“Human beauty is a conceptually complicated thing”: Evan Peters, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope, Ashton Kutcher and Rebecca Hall on The Beauty

TV powerhouse Ryan Murphy is back with his most ambitious project yet. The Beauty is an unapologetic rebuttal to the increasingly extreme aesthetic standards that have seemingly become ubiquitous. Ashton Kutcher plays ruthless tech billionaire, the Corporation, who invents the titular Beauty, an aesthetic enhancement to make supposedly unattractive people morph into idealised versions of themselves. Except, the beauty is also a virus, creating an epidemic of ultraviolent beautiful people.

Speaking at a virtual press conference with his castmates, Kutcher discussed the mainstream normalisation of aesthetic enhancements. “We have this increasing demand for cosmetic surgery,” he said, adding, “And the question is: what are you willing to sacrifice for that? … What risks are you willing to take? And I think that that’s incredibly poignant.”

Rebecca Hall and Evan Peters play FBI agents (and lovers) Jordan Bennett and Cooper Madsen, who travel across Europe investigating the virus. Hall praised Murphy for tapping into the cultural zeitgeist with the show, encouraging viewers to question their own perceptions of beauty. “Human beauty is a sort of conceptually complicated thing,” she reflected. “It’s not like nature. It’s not like looking at a sunrise or something that’s objective. It’s subjective. So the idea that you can pay for perfection and therefore you’re handing over your idea of it to someone who is taking your money and might want more of it is complicated.”

Anthony Ramos, who plays the Assassin, a henchman of the Corporation, revealed that he has been on the receiving end of unsolicited critique regarding his appearance. “It’s all a part of our culture in a big way, and I think that this show talks about that on a deep level,” he said.

Peters and Hall have a natural chemistry in the series, and the actors were asked whether there might be more to Cooper and Jordan’s casual friends-with-benefits dynamic. “They both think that there’s nothing more to it, although it’s a complete lie, and they’re just refusing to be vulnerable with each other. And so there’s a lot of unspoken nonsense, and they should just get on with it,” she quipped. Peters agreed, noting, “You’re kind of rooting for them, one of them to sort of speak up and say, ‘Well, wait a minute, I don’t want you to see other people, I just want to see you,’ you know?”

Another duo who have fantastic chemistry and a complicated relationship are the Assassin and the looksmaxxing-obsessed Jeremy (Jeremy Pope). Over time, we see a softer side to the Assassin through his rapport with Jeremy. “I think that there’s a level of loneliness and a void that I think that Jeremy fills, you know, a hole in the Assassin’s soul or heart,” Ramos offered. Pope shared such sentiments, stating, “The Assassin has spent a lot of time alone. And I think the same for the character Jeremy, who, you know, is described as an incel, an involuntary celibate, who is looking for connection and affection. So I think in this moment he gets to meet someone who sees him and appreciates the weirdness that he is.”

As with Ramos, Kutcher tried to see the humanity in his dislikable character, drawing inspiration from an unlikely place: the Unabomber. “I was reading Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto and, you know, you can follow his train of thought for a lot of it… And then you get to, like, Article 94, where he’s like, ‘And so I needed to kill a bunch of people’… No, you jumped the shark there… but, every so-called villain can rationalise their behaviour.”

Conversely, Peters, who played serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Murphy’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, was asked how he felt about playing a benevolent character for a change. “It’s a relief,” he enthused, continuing, “When he pitched it to me, he said, ‘There’s going to be some great action sequences. And there’s a complicated romance with Jordan, played by Rebecca Hall’ … And he said he just wanted me to be normal. Just to try to be myself, which was difficult.”

Asked about the goals of the characters, Peters quipped, “I think first off is to figure out why people are exploding!”