Cooper Koch has landed a nomination for the 2025 Emmy Awards for his role in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story, though two of his castmates missed out.
Koch played Erik Menéndez in season two of Ryan Murphy‘s Monster anthology series, which centered on Erik and his brother Lyle’s shocking murder of their parents in 1989.
Despite facing backlash, with viewers calling out Murphy for creating “incestuous fetish porn,” and Erik himself describing the series as intentionally “naive and inaccurate,” Monsters has secured 11 nominations at the prestigious Emmy Awards.
Koch earned his first nomination in the Outstanding Lead Actor In A Limited or Anthology Series or Movie category for portraying Erik. His co-stars Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny also got nods in the Supporting Actor and Actress categories for playing the Menéndez parents, José and Kitty.
However, Koch’s screen brother Nicholas Alexander Chavez, who played Lyle, and Ari Graynor (who portrayed defense attorney Leslie Abramson) didn’t make the nominees list.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Koch expressed his disappointment about the omissions.
“I talked to Ari; I’m devastated that she didn’t get it,” he said. “That’s the one sort of bummer from today that she didn’t get it. Same thing with Nicholas. I think both of them really deserved to be on there, so I’m super bummed that they didn’t get nominated.”
Monsters also picked up eight more category nominations, including for Outstanding Casting, Period Costumes, Picture Editing, Hairstyling, Makeup, Music Composition, Sound Mixing, and Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series.