In FX’s 'The Beauty,' perfection isn’t just a promise—it’s a product, and one with a brutal cost.
Set in a world where physical beauty can be bought, sold, and weaponized, the new Ryan Murphy series peels back the seductive surface of a miracle cure to expose the rot beneath it. Anchored by a cast that understands both the allure and the danger of that fantasy, ‘The Beauty’ stars Ashton Kutcher, Anthony Ramos, and Jeremy Pope, each approaching the story’s central obsession from a sharply different angle.
In conversations with all three, it became clear that the show’s most unsettling power doesn’t come from its body-horror premise, but from how uncomfortably close it hits to the reality we’re already living in.
Kutcher plays The Corporation in the series, a business-minded millionaire who seems one way on the surface, but underneath, he operates at the sleek, unsettling intersection of belief and control—the kind of man who doesn’t just sell an idea, but convinces you it was your own to begin with.
That’s where the crux of the plot comes in: Super models around the world have bought into The Corporation’s miracle drug that creates physical perfection. Although the real world doesn’t have the same type of shot readily available, the actor couldn’t help but notice the similarities when it comes to outward appearances in everyday life.
“When Ryan [Murphy] started explaining this character in this world, I think the most interesting thing to me was he started talking about GLP-1s and Ozempic and Mojaro and all these things that people are giving themselves... this shot. Most people, you ask them, ‘What are you most afraid of?’ It's getting a shot, right? But now this is becoming this pervasive thing and people are taking testosterone, TRT treatments and giving themselves shots,” explains Kutcher. “A lot of people didn't want to get a COVID shot, but they're willing to give themselves these shots that change the way that they look. And I thought that was a really interesting take.”
And when asked why Murphy wrote the part for him specifically, he had some ideas: “You’d have to ask him, but I think it could quite possibly be because I started out as a model when I was 19 and I worked in the fashion industry—I've been in and around this world quite a bit. Also, this character is an entrepreneur. I spent a ton of time with entrepreneurs who build businesses and run businesses and with people who manifest capital and are investors. So he probably thought that I had a perspective of that world and the world of fashion and beauty, and that maybe I could bring something to this that would make his words pop off the page.”
Both Ramos and Pope also work directly with The Corporation in the show. Ramos as The Assassin is hired to protect The Corporation’s innovation, while Pope as Jeremy plays a mysterious figure mixed into the madness of it all in unpredictable ways. Ramos injects volatility into the series, his character driven by instinct, always one step away from pushing back. Pope counters with deliberate calm, playing someone who listens closely and absorbs more than he reveals. And the duo’s dynamic on screen isn’t brand new — both actors have known each other long before stepping onto set.
“Anthony is someone I know from college, and we've just known each other for so many years,” explains Pope.
The actor has also worked with Murphy in the past, but in a much different setting on the Netflix limited series ‘Hollywood.’ For ‘The Beauty,’ Murphy saw a unique role and path for Pope instead.
“Ryan is a friend, someone I've worked with a couple of times, but he's a champion of me as an artist. I got a text from Ryan saying, ‘Hey, you want to read something weird?’ And I read it and said, ‘This is in fact very weird.’ But he saw a different color for me in this world. He said, ‘I'd love for you to play this character and bring truth and ground it.’ He began to express the world that he was building, how he was sitting on this comic series and he thought he cracked it,” Pope continues.
“He's a visionary. He is an expert at what he does. He has changed the game for the TV landscape and will continue to do that. So I think anytime he calls and says, ‘Hey, I have customized a role for you’, you would be crazy not to say yes. So that was kind of the North Star and I began to just build context for him and alongside him on this one.”
For Ramos, his character serves a bit more of a villain archetype in this role, which provided a lot of room for creativity.
“It's fun because this guy has a lot of colors to him—his age and his backstory as far as his relationship with the Beauty,” says Ramos.
“And then you get into his style and the way he dresses, the way he carries himself, the way he speaks. I think a lot of what he says is kind of crazy to the average person, but to him, it's super normal. He can genuinely justify how he feels at all times, whether or not people agree with him or not, it doesn't really matter, especially to him. So it's fun. It's fun just getting into the mind of this character and then in the midst of this world where people are now taking this shot and people are going crazy. Then this person's exploding...it's almost like he's sent out to contain a fire that's way too big.”
By the time 'The Beauty' reaches its most unnerving turns, the series makes one thing clear: this isn’t a cautionary tale about the future so much as a distorted mirror of the present. It lingers in the discomfort of its situation, asking viewers to consider how much of themselves they’d be willing to trade for approval.
And in a culture already obsessed with looks, that question certainly lands with an unsettling weight.
FX’s The Beauty premieres with three episodes on Wednesday, Jan. 21 at 9 p.m. ET on Hulu and 9 p.m. ET/PT on FX.
