Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy Cast and Creators on Honoring Victims, Not Glorifying Evil

When a true-crime story like John Wayne Gacy’s is told yet again, it’s easy to wonder what’s left to say.

But Peacock’s Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy isn’t interested in retelling the legend of a killer. It’s about the people whose lives he destroyed — and the ones who refused to let them be forgotten.

In a series of conversations with TV Fanatic, creator Patrick Macmanus, actors Michael Chernus, Gabriel Luna, and Marin Ireland opened up about the compassion, restraint, and moral responsibility that shaped this series.

None of them wanted to feed the cultural fascination with Gacy. They wanted to reclaim the story for the victims and the families who still carry its weight.

What emerges from those talks isn’t sensationalism; it’s empathy.

Macmanus and his team spoke about the decision to withhold violence from the screen, Luna reflected on the quiet anguish of the detectives who unearthed Gacy’s crimes, and Ireland shared the heartbreak of embodying a mother’s loss.

Together, they helped transform horror into remembrance.

The Vision and the Monster: Patrick Macmanus & Michael Chernus

Showrunner Patrick Macmanus never set out to tell another serial killer story.

After turning down the project twice, he only agreed when he realized it could center on the victims — their families, the police, and the lawyers who fought for justice. That commitment shaped every frame of Devil in Disguise, right down to its refusal to show a single murder.

By stripping away spectacle, Macmanus and his writers found the humanity often lost in true crime. Each episode became its own short story, focusing on a victim’s hopes, dreams, and the ripple effects of their absence. It’s a structure that quietly indicts the society that lets them disappear.

For Michael Chernus, playing Gacy meant channeling the horror of ordinariness.

The man everyone described as a friendly neighbor, a helpful businessman, and a civic volunteer was, in reality, a manipulative predator. Chernus leaned into that contradiction — the smiling mask that occasionally slips to reveal something monstrous underneath.

The Detective Who Never Found Peace: Gabriel Luna

Gabriel Luna’s portrayal of Detective Rafael Tovar captures a different kind of burden — the kind carried by those who must sift through unimaginable evidence to find the truth.

Tovar, one of the few Latino officers on the Des Plaines force in the 1970s, was both insider and outsider. That sense of being “other” helped Luna tap into the empathy that defined his character’s pursuit of justice.

Filming the crawlspace scenes proved physically and emotionally punishing.

Even on a controlled set, Luna said the space — barely three feet high, reeking of decay — gave him a visceral understanding of what real investigators endured.

His reflections make clear that Devil in Disguise isn’t about the shock of discovery, but the human toll of having to keep digging anyway.

A Mother’s Grief and Grace: Marin Ireland

If Chernus represents the face of evil and Luna the face of duty, Marin Ireland embodies its aftermath. As Elizabeth Piest, the mother of Gacy’s final victim, Ireland carries the show’s emotional spine.

She approached the role with reverence, studying the writings of parents who’d lost children to sudden tragedy to capture what she called the “frozen, looping nature of grief.”

Ireland described the production as unusually supportive for such heavy material. Macmanus, himself a former actor, cultivated a set where emotional safety came first.

That care shows in her performance, which never leans into melodrama. Instead, she gives us a woman suspended between disbelief and unbearable clarity — a portrait of strength shaped by loss.

A Testament to Compassion

Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy may not have the reach of a Netflix blockbuster, but it has something far more important: integrity.

It honors the victims without retraumatizing their memory and gives voice to the people who tried to bring light to one of the darkest chapters in American history.

For Macmanus, Chernus, Luna, and Ireland, this wasn’t about explaining evil — it was about refusing to look away from the good that fought to overcome it.

All eight episodes of Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy drop on Thursday, October 16, only on Peacock.