Ari Graynor didn’t turn to the real Leslie Abramson as she prepared for her role as the legendary defender in Netflix’s Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez.

“I knew she had made it pretty clear that she never wanted to talk about any of her cases,” Graynor says diversity. “You will notice that in all the documentaries or programs that have been made, she has never been interviewed. I think she really took a step back, not only because this case in particular was so painful for her, but she also didn’t mince her words when it came to the media and its impact on things.”

Abramson published her memoir, “The Defense is Ready: Life in the Trenches of Criminal Law,” in 1997. Now, at age 80, she is retired and rarely appears in public.

“I feel so deeply connected to her and feel like I’ve fallen in love with her from afar,” Graynor says. “A big part of this journey for me was living up to it. Now I tried to send her an email. I tried to find people who might be able to pass it on to her, just to acknowledge her and tell her what I saw in her and if she ever wants to talk.”

Graynor believes Erik and Lyle Menendez deserve a retrial, with the ultimate goal of securing their release from prison. They are currently serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for the first-degree murder of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez in 1989.

“I feel very close to them in this bizarre alternate reality,” Graynor says. “And I heard that they are extraordinary people who, as Leslie said at the end of the show, will give meaning to their lives and make wonderful contributions to society. From what I’ve heard, it sounds like they’re great. Erik teaches meditation, they work on the GreenSpace project (prison reform initiative). I would love to hug her one day.”

I remind Graynor that series co-creator Ryan Murphy praised her “rear acting” when I spoke to him about the fifth episode, a 33-minute one-shot with Erik (Cooper Koch) detailing the sexual and emotional Abuse in his childhood reported suffering from his father. Graynor’s voice is heard, but viewers never see her face as she always has her back to the camera. “Personally, I recently thought that Episode 5 was the most purely artistic experience I’ve ever had because I didn’t have a camera in my face,” says Graynor. “There’s this theory in physics that an observer changes the state of something, and being so present and being there for Cooper so much and wanting to give him everything I could had something to do with that he could give everything he could. My face became a performance for one – for him.”

Graynor remembers transforming into Abramson with the help of a big curly blonde wig. “It was a beautiful, transformative, multi-faced, perfect lady,” Graynor says of the voluminous locks. “There is no Leslie without her hair and her clothes. It really informed me about how I was feeling and how I found her.”

She remembers wearing the wig outside of family dinners. “I had a four-hour break, so I took it (the wig) to Silver Lake for dinner,” she says, smiling. “I sat down at the table and they had no idea who I was. Later that evening the waiter came over and said, “Great hair.”