Evan Peters had to "take some time off" after playing Jeffrey Dahmer.

The 35-year-old actor stars as the notorious serial killer - who was convicted of murdering 17 men between 1978 and 1991 - in the Netflix series 'Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story', and he needed to decompress after throwing himself into such an intense role.

In a newly released conversation with his cast mates via Netflix, he said: "I've been fortunate enough to be able to take some time off and decompress.

"I haven't worked since we shot this. I tried to really shake it all off."

He joked he turned to 'Step Brothers' to "just change up the psyche", referring to the 2008 comedy starring his cast mate Richard Jenkins.

He added: "I put in so much negativity and darkness to portray the character that I thought, ‘OK, once this is done, all of that goes away and I have to get back into the light and start filling myself back up with comedies and romance and sorts of things like that.' "

The 'American Horror Story' star explained how he "worked with dialect coaches" and listened to a "45-minute audio composite" every day to help him "stay in the accent".

He said: "But also to really get into the mindset for the day and all the scenes we were shooting.

"I tried to attempt to understand what he was thinking and going through. I just tried to stay in it because it was to hard too go in and out of it."

He wasn't just focused on the voice though, even studying how Dahmer "moved", and the show's creator Ryan Murphy recalled how Peters wore lead weights on his hands to perfect the man's distinct posture.

Evan said: "In the beginning it was important for me to get how that felt. As we were shooting, I let that go.

"In the beginning I wore wardrobe's shoes, jeans and glasses. I had a cigarette in my hand at all times, just trying to get all of these external second-nature so I wasn't thinking about it when we were shooting."