News - LISTEN: How Charlie Hunnam Transformed into a ‘Monster’ for Netflix and Ryan Murphy; Showbiz News Reverb From the Variety Archives

On today’s episode of “Daily Variety” podcast, Variety senior correspondent Daniel D’Addario goes inside the mind of a man who is playing a serial killer, “Monster: The Ed Gein Story” star Charlie Hunnam, for our Cover Story segment. Hunnam is frank and candid in his interview about his career decisions over the past decade, D’Addario reports. Hunnam explains what brought him back to the top of the call sheet in the latest season of the Netflix anthology series produced by Ryan Murphy. And “Daily Variety” host Cynthia Littleton dives into the Variety archives to revisit a front page from October 1956 that is full of headlines that resonate today. That front page is reproduced below. Hunnam “was warm and forthcoming. Willing to go anywhere in conversation. I was quite struck,” D’Addario says. “We were supposed to meet in his favorite coffee shop. We got there, and he didn’t want to discuss the pretensions of an actor and his process and all those things that are part and parcel of talking to an actor. He didn’t feel comfortable talking about that in front of the baristas he saw every day. He thought he would look pretentious. And so we went to his office space and he opened up and he said, you know, I haven’t had occasion to do this in a while. And that gave rise to a really interesting open conversation. It was just a frank, open conversation with someone who is that wonderful thing, passionate about what he does.” The episode also features a bit of time travel courtesy of the Variety archives. The front page of Daily Variety for Oct. 1, 1956, has a number of headlines that echo today. As ever, there are only-in-Variety stories including a yarn datelined Washington, D.C., about producer Samuel Goldwyn’s visit to President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the White House, with details about how Goldwyn’s foray into the White House press room didn’t go so well. Listen to Daily Variety