Ryan Murphy’s Grotesquerie
Prolific writer, director and producer Ryan Murphy is hitting the headlines in the US media this fall with big premieres on ABC, FX/Disney+, and Netflix. In recent days, Murphy was heavily criticized for his interpretation of the Menendez murder case for Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. At the same time, his Doctor Odyssey has turned into one of the biggest hits for ABC reaching nearly 14 million viewers with the premiere episode. But the show that has really grabbed the attention this fall, not just because of football star and Taylor Swift beau Travis Kelce making his acting debut, is FX’s Grotesquerie.
Ryan Murphy
Even though horror is not a new genre for Murphy, this project is “very personal” to him, as he explains during the official press conference celebrating the premiere of the show. I sit and watch attentively the video conference and can’t help but notice the special atmosphere of the event with Murphy sitting calm and humble amid the star cast in a setting reminiscent of a family portrait; a true father-figure surrounded by his collaborators, answering the questions of journalists from around the world. That feeling was further reiterated by the actors who would all stress that their roles were written specifically for them while often looking at him, tapping him on the shoulder or holding his hand to thank him in a heartfelt way.
While talking about the work process, Murphy admits that he gave executive producer roles to almost all of the actors “because I want to know what they think.” At the same time, he notes that he wrote the piece for himself as “a meditation on what I think is going on in the world and what we’re all going through.” He also praises his collaboration with Jon Robin Baitz “because I think I’m much more gut and he’s much more cerebral, and I think the friction of that in our work is interesting to me.”
The project is even more special to Murphy since he is now in a “new phase” of his career after signing a new deal with Disney last year (his previous 5-year contract with Netflix was reportedly worth $300 million).
“I would do two, three drafts of all of the scripts to really pinpoint it, not just to the actors I was working with, what their talents were, but what I wanted as a fan to see them do. So that was very different—it was pushed, and I rewrote all of those parts for these specific actors with their input and advice and what they liked and what they didn’t,” he says while adding that now he is not that interested in the outcome, but more in the process of making a show.
Answering my question about the nature and flavor of the show, Murphy says: “I would call Grotesquerie a horror, thriller, drama in that order. One of the things I also love is, you know, it’s following a serial killer, it’s a procedural. It is also about a family […] I like watching horror because it makes you feel something. It demands that you have a reaction. […] We live in a very anxious world, and I think when you’re watching a horror show like Grotesquerie, you can put all of the anxieties you’re feeling into a box. You can kind of deal with them in that way. […] It’s a way to explore those feelings, and sometimes our helplessness, and I think horror, lastly, just really puts an order in the world and we all want to live in a world of order, not chaos, and I think that is ultimately what Grotesquerie is about.”
And here the transformations of the characters, or if you wish their grotesqueries really come into play to tackle “the existential question: are these end times? And if so, what can we do to fight and keep our humanity?” To Murphy, the very answer is hidden in the essence of the protagonists who are “all looking for either love or optimism or hope, and they’re not giving up.”
“It’s about the search for hope and light in a dark place. That’s what ultimately I found and what I was interested in writing about. And it gave me hope,” the creator explains.
In that process, Murphy became this type of a father-figure for the whole cast. It all started with his “fatherly advice” (as he puts it) to Travis Kelce which later turned into a commitment for the role of hospital nurse Ed “Eddie” Laclan which he promised to specifically write and tailor to Kelce.
Niecy Nash-Betts, who plays the main character Detective Tryon, underscores the importance of this approach in a deep way: “I’m so, so grateful for you Ryan because this opportunity, especially in this genre, is not typically led by Black women. I’m very grateful that I can unpack some of my own, uh, mayhem and foolishness through this series, so thank you, Ryan.”
Looking at him and holding his hands warmly, she adds: “You’re an amazing collaborator and I love that you hear, that you listen, that you lean in and you feel like your actors add value. And that’s a safe space to be in, so thank you.”
Lesley Manville, who plays Nurse Redd, shares similar emotions about her collaboration with Murphy: “I was really...well, flattered and impressed by the way he did tailor it for me to play Nurse Redd. And clearly for everybody, that was what he was doing. And isn’t that the best possible way to work? […] Other than just saying, “Here’s me, I’ve got my view and you’ve just got to be the conduit to make my ideas work,” he actually made it a collaboration, where I could say what I thought about Redd and where she might go.”
Syncing with her words, Murpphy says: “I’d always wanted to work with Lesley. And I really wrote this role for her specifically, like everything that I had always wanted to see her do or say or how she looked. I guess I came at it from a fanboy approach, this show, this season specifically, but it was very rewarding. I loved doing it.”
Courtney B. Vance, who plays Marshall Tryon, perhaps best summarizes the emotions of the cast while looking at Murphy straight into the eyes and taps him affectionately: “Because it’s really about, Ryan [who] has the ideas but he’s smart enough and big enough to know that, you know, what does she think about what I said?”
