Evan Peters Takes Break After Dark Roles

Known for immersing himself in some of TV's most disturbing characters, has spent over a decade building a career in darkness.

After rising to fame on American Horror Story in 2011, where he portrayed everything from a troubled school shooter to a manipulative cult leader, he became one of the show's most recognisable faces.

But years of playing psychologically intense roles began to take a toll, with the actor, 39, previously admitting he is ready to 'explore the light.'

That strain reached new heights when he took on the role of Jeffrey Dahmer in 's Monster, a performance that saw him inhabit one of history's most notorious killers.

Following the series, Evan stepped away from acting for a while, choosing to prioritise his mental health after the weight of such roles.

Now, he's set to return to familiar territory with American Horror Story as it gears up for its highly anticipated 13th season.

Evan made his debut in the very first season, Murder House, in AHS, which premiered back in 2011. 

He portrayed the recurring character Tate Langdon, a troubled psychiatric patient harbouring dark secrets.

For the role, Evan drew inspiration from his own feelings of isolation to play Tate's emotional scenes.

During the time of filming, he was living alone in California while his 'broken family' stayed behind in Missouri and Michigan.

He blamed himself for his parents' divorce and channeled that guilt into creating Tate Langdon, according to Medium.

He then went on to play Kit Walker, a gas station attendant wrongly accused of being a serial killer; Kyle Spencer, a kind frat boy, and Jimmy Darling, a circus performer. 

His next dark role didn't come till he played James Patrick March, a ghostly owner of the Hotel Cortez who built it in the 1920s to hide his murders, in season five.

The character was based on a killer known as H.H. Holmes, who confessed to murdering at least 27 people. 

He was executed by the state of Illinois in 1896.

For this role, Evan was given a lot of creative control by series creator Ryan Murphy to develop the character's unique persona.

When asked about his character for Deadline, he said: 'I like playing the villain, but I like trying to figure out why they are that way and trying to sympathise with them a little bit in some way. 

'Maybe some people are innately evil, but then there's always something that sort of pushes them over the edge and makes them act on those thoughts or feelings, so I always try to figure out what that was and try to give it some sort of justification so that I'm not just playing evil for evil's sake.'

This then led to his next character, Kai Anderson, a cult leader and psychopath. 

Season seven blended reality and fiction as it centred around the 2016 presidential election.

As per Fandom, Kai is a racist, misogynistic, social misfit who dreams of a world in which white men rule supreme and women 'know their place'. 

The role left Evan exhausted and feeling mentally drained, leading him to announce he's taking a break following the intensity of his last few roles. 

While speaking to GQ in 2018, Evan admitted that playing such horrific characters was a huge challenge for him.

'I'm goofy, I'm silly, I like to have fun. I don't like to yell and scream,' he explained. 'I actually hate it. I think it's disgusting and really awful, and it's been a challenge for me. Horror Story sort of demanded that of me.'

At the time of the interview, he also finished filming for another popular show, Pose, and was reaching an emotional breaking point. 

He continued: 'There's this massive amount of rage that's been called upon from me, and the emotional stuff that's been called on me for Pose has been heartbreaking, and I'm sick. I don't feel good.'

AHS writer Ryan revealed that it took Evan almost two years to fully recover from making that particular season.

'He really suffered while making it, it took him I don't know… two years to recover?' he told Capital.

'Evan and I and Emma [Roberts] and Sarah [Paulson] and Holland Taylor had Thanksgiving together that year right after filming, and I remember Sarah and I kept feeding Evan food, trying to nourish him and make him feel better. 

'He was still feeling it, the darkness, while we were making season one, it got under his skin in a really hard long way.'

'I'm going to take a little break from darker roles and explore the light,' Evan told Variety. 

'It would be interesting to me to play something that is a little closer to home, a little more mundane.'

Indeed, he did end up landing a lighter role in the hit HBO show Mare of Easttown as Detective Colin Zabel.

But he quickly   

He later described it as 'one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life'. 

Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story chronicles the shocking murders of 17 young men and boys at the hands of the Milwaukee killer between 1978 and 1991. 

In an interview, the actor told that he was 'scared' to take on the role due to Dahmer's horrific past, adding that he had to go to 'dark places' during filming to get into the mindset of the killer.

The Netflix retells the story of Dahmer from the perspective of his victims - who were predominantly black - and explores major mistakes Wisconsin police made in handling the probe of the notorious mass murderer, who made national headlines for acts of cannibalism and necrophilia. 

In preparation of his portrayal of the infamous murderer, Evan watched the Stone Phillips interview with the real killer, while he read a number biographies and the 1992 police report of Dahmer's confession.

In addition, the star listened to audio of the killer speaking to a psychologist or detective interviewing him, with Evan stating he was nervous about taking on the role as he noted how important it was to give an 'authentic' account to respect the victims' loved ones.

He explained: 'It was so jaw-dropping that it all really happened that it felt important to be respectful to the victims, the victims' families, to try and tell the story as authentically as we could.'

On how tough the process was, he continued: 'Honestly, I was very scared about all the things that he did and diving into that, and trying to commit to that was absolutely going to be one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life because I wanted it to be very authentic.

'But in order to do that, I was gonna have to go to really dark places and stay there for an extended period of time.'

Evan went on to credit the crew that were on set with him for keeping him stable as he delved into the dark subject for the series.

He said: 'I have to say that the crew was instrumental in keeping me on the guard rails, I cannot thank them enough and I could not have done any of this role with them...

'It was a challenge to try to have this person who was seemingly so normal but underneath all of it, had this entire world that he was keeping secret from everybody.'

After filming wrapped up, Evan took a long break from acting and went to St Louis to see friends and family.

'I really wanted to decompress and make sure that whatever I signed on to do next, I was ready to give it my all again,' he told Vanity Fair. 

He joked he turned to Step Brothers to 'just change up the psyche', referring to the 2008 comedy starring his cast mate Richard Jenkins.

He added: 'I put in so much negativity and darkness to portray the character that I thought, "OK, once this is done, all of that goes away and I have to get back into the light and start filling myself back up with comedies and romance and sorts of things like that."'

Evan returned to the screen earlier this year for another one of Ryan's horrors called The Beauty.

Based on the book of the same name, the series follows the unexplained deaths among international supermodels. 

Evan stars as Cooper Madsen, a former Navy SEAL and FBI agent investigating deaths linked to The Beauty.

The series premiered on FX and Hulu on January 21.

And he is also set to return to the AHS franchise, which is back for its 13th season later this year. 

Speaking about the series, which is expected to drop over Halloween, Evan told The Hollywood Reporter:  'First of all, it's working with Ryan again, but second of all, he's assembled the cast from all the different seasons.

'It's sort of an alumni, and we're all getting back together to do this greatest-hits season. I'm interested to see what the scenes are and how it all plays out.'

American Horror Story season 13 premieres October 13, 2026 on FX.