By Alicia Rancilio
LOS ANGELES (AP) --Nicholas Alexander Chavez has had a “very surreal” few weeks promoting and premiering his first roles in primetime, in a pair of shows debuting within one week of each other.
Chavez, 25, plays Lyle Menendez in Netflix’s “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” and Father Charlie, a true-crime obsessed priest in FX’s “Grotesquerie.” Both shows are co-created by Ryan Murphy.
“We were working on the tail end of ‘Monsters’ when Ryan called and said he had a really, really exciting new show called ‘Grotesquerie’ that he was working on,” recalled Chavez. “He was very passionate about the project, and he had a great role in it for me.”
“Grotesquerie” stars Niecy Nash-Betts as an alcoholic detective who has teamed up with a nun (Micaela Diamond) to investigate a serial killer case.
To get into character for “Grotesquerie,” Chavez would listen to music. “Don’t Do Anything Illegal” by Charles Manson was on his Father Charlie playlist. For “Monsters,” Chavez’s prep was different because he was playing a real person and could watch old court videos.
In 1996, Lyle and his younger brother Erik (played by Cooper Koch) were sentenced to life in prison for the 1989 killing of their parents, Jose and Kitty in their Beverly Hills home. The brothers alleged they were sexually abused by both parents for years and feared for their lives. Last week, prosecutors in LA said they were reviewing new information about the case and would decide whether a resentencing is warranted.
Chavez has already achieved success in daytime on ABC’s “General Hospital ” as Spencer Cassadine, a grandson of Genie Francis’ Laura (of Luke and Laura fame.) He played the role of a spoiled prince with daddy issues from 2021 until January 2024. Chavez won a Daytime Emmy Award for outstanding younger actor in a drama in 2022.
“Soap fans are incredibly loyal, and I’m really, really thankful that they are interested in following my journey, even though I’m not on the show anymore,” said Chavez.
Now that both “Monsters” and “Grotesquerie” are out, Chavez says he’s “itching” to get back to work.
“My life feels whole and complete between the words action and cut. I live for those moments. I think that is the purpose of my entire existence,” said Chavez. “Nothing brings me more satisfaction and joy as a human being than the craft of acting. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.”
Review: Director John Crowley’s “We Live In Time”
It's not hard to spend a few hours watching Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield fall and be in love. In "We Live In Time," filmmaker John Crowley puts the audience up close and personal with this photogenic British couple through the highs and lows of a relationships in their 30s.
Everyone starts to think about the idea of time, and not having enough of it to do everything they want, at some point. But it seems to hit a lot of us very acutely in that tricky, lovely third decade. There's that cruel biological clock, of course, but also careers and homes and families getting older. Throw a cancer diagnosis in there and that timer gets ever more aggressive.
While we, and Tobias (Garfield) and Almut (Pugh), do indeed live in time, as we're constantly reminded in big and small ways — clocks and stopwatches are ever-present, literally and metaphorically — the movie hovers above it. The storytelling jumps back and forth through time like a scattershot memory as we piece together these lives that intersect in an elaborate, mystical and darkly comedic way: Almut runs into Tobias with her car. Their first chat is in a hospital hallway, with those glaring fluorescent lights and him bruised and cut all over. But he's so struck by this beautiful woman in front of him, he barely seems to care.
I suppose this could be considered a Lubitschian "meet-cute" even if it knowingly pushes the boundaries of our understanding of that romance trope. Before the hit, Tobias was in a hotel, attempting to sign divorce papers and his pens were out of ink and pencils kept breaking. In a fit of near-mania he leaves, wearing only his bathrobe, to go to a corner store and buy more. Walking back, he drops something in the street and bang: A new relationship is born. It's the... Read More