The 8200 block of West Summerdale Avenue in Norwood Park isn’t exactly an address most people want to punch into their GPS. Over the course of 1972 to 1978, it was the site where 33 young men and boys tragically lost their lives at the hands of John Wayne Gacy after he raped, murdered and buried them in his subterranean crawl space.
Yet the block is precisely where actor Michael Chernus found himself last year when preparing to take on the role of Illinois’ most reviled serial killer in Peacock’s new drama series, “Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy,” premiering Thursday.
“I didn’t realize how close he was to O’Hare. That was just shocking, in the sense that he truly was hiding in plain sight. The house wasn’t in some remote area, it was a suburban street like so many other suburban streets, with houses right next to each other, right next to the airport,” Chernus said in a recent chat over Zoom.
He recalled how chills came over his body as he unknowingly drove past the location of the infamous house of horrors. “There was some innate feeling there when I drove by,” he said. The structure was torn down in 1979, just a few months after Gacy’s arrest in December 1978. A new house now sits on the property, though with a slightly different numerical address.
Chernus is no stranger to filming about town — the Cleveland native also starred in Joe Swanberg’s Chicago-centric Netflix series “Easy” from 2016 to 2019. But this time, he purposely logged time in the city specifically to retrace Gacy’s footsteps, one segment of his copious research into the affable contractor, part-time clown entertainer and Northwest side political figure.
Chernus wanted to learn more about how Gacy was able to fly under the radar and get away with his yearslong spree. In addition to reading numerous articles and books, the actor rifled through the NBC News archives and watched interviews, including the notorious 1992 one by former WBBM anchor Walter Jacobson, who spoke to Gacy from behind bars. Chernus also spent time at some of the killer’s go-to spots, such as Lake View’s L&L Tavern, and he retraced the routes he took to find victims, from Norwood Park to Washington Square Park and Uptown.
“It gave me an idea of the lengths he’d go to hunt, for lack of a better word, because I do think he was an apex predator who was out hunting the streets of Chicago,” the actor said.
“Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy” is a scripted spin-off of NBC News’ similarly named 2021 docuseries, “John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise” and also marks Chernus’ first-ever TV lead role. Most may remember him as Piper Chapman’s goofy brother Cal in “Orange Is the New Black” or Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale in “Severance.”
But playing Gacy wasn’t exactly on his bucket list. “I was very hesitant about taking on this role. As all of Chicago knows, it’s a very infamous figure to say the least. And with a story and a person who’s been covered almost ad nauseum over the decades, I really felt like, what do I have to add to this story?” Chernus recalled thinking.
Show creator and executive producer Patrick Macmanus (“Dr. Death” and “The Girl From Plainville”) said he actually turned down the project twice in recent years for similar reasons. “Some of it was genuinely from a lack of vision on my part … and the assumption that if you’re doing a story on John Wayne Gacy, it has to be a story just on John Wayne Gacy,” Macmanus said. It was only when he refocused the narrative on the victims that he found a concept to pursue.
The pilot begins with Gacy’s last-known victim, 15-year-old Robert Piest, whose disappearance was the clincher that led to Gacy’s eventual conviction and execution in 1994. Chernus convincingly adapts Gacy’s mannerisms, from his Chicago-Polish dialect to his eerily inviting nature and his complex manipulative tactics. Though Gacy confessed in the beginning, he later recanted and proclaimed his innocence as time went on. Chernus said that facet of Gacy’s story influenced how he played the role.
“I really do believe he did have some kind of multi-personality disorder. … He had different masks he’d wear, and he’d talk about the different Johns — John the contractor and John the politician and John the clown,” the actor said. “The thing I really truly believe about him is he was such a narcissist that he’d believe what he was saying in the moment. He’d commit to that story wholeheartedly. Whatever he thought in the moment would get him off and save his own butt and get him out of trouble, he would say it.”
Still, his character often reverts to the background as the investigation and judicial proceedings play out. Each of the show’s seven remaining episodes is named for one or more of Gacy’s victims, including John Alan Szyc, Samuel Stapleton and Randy Reffett, spotlighting their lives via short flashbacks. The show creators abstain from showing any violence onscreen.
“We wanted to ensure we were telling their life stories, not their murder stories,” said Macmanus, who reached out to as many next of kin he could find to alert them to the project. (He said he heard back from five families who gave their support.) “We really wanted to hyperfocus on all their hopes and dreams, their tragedies, their victories and defeats, all those parts that make up a life, and then cut away from them before they cross paths with Gacy.”
The series was filmed largely in Toronto, though the sets bear a striking resemblance to Chicago’s suburban sprawls in the 1970s. Macmanus works with a private researcher, Patrick Murphy, on most projects; Murphy scoured local reports from the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune, as well as news footage, and produced a “great bible of photos” that was passed off to the production team to scout and replicate.
The production team also partnered with the LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD to ensure sensitive topics were handled appropriately.
Ultimately, what Macmanus hopes viewers take away is that some societal prejudices towards the LGBTQ+ community that factored into the case still exist today.
“The thing that became apparent over and over again is that while we were exploring and writing about these young boys and men from the 1970s, you could put it in 2025 and we are facing these exact same prejudices … and more and more of those prejudices are being accepted … and it leads to clouding of judgment and an acceptance of violence,” Macmanus lamented. “This is a story that is as relevant and necessary today as it ever was.”
The pilot episode of “Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy” begins with Gacy’s last-known victim, 15-year-old Robert Piest, whose disappearance was the clincher that led to Gacy’s eventual conviction and execution in 1994.
Jerry Tomaselli for Chicago Sun-/ST-17500778-E1, Chicago Sun-Times collection, Chicago History Museum
Chernus said he sees some parallels today in how the victims were stereotyped and how investigations were subsequently delayed. “There was a culture at the time that the boys were runaways or they were just off having fun,” he said. “And especially if there was any kind of homosexuality or drug use or even kids from [the] lower class, people were able to write them off easier, and I think that can still exist to this day.”
If viewers take away one thing from the show, Chernus said he hopes that it’s that “every life is valuable”: “If someone goes missing, it’s worth pursuing why they are missing. Cases just get swept under the rug unfortunately to this day, sex workers are dehumanized, immigrants are dehumanized, trans people are dehumanized.”
Because there are unidentified victims, the Gacy investigation remains open. The Cook County Sheriff’s Office maintains an online tip form to help identify five remaining John Does; Chernus encourages people who might suspect a friend or relative was a victim to reach out.
“DNA technology is obviously so advanced now,” the actor said. “It would be great to put a name and face to some of these boys that have been unidentified for so long.”