Multi-awarded creator, producer, screenwriter, and director Ryan Murphy, behind some of the most watched and most provocative series in recent years, Glee, American Horror Story, American Crime Story, Pose, among others, leads the charge, yet again, with a new limited series Hollywood that frames an insider look into the ups and downs of the glitzy world of show business, coming to Netflix this May 1, 2020.
Co-created with Ian Brennan, the show is said to be Murphy’s third collaboration with the streaming powerhouse, and is described by the multi-hyphenate as a “love letter to the Golden Age of Tinseltown“. Recently, the show has teased viewers with first look images and trailer released to audience and critical acclaim. And judging by the looks of things, we are in for a gritty yet glamorous and thrilling ride.
Hollywood follows a group of aspiring actors and filmmakers in post-World War II Hollywood, all trying to make their shot at fame — no matter the cost. Each character offers a unique, eye-opening glimpse behind the gilded curtain of Hollywood’s Golden Age, zooming in on the many injustices and pervading biases across race, gender and sexuality that continue to this day.
On the heels of the success of their most recent work together on 2018’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Murphy told Darren Criss that he wanted his next project to be a “young, hopeful period piece.”
“I’d been playing around with the idea doing something about buried history for a while, and I knew that I wanted to do something hopeful and optimistic — a celebration of 1940’s Hollywood. After working together on The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Darren Criss, and I were having dinner and we started talking about a very famous gas station in Hollywood where sex workers mingled with celebrities. These young sex workers lived in an environment of shame, and they weren’t allowed in the game because they were seen as tainted goods,” Murphy said in a conversation with the creators. “I merged both of those ideas, and we began a lovingly constructed look at how I wished Hollywood would have operated back then; a world where women and gay people and people of color could flourish. I think the world would be very different than it is today if that had happened.”
Provocative and incisive, Hollywood exposes and pores over decades-old power dynamics and what the entertainment landscape might look like if they had been dismantled in what for Murphy was an “opportunity to tell a different story” and to “rewrite history”.
The limited series collects a combination of new and familiar faces in many of Murphy’s outings from Criss as Raymond Ainsley, David Corenswet as Jack Castello, Jeremy Pope as Archie Coleman, Laura Harrier as Camille Washington, Samara Weaving as Claire Wood, Dylan McDermott as Ernie, Holland Taylor as Ellen Kincaid, Patti LuPone as Avis Amberg, Jim Parsons as Henry Willson, Jake Picking as Rock Hudson, and Joe Mantello as Dick Samuels. With Murphy and Brennan, the series is executive produced by Alexis Martin Woodall and Janet Mock, who also serves as a writer and a director.
Bookmark Rank Magazine for more upcoming features on Hollywood. In the meantime, here are some first-look images from the production stills of the highly-anticipated series.
Photo Credits: Saeed Adyani, Netflix
Watch the full trailer here: