By Daniel Kreps [RollingStone]
The teenage years of one of America’s most notorious serial killers are chronicled in the first trailer for My Friend Dahmer, the film adaptation of John “Derf” Backderf’s popular 2012 graphic novel. The author was friends with the future serial killer when they were teenagers in Ohio.
The film finds Disney Channel star Ross Lynch, one of Rolling Stone‘s 25 Under 25, inhabiting the role of the serial killer that the actor/singer admittedly never heard of prior to auditioning for the role.
“They were like, ‘Hey, do you know who Jeffrey Dahmer is?’ I had no idea,” Lynch, the star of Disney’s Austin & Ally and lead singer of R5, recently told Rolling Stone.
“I thought it was awesome to just be unpredictable. Hopefully my next role could be something that most people won’t expect from me.”
“Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys in the Midwest United States between 1978 and 1991 before being captured and incarcerated. He would become one of America’s most infamous serial killers,” the film’s synopsis says. “This is the story before that story.”
The film also features Mad Men‘s Vincent Kartheiser as Dahmer’s doctor, Anne Heche as Dahmer’s mother and Alex Wolff in the “Derf” role.
After premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, My Friend Dahmer is expected out later this year.