Ari Graynor has been a working actor for more than 20 years, appearing as memorable characters in The Sopranos, Winning Time, and Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. But never in her career has the 41-year-old been part of a project that became a cultural lightning rod quite like Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series that tells the story of the 1989 slayings of José and Kitty Menendez by their sons Lyle and Erik. The murders and the subsequent two trials (the first ended in a mistrial and the second found both brothers guilty of first-degree murder) captivated the country in the early ‘90s; at the center of the frenzy was Erik’s defense attorney Leslie Abramson, a woman who The Washington Post once described as a “4-ft-11, fire-eating, mud-slinging, nuclear-strength pain in the legal butt.”
Throughout nine episodes, Graynor, in a corkscrew blonde wig, plays Abramson with warmth, power, and nuance. She becomes more than just a lawyer to the boys. As she builds a defense based on Erik and Lyle’s testimony of a childhood filled with sexual abuse at the hands of their father, Abramson becomes their protector, mother figure, and confidante—even when she’s vilified in the media and portrayed as overbearing, brash, and self-serving.
