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It’s Thursday afternoon, a few hours before Giorgio Armani’s glitzy spring-summer 2025 show at New York’s Park Avenue Armory, and Cooper Koch is in a posh midtown hotel room getting dressed for the night. This will mark the actor’s first time sitting front row at a runway presentation—just the latest in a series of major firsts cropping up right now for the 28-year-old breakout star of Netflix’s Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story, who this week alone has been at the center of a viral talk show segment (he explained to Andy Cohen that he was not wearing a prosthetic in a Menendez scene where he reveals his tighty-whities) and online speculation over the appearance of a wedding ring on his finger (for the record: he’s not married). It all makes the Armani show’s railway theme—the legendary Italian designer transformed the Armory space into a giant track platform—feel even more appropriate: Cooper Koch’s express train to stardom is pulling out of the station.
Koch had generated buzz earlier in his career, particularly around his performances in the horror films Swallowed and They/Them, but this is a whole new kind of attention he’s receiving. For the most part, though, he’s handling it with ease. “It feels a little overwhelming,” Koch says of his newfound spotlight. “It’s kinda crazy, but it’s all good and fun. The response has just been amazing. And I think over everything else, I just feel so grateful and happy and excited to have gotten the opportunity to be in a show that so many people watch and that so many people liked.”
The LA native has spent plenty of time in New York before, having earned his BFA at Pace University. But this latest trip, he says, “has been a lot, because there’s just been so much that I've had to do: meetings and talk shows and interviews and stuff.” (He learned firsthand during that press gauntlet how even a harmless joke now had the capacity to set the internet aflame, and while plenty kind and gracious during our interview, Koch perhaps seemed a touch more guarded.) The increased pace on the road has made the time he spends at home on the West Coast feel all the more special. “It’s nice,” he says of his days off. “I relax and play tennis or just hang out with my brothers.”
A photographer in the room begins shooting photos of Koch, and his pleasant demeanor during our chat instantly takes on a more serious, heartthrobby energy. He’s sitting on a window sill—an epic view of the Manhattan skyline framed behind him—in a crisp white dress shirt and black trousers with a tumbler in hand, and the whole room seems to take on his warm glow.
Koch has plenty of experience as a model himself, appearing in campaigns for brands like the Gap and Patagonia. But for his role in Monsters, he also spent time studying Erik Menendez’s real-life modeling aspirations—one of his early test shoots with photographer Phillip Kearney is depicted in the show. “I had pictures of Erik doing the actual photo shoot, so I did try to look at those to sort of emulate how I was gonna pose,” Koch says. “We wanted it to start out as Erik being a little bit more timid [in front] of the camera, not knowing where to put his hands or how to pose or what to do, and then as the photo shoot went on, we wanted him to grow in comfortability.”
That’s indicative of Koch’s whole approach to portraying Menendez as a real and grounded human being against the backdrop of the spectacle that is his trial. “I was just trying to stay truthful to Erik and his perspective and his point of view, whether that was in front of people or not,” he says of his intensive preparation for Monsters. “I always wanted to honor his truth and honor his authenticity.” Koch’s performance reaches its pinnacle in the show’s fifth episode, “The Hurt Man,” which climaxes with an unbroken 33-minute shot focused solely on him.
To prepare for the role, Koch immersed himself in footage of the trial. “Watching a person every day, [watching] those videos so many times, you practice it. There were times when I'd be listening to the testimony, and I would know the question [defense attorney] Leslie [Abramson] was going to ask, and then I would know what his answer was. And so I would say it with him to try and not only say the words and do the inflections of how he spoke, but also [catch] where his sighs came in,” Koch says. “He's a big sigher, and he's always going [big sigh]. When I'm performing the scene, those things just tend to naturally exist [within the character].”
The chemistry between Menendez and Abramson, played by Ari Graynor, came organically, as Koch and Graynor became honest-to-goodness friends off camera. “We would hang out after we were done with work,” he recalls. “We would hang out at her house that she was staying in, and we would have wine and eat dinner and smoke cigarettes and just talk, be there for each other and support each other in the process of making the show. And I think that connection that we found with one another was why there was such a chemistry and a safety that was then seen on screen.”
“The Hurt Man” looms large in discourse around the show. The episode is a watershed moment for the young actor—one with plenty of Emmy speculation attached to it. “After we finished shooting episode five,” Koch says, “I carried my script with me everywhere, and I went around the set and just had everybody that was there that day sign it like a yearbook. I’ll always remember that day and have all their words on the front page of the script. I cherish that.”
Koch remains tight-lipped about the projects he’s hoping to manifest, though he did hint that many of them were literary in nature. Koch’s twin brother Payton—an Emmy-nominated editor on Only Murders in the Building, who joined him at the Armani show—did, however, mention that they plan to make movies together some day. “Down the road, yeah, we have big aspirations,” Payton says. “This is just the beginning of both of our careers.”
Back in the hotel room, Cooper is now fully dressed in a sharp black tuxedo—a far cry, he says, from his everyday uniform at home. “I am really just a sweatpants and hoodie guy most of the time,” he says. “And I love my Birkenstocks.”
As we head downstairs after a light cologne spritzing, Koch elaborates on his plans for the future. “I'm interested in developing my own stuff, and I'm also curious to see what's going to come my way,” he says. “I'm just very open and excited.”
