him because it feels like a movie. I think one of the things we wanted to do was — and it was a tricky line because we didn't want to glorify him or give him sympathy — but you do have to humanize him enough so that we remember that this happened. Thirty-three real people's lives were cut incredibly short and their families were devastated by the unthinkable loss. So it's about taking the boogeyman away from Gacy, demystifying him and showing people this really happened, and it really didn't happen that long ago."
All eight episodes of Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy, the limited series, are available to stream exclusively on Peacock beginning October 16.
