Oct 2
Ryan Murphy Teases 'The Beauty' with Evan Peters, Cites 'Ozempic Culture'
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Prolific out producer Ryan Murphy revealed his thinking behind a new series called "The Beauty," starring "AHS," "Pose," and "Monster" collaborator Even Peters.
"The Beauty" is about a sexually transmitted disease that people actually try to catch because it makes them more physically attractive. The downside is that it also kills them – a side effect that, in the Image Comics title that ran from 2016-2019, drew the attention of a pair of police detectives.
Murphy says the show riffs on "Ozempic culture."
"It's something I've never done before, which is a sci-fi medical show about a new virus that mutates and it's sexually transmitted, that turns you into your absolute perfect self," the writer/producer told Variety. "And the question is, how far would you go to be beautiful? What would you sacrifice to that, and does that matter?"
Added Murphy: "That show was looking at, I call it the Ozempic culture. One little shot, and suddenly you're going to look better and feel better, and all your problems are going to go away. But what are you really working on? What's going on with you that you feel you need to do that? Sometimes it is health, sometimes it's vanity."
Ozempic wasn't the widespread phenom in 2016 that it is now, when the Image Comics title launched, but the prevalence of the diabetes treatment drug – which is also used for weight loss – makes the story ripe for adaptation today.
As previously reported, Murphy has not only brought Peters on board for the project but stocked the series with other gorgeous male stars, including out actor Jeremy Pope (who was part of the cast in Murphy's series "Hollywood"), Anthony Ramos (who starred in the film version of "In the Heights"), and "That '70s Show" alum Ashton Kutcher.
The show's scale is as ambitious as its beauty quotient. "It shoots in Europe – Venice, Rome and Paris," Murphy told the entertainment news magazine. "It's a very big budget, kind of 'Game of Thrones' in its scale."
Underscoring Murphy's astonishing productivity are the sheer number of new shows he's ushered to the small screen in a very short time this fall.
"Over the course of 10 days, Ryan Murphy released four new shows," Variety noted, naming them off: "'American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez' and 'Grotesquerie' at FX, 'Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story' at Netflix and 'Doctor Odyssey' at ABC – and premiered new seasons of returning hits '9-1-1: Lone Star' at Fox and '9-1-1' at ABC."
Murphy acknowledged that "Six shows in a month is a lot," adding, "but everybody in my company worked really, really hard, and miraculously, they all worked."
"They all launched at No. 1 and individually, they're all doing really, really well."
Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.
