Netflix released a new batch of first look photos for Ryan Murphy’s upcoming limited series “Hollywood” on Thursday, featuring series stars Darren Criss, David Corenswet, Jeremy Pope and more.
The period drama, set to debut on May 1, follows a group of aspiring actors and filmmakers in post-World War II Hollywood as they try to make it in Tinseltown — no matter the cost. According to Netflix, “Each character offers a unique glimpse behind the gilded curtain of Hollywood’s Golden Age, spotlighting the unfair systems and biases across race, gender and sexuality that continue to this day. Provocative and incisive, ‘Hollywood’ exposes and examines decades-old power dynamics, and what the entertainment landscape might look like if they had been dismantled.”
In a statement accompanying the image, executive producer Janet Mock explained that the show looks to the past in an attempt to clarify the current moment.
“With the present so fraught and the future uncertain, we turned to the past for direction, uncovering buried history to spin an aspirational tale of what ifs,” Mock said. “What if a band of outsiders were given a chance to tell their own story? What if the person with greenlight power was a woman? The screenwriter a black man? What if the heroine was a woman of color? The matinee idol openly gay? And what if they were all invited into the room where the decisions are made, entering fully and unapologetically themselves to leave victorious and vaunted, their place in history cemented. ‘Hollywood’ is a love letter to our little industry town where dreamers dwell, stars are born, and magic transcends reality.”
“Hollywood” stars David Corenswet as Jack, Darren Criss as Raymond, Jeremy Pope as Archie, Laura Harrier as Camille, Samara Weaving as Claire, Dylan McDermott as Ernie, Holland Taylor as Ellen Kincaid, Patti LuPone as Avis, Jim Parsons as Henry Willson, Jake Picking as Rock Hudson, Joe Mantello as Dick, and Maude Apatow as Henrietta.
The series is executive produced by Murphy and Ian Brennan, along with Criss, Alexis Martin Woodall and Mock, who also serves as a writer and a director.
