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Erik Menendez actor Cooper Koch was told his "gay voice" would stop him getting roles before Monsters

8 October 2024, 22:04

By Sam Prance

Cooper Koch, who plays Erik Menendez in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, is gay in real life.

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Cooper Koch has revealed that he was once told that he would not be able to book roles because of his "gay voice".

It's impossible to imagine Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story without Cooper Koch. The series has sparked controversy over how it approaches the story of the Menendez brothers. However, both Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch and have been praised for how they portray Lyle Menendez and Erik Menendez in the show.

Before Monsters though, Cooper was struggling to land any roles and an acting coach blamed how Cooper speaks.

Read more: Monsters actor Cooper Koch defends shocking Menendez brothers incest storyline

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story trailer

In 2022, Cooper earned critical acclaim for his performances in the queer horror films Swallowed and They/Them, but he was rejected from multiple auditions afterwards. Speaking to Edge Media at the time, Cooper said: "Well, let's get one thing straight. I'm not being offered any roles at this point." Cooper didn't appear in any projects in 2023.

As for what type of roles he was trying out for, Cooper made clear that he was auditioning for a wide range of parts. He explained: "There's a lot of roles that I go out for that don't identify as gay, and I don't only wanna play queer roles." When he asked a teacher why he wasn't booking anything, they said: "Well, you have a gay voice."

Opening up about how that felt, Cooper said: "I have a thick skin. At this point in my life, I’ve been through bullying when I was a kid, I’ve been fired from a pilot because of it. But I also don’t tolerate it anymore."

He added: "If you’re not gonna want to work with me because my voice sounds a certain way, or because I walk or talk or move my hands in a certain way, then I don’t want to work with you either, babe.”

Cooper is gay in real life. Speaking to the San Francisco Bay Times in 2022, he said that he did not want to accept his sexuality as a teenager: "When I was in high school and in my first year of college, I really didn’t want to be who I was."

He revealed that acting helped him embraces his sexuality: "It took acting school to realise that if I want play other people, I need to be able to be myself."