Charlie Hunnam explains why he gave Andrew Borden a stutter that the real-life figure didn't have

Charlie Hunnam has confirmed that the distinctive stutter he gives Andrew Borden in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story has no basis in the historical record, and it was just him taking artistic license.

The Netflix anthology series, which dropped all eight episodes on September 17, follows Lizzie Borden (Ella Beatty), the Massachusetts heiress accused of killing her father Andrew and stepmother Abby with an axe in August 1892.

Lizzie was later acquitted, and to this day nobody has ever been convicted of the murders.

In the show, Hunnam's version of Andrew Borden speaks with a noticeable accent and a stutter, but as the actor himself has now explained, that combination was largely his own invention rather than anything drawn from fact.

Charlie Hunnam plays Andrew Borden in Netflix's Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

Did Andrew Borden actually have a stutter?

According to Hunnam, no. Speaking to CBR, the actor said the stutter wasn't something written into the character from the start, and he was upfront that it doesn't line up with what's actually known about Andrew Borden.

“That’s not historically accurate,” Hunnam said. “There’s nothing to indicate that he actually had a stutter.”

He did note that the show's writer built in a single scripted moment where Borden stammers, but only under intense emotional strain. Everywhere else the trait appears, that was Hunnam's own addition, layered on gradually rather than planned from day one.

In the show, Andrew Borden is shown with an accent-stutter combo, but this was a voice that Charlie Hunnam, the actor who played him, has admitted to making up entirely. (Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

How did Charlie Hunnam land on Andrew Borden's voice?

Hunnam explained the voice essentially built itself the longer he sat with the script. 'I tend to just wanna read the script over and over and over,' he said, adding that the stutter was ‘the first thing’ he started to hear in Andrew once he began working through the dialogue repeatedly.

Part of that, he suggested, comes down to how his brain processes a script in the first place.

“I have an aptitude, I have a horrible memory, but somehow an aptitude to be able to remember dialogue. So I’ll very quickly start knowing the dialogue,” he said.

From there, Hunnam described going back over scenes and digging into them further, saying that repeated process was where the voice really took shape: 'that stutter in that voice just started to present itself to me.'

So while it makes for a memorable, jittery performance, Hunnam is clear that it isn't meant to be read as a factual detail about the real Andrew Borden, simply a choice that felt right once he was inside the character.

This marks Hunnam's second consecutive season on Monster, having played serial killer Ed Gein in the anthology's third instalment, The Ed Gein Story, in 2025. Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is the show's fourth season overall, following The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and The Menendez Brothers Story, and is the first to center on a woman.

The series also stars Rebecca Hall as Abby Borden, Vicky Krieps as maid Bridget Sullivan, Billie Lourd as Lizzie's sister Emma, and Sarah Paulson and Jessica Barden in supporting roles.

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is streaming on Netflix now.