Ryan Murphy And The Cast Of ‘The Beauty’ Preview The Sci-Fi Show And Rise Of The Tech Bro Villain

Ryan Murphy’s upcoming international sci-fi thriller about the lengths people go to achieve beauty and youthfulness couldn’t be timelier.

Murphy, the executive producer, writer and director of The Beauty, appeared at New York Comic Con (NYCC) on Saturday to discuss the series and share an exclusive sneak peek alongside cast members Evan Peters, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope, Rebecca Hall and Ashton Kutcher.

The Beauty, based on a graphic novel by Jason A. Hurley and Jeremy Haun, centers on a sexually transmitted virus that makes the affected people more effortlessly beautiful, “an STD that people actually want,” Kutcher’s character said in footage shown only to attendees in the room at NYCC.

If this supposed cure-all sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is.

The catch is that those infected with the virus only have approximately 855 days to live before their bodies combust. Peters and Hall star as the protagonists of the series, two FBI agents who are investigating the mysterious deaths of supermodels around the world. Kutcher portrays a tech bro villain who’s one of the originators of this drug.

Murphy said that the development of The Beauty coincided with the rise of Ozempic, chatter about famous plastic surgeons and speculation about who in Hollywood has gone under the knife.

“We all know who’s done work,” he said.

Murphy reflected on how such topics were taboo years ago when he created the medical drama series Nip/Tuck. Now, he said, people are talking openly and flaunting their cosmetic procedures, and there seems to be “less judgment.” It’s all part of a “beauty-obsessed culture,” he said.

“And it is kind of a new status symbol, in a weird way,” Murphy said.

In the spirit of the theme of the show, Murphy asked the cast if they’ve ever been denied or gotten something based on their appearance.

“Well, they don’t cast me in the good guy role much,” Peters, who’s known for playing dark, brooding characters, said.

Peters is a frequent collaborator of Murphy’s, who most recently earned an Emmy nomination for his titular role on Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.

For The Beauty, Murphy said that he immediately had Peters in mind for one of the good guys.

“I think this will be an exciting shift for people to see because you will not be villainous in any way," Murphy said. "In fact, ultimately, you make this amazing sacrifice for love, which is the first time in your career you’ve gotten to play that.”

Peters isn’t the only star who plays against type.

When Pope started pursuing acting, he felt like he “wasn’t rough enough” to play Black characters because of his hazel eyes. Pope said he grew up being praised for his eye color, “but then that became something that wasn't getting me into rooms and giving me opportunities.”

Pope said that with his Beauty character, Jeremy, he got to dig into “more nuance in color and the exploration of what it means to be beautiful and how we define that.”

Ramos, too, reveled in portraying a different kind of role. Here, he stars as a lethal assassin who wears designer leather and a silver eye patch. And Kutcher, known for playing leading men in romantic comedies, stars a super villain.

“When I was a younger person, there was always a villain trope,” Murphy said. “It was usually somebody connected to the bad guys in World War II, right? The villain du jour that we’re also tapping into seems to be the tech bro as villain, the tech culture as villain.”

Kutcher said he accepted the role because he had never been offered anything like it before. He described his involvement in The Beauty as “exhilarating,” particularly because, as an actor, it’s easy get put into a box.

“So when you get to play these complicated, nuanced characters, it’s a delight,” he said. “And playing this character has been one of the great delights of my career.”

Ultimately, Murphy said The Beauty blends genres in expected ways.

“It has amazing action sequences, it has a lot of body horror, it has a great love story, it has a great kind of buddy comedy thing going on and it has a great villain,” he said. “So it kind of has a combination of really heightened genres, which is inherent in the source material. It was a lot of fun to work on that tone.”

FX’s The Beauty debuts on Hulu in the third week of January, Murphy shared. The exact release date hasn’t been announced yet.