Evan Peters and Rebecca Hall are in a disagreement; they can’t remember their meet-cute.
“Did we have that?” asks Peters, turning to Hall.
“Yes, actually, we were about to do a love scene in the hotel room,” recalls Hall. “I remember walking into the room in a modesty robe and awkwardly being like, “Hi, nice to meet you.” Standing there feeling vulnerable, waiting for something to start.”
The meet-cute took place on the set of The Beauty, the latest Ryan Murphy series that twists beauty into something far more sinister.
Adapted from the cult comic book of the same name, The Beauty follows a pair of FBI agents (Rebecca and Evan) investigating a string of mysterious deaths linked to a secretive new “beauty” treatment spreading like an epidemic.
The catch? The drug promises instant physical perfection, but it comes with terrifying, often fatal side effects that begin to overtake its users. Cue the exploding models.
Beneath the explosive set-pieces, the show is really an unnerving reflection on our obsession with optimisation: Ozempic culture, tweakments, filters, “wellness” as status, and the way beauty is sold to us. In Murphy’s hands, the pursuit of perfection becomes literal a contagion that asks it’s audience what would you sacrifice for perfection?
The cast is stacked, too — with Peters and Hall joined by Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope, Ashton Kutcher and Sarah Paulson, as well as cameos from Meghan Trainor, Bella Hadid, Nicola Peltz Beckham and Amelia Gray Hamlin.
There’s a particular irony to The Beauty: it’s a show about the tyranny of perfection, led by actors working in an industry that trades in appearance. Hall says the project heightened her awareness of the pressure, but also the contradiction at the heart of it — that you can’t be good at acting while obsessing over how you look.
“It’s endless,” she admits. “As an actor, you’re like, ‘I’m gonna get fired. I look terrible. I could have done that better. I sound awful. I’ll never work again. Why do I look like a weird alien horse?’ These are intrusive thoughts. Most of the time I bat them away. But if I’m being honest… I think I’m great actually.”
This is the third time Peters has starred in a Murphy project. Their collaboration first began in 2011 with American Horror Story, where Peters went on to appear across nine seasons, and is set to return again for the franchise’s upcoming 13th season.
Then in 2022, Peters took on his most confronting Murphy performance to date as Jeffrey Dahmer in Netflix’s Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022), a cultural flashpoint that reintroduced him to a new audience.
So when Murphy called him up to cast him in The Beauty, it offered something of a palate cleanse; a chance to step away from the darker roles he’s become synonymous with and lean into something more playful, action-packed and romantic.
“Ryan has given me the opportunity to do something different, and I really had a blast. I got to do some long action sequences and speak different languages and have a romance with Rebecca Hall. It was a very fun experience,” says Peters.
As for Hall, The Beauty marks her first, but not her last entry into the Murphy universe. Next, Hall will star in season four of Murphy’s Netflix anthology Monster, which turns its attention to Lizzie Borden, the infamous Massachusetts woman accused of the 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother.
As for what subject or story the pair would love for Murphy to add his spin on next?
“I’d love to do a biopic with Ryan,” says Peters.
Stream The Beauty on Disney+ from January 22.
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