“I read every book I could find”: Devil in Disguise star Michael Chernus reveals how he prepared for the role of John Wayne Gacy

Peacock's latest true-crime drama, Devil in Disguise, premiered on October 16, 2025, and is the tale of Chicago serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Gacy murdered more than 30 young men in the 1970s and was sentenced to death for it. In the Peacock series, Michael Chernus played the role of the serial killer.

Devil in Disguise is created by Patrick Macmanus and focuses more on the victims of Gacy rather than the killer himself. However, this did not mean Chernus didn't have to prepare for his role. The American actor shared with Variety that he prepared for his role by reading books on Gacy, watching documentaries, and consuming all kinds of information available about the killer. He shared:

"Once I got the job, I read every book I could find, I watched every documentary, I listened to every podcast and watched every bad and weird YouTube video there is."

More on this in our story.

Devil in Disguise: Michael Chernus shared how he prepared for his role of John Wayne Gacy

Devil in Disguise presents the stories of the victims of the nefarious serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Created by Patrick Macmanus, the show focuses on the victims' lives before Gacy harmed them.

While Chernus plays the lead of the series, his presence in Devil in Disguise is minuscule. Before taking the job to play the vile character, Chernus was informed by Macmanus that he wouldn't be on every episode of the series, which is one of the reasons that made the actor take the job.

However, even if he was not seen much, Chernus did his 100% preparation for the job. He shared with Variety that he tried to collect and get through every information he could find about John Wayne Gacy. From books, interviews, documentaries, to YouTube videos, he went through everything to learn about teh character he plays.

He further shared that he also watched the Peacock documentary on Gacy that came out in 2021. He also stated that NBC News had provided uncut versions of the documentary to help him prepare for the role. Furthermore, with the help of Macmanus's own researcher, they had access to numerous other information that were accessible to all the cast members of Devil in Disguise, which helped him further in learning about how Gacy talked. He stated:

"Patrick also has his own researcher, so the cast members all had access to this dropbox full of stuff, including incredible academic studies of John Gacy’s speech pattern and word choice and syntax use, and a breakdown of the Chicago dialect and his Polish background."

He also shared that he travelled to Chicago and visited the places that Gacy used to visit. Furthermore, as the filming of the true-crime series began, Chernus listened to Gacy's interview with Robert Ressler before every take to understand the serial killer's body language. He said:

"On set every day, I would still listen to Gacy’s voice right before we would do a take. I had the whole interview with Ressler and I would watch that a lot, just to sort of study Gacy - the way he talked and the way his face moved and his body moved."

At the end, he concluded that preparing for the role was never going to be enough, as there was endless material available about the killer, and he had to 'accept' that his portrayal of the character is his own version of John Wayne Gacy.

Along with Michael Chernus, Devil in Disguise stars Gabriel Luna, Chris Sullivan, James Badge Dale, Augustus Prew, Michael Angarano, and Marin Ireland, among others.

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