If you were ever a fan of Glee, then you’d be very familiar with the work of Ryan Murphy.
Since directing the talented kids at William McKinley High School, the writer and producer has gone on to create seven TV series including the American Horror Story franchise, Scream Queens, Pose and Netflix’s The Politician.
Keeping it in the Netflix family, Murphy is now at the helm of a new creation, television series Hollywood, which will be released on Netflix on May 1, 2020.
Set in Tinseltown in the 1940s (post-WWII), the period drama follows “an ambitious group of aspiring actors and filmmakers will do almost anything to make their showbiz dreams come true.”
“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’,” Producer Janet Mock said in a statement.
“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 colour? The matinée 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,” Mock added.
Australian actor Samara Weaving (Picnic at Hanging Rock) leads the cast as Claire, an actress with hidden connections while Laura Harrier (BlacKkKlansman) plays striving starlet Camille and Michelle Krusiec (Shooter) stars as Hollywood’s first Chinese-American movie star, Anna May Wong.
Glee alum Darren Criss, who won an Emmy, Golden Globe, Critics Choice and a Screen Actors Guild award, for his turn as Andrew Cunanan in American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, stars as Raymond, an up-and-coming director, alongside Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory) who plays agent Henry Wilson, Jeremy Pope (Ain’t Too Proud on Broadway) as screenwriter Archie and one-to-watch, David Corenswet (The Politician), as aspiring actor Jack.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Murphy extravaganza without some serious star power dropping in for some cameos including Queen Latifah, Joe Mantello, Maude Apatow and Broadway star Patti LuPone.
Frankly, this looks absolutely fabulous!
Hollywood is set to premiere on Netflix on May 1, 2020.
WATCH: Hollywood, the official trailer.