Making the victims the heart of the story, Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy, stands out from other shows based on the serial killer.
The true crime drama aired in the US last year and has now made its debut in the UK on ITV.
Michael Chernus’ portrayal of the murderer has been billed as the ‘most chilling’, with Gacy being his first major leading role.
In the 1970s, the Chicago businessman and amateur clown murdered dozens of young men and boys during a period where missing teens and young men were typically dismissed as runaways.
Advert
He was eventually caught in 1978 and convicted of murdering 33 people with bodies found buried beneath his home. One of the big fixations of this infamous case is Gacy’s clown persona but in this series, we never see the get-up.
As far as the knowledge goes, he did not kill anyone while dressed up as ‘Pogo’ or ‘Patches the Clown’, and didn’t lure boys to his house in this way.
But he still became known as the ‘killer clown’.
The clown mask was simply part of his mask to society – making himself seem charming, gaining respect in society and deflecting suspicion as a community clown figure.
“It was a way for him to seem harmless,” Chernus told The Hollywood Reporter.
In the first episode, there’s a direct quote from Gacy: “Pounds the Clown can get away with anything. Clowns could murder someone and get away with it because nobody suspects a clown.”
However, as the actor explains, the series made the decision not to show the clown, despite every other adaptation doing so.
“We just don’t show that,” Chernus continued. “We felt like that was a misrepresentation of what actually happened”
And it’s not just the clown that Devil in Disguise doesn’t show, but the series also doesn’t feature any single murder, something the actor ‘really cared about’.
Chernus said it was a ‘relief’ that there wouldn’t be any ‘graphic violence onscreen or any murder shown’ and that it also aligned with his ‘artistic impulses’ in telling the story.
“It felt like it would be wrong to show that and not be in alignment with the larger purpose of what we were trying to do,” he added.
Gacy was sentenced to death in 1980 and executed by lethal injection on 10 May 1994.
Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy is airing on ITV1 at 9pm on Fridays and is available to stream on ITVX.
Topics: ITV, TV and Film, True Crime, Crime
Jess Battison