AP Breakthrough Entertainer: Nicholas Alexander Chavez feels best between 'action' and 'cut'

It's not an exaggeration to say Nicholas Alexander Chavez had a very good year.

Now a member of Ryan Murphy's unofficial acting troupe, he starred in two of the creator's new series. First came the Golden Globe-nominated “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” for Netflix. Chavez played Lyle, the elder of two brothers serving a lifetime prison sentence for killing their parents, Jose and Kitty, in 1989.

Chavez recognizes some parts of the series are “really, really difficult to digest” but points out that “Monsters” shows multiple sides to the story. The brothers have said they killed their parents out of self-defense, following sexual abuse by their father.

“To my knowledge, it’s the first TV show about the Menendez brothers that’s told in that format,” said Chavez, who prepared by watching old court footage. (The drama — and a new documentary — reignited public interest in the case, and a judge is weighing Los Angeles County prosecutors' request to resentence the brothers.)