In this warm, family-like atmosphere at the end of the event “the father-figure” of Ryan Murhpy in the process of developing Grotesquerie emerges even more prominently and he is certainly ready to continue in that role of his: “I was interested in sort of creating a five-year-long odyssey for Niecy and Courtney and everybody in the cast where we’re following one of the biggest badass villains of all time and everybody is a suspect and we’re trying to figure out who it is and what they want.”
So, to be continued.
While talking about the work process, Murphy admits that he gave executive producer roles to almost all of the actors “because I want to know what they think.” At the same time, he notes that he wrote the piece for himself as “a meditation on what I think is going on in the world and what we’re all going through.” He also praises his collaboration with Jon Robin Baitz “because I think I’m much more gut and he’s much more cerebral, and I think the friction of that in our work is interesting to me.”
The project is even more special to Murphy since he is now in a “new phase” of his career after signing a new deal with Disney last year (his previous 5-year contract with Netflix was reportedly worth $300 million).
“I would do two, three drafts of all of the scripts to really pinpoint it, not just to the actors I was working with, what their talents were, but what I wanted as a fan to see them do. So that was very different—it was pushed, and I rewrote all of those parts for these specific actors with their input and advice and what they liked and what they didn’t,” he says while adding that now he is not that interested in the outcome, but more in the process of making a show.
Answering my question about the nature and flavor of the show, Murphy says: “I would call Grotesquerie a horror, thriller, drama in that order. One of the things I also love is, you know, it’s following a serial killer, it’s a procedural. It is also about a family […] I like watching horror because it makes you feel something. It demands that you have a reaction. […] We live in a very anxious world, and I think when you’re watching a horror show like Grotesquerie, you can put all of the anxieties you’re feeling into a box. You can kind of deal with them in that way. […] It’s a way to explore those feelings, and sometimes our helplessness, and I think horror, lastly, just really puts an order in the world and we all want to live in a world of order, not chaos, and I think that is ultimately what Grotesquerie is about.”
And here the transformations of the characters, or if you wish their grotesqueries really come into play to tackle “the existential question: are these end times? And if so, what can we do to fight and keep our humanity?” To Murphy, the very answer is hidden in the essence of the protagonists who are “all looking for either love or optimism or hope, and they’re not giving up.”
“It’s about the search for hope and light in a dark place. That’s what ultimately I found and what I was interested in writing about. And it gave me hope,” the creator explains.
In that process, Murphy became this type of a father-figure for the whole cast. It all started with his “fatherly advice” (as he puts it) to Travis Kelce which later turned into a commitment for the role of hospital nurse Ed “Eddie” Laclan which he promised to specifically write and tailor to Kelce.
Niecy Nash-Betts, who plays the main character Detective Tryon, underscores the importance of this approach in a deep way: “I’m so, so grateful for you Ryan because this opportunity, especially in this genre, is not typically led by Black women. I’m very grateful that I can unpack some of my own, uh, mayhem and foolishness through this series, so thank you, Ryan.”
Looking at him and holding his hands warmly, she adds: “You’re an amazing collaborator and I love that you hear, that you listen, that you lean in and you feel like your actors add value. And that’s a safe space to be in, so thank you.”
Lesley Manville, who plays Nurse Redd, shares similar emotions about her collaboration with Murphy: “I was really...well, flattered and impressed by the way he did tailor it for me to play Nurse Redd. And clearly for everybody, that was what he was doing. And isn’t that the best possible way to work? […] Other than just saying, “Here’s me, I’ve got my view and you’ve just got to be the conduit to make my ideas work,” he actually made it a collaboration, where I could say what I thought about Redd and where she might go.”
Syncing with her words, Murpphy says: “I’d always wanted to work with Lesley. And I really wrote this role for her specifically, like everything that I had always wanted to see her do or say or how she looked. I guess I came at it from a fanboy approach, this show, this season specifically, but it was very rewarding. I loved doing it.”
Courtney B. Vance, who plays Marshall Tryon, perhaps best summarizes the emotions of the cast while looking at Murphy straight into the eyes and taps him affectionately: “Because it’s really about, Ryan [who] has the ideas but he’s smart enough and big enough to know that, you know, what does she think about what I said?”
In this warm, family-like atmosphere at the end of the event “the father-figure” of Ryan Murhpy in the process of developing Grotesquerie emerges even more prominently and he is certainly ready to continue in that role of his: “I was interested in sort of creating a five-year-long odyssey for Niecy and Courtney and everybody in the cast where we’re following one of the biggest badass villains of all time and everybody is a suspect and we’re trying to figure out who it is and what they want.”
So, to be continued.
