Here’s the Trailer For Ryan Murphy’s Ambitious New Netflix Series Hollywood

Ryan Murphy taking on Hollywood in the glamorous (and often odious) period after World War II? Yeah, that sounds like a series we could get into. Netflix has revealed the first trailer for Murphy’s glam, grand, intriguing new series, which takes on Hollywood’s Golden Age by following a slew of up-and-coming actors and filmmakers as they attempt to succeed in a town that crushes dreams as quickly as it makes them.

What makes Murphy’s Hollywood fascinating is that it’s not just a glitzy look at what Hollywood was like when the dinosaurs of the industry were in total, unquestioned control. Instead, the limited series will examine what Hollywood might have been like if those old power structures that kept women down and minorities largely invisible had been dismantled from the inside. The characters that Murphy has focused on were all bullied and menaced, in ways overt and subtle, by the old Hollywood system. But what if an African American actress had, instead of being shunted off to a tiny role, instead become a leading lady in roles commensurate with her talent? What if the legendary actor Rock Hudson (played by Jake Picking) had been allowed to be openly gay and keep his career?

This is an intriguing premise, and there are few TV creators as ambitious or as successful as Murphy. The cast is large and excellent, as it always is in a Murphy series, and includes Darren Criss, Laura Harrier, Patti LuPone, Dylan McDermott and more.

Check out the Hollywood trailer below.

Here’s the official synopsis:

A new limited series from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, HOLLYWOOD 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. 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.

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 Co-Creators Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, along with Alexis Martin Woodall and Janet Mock, who also serves as a writer and a director.

Featured image: Michelle Krusiec and Laura Harrier in Hollywood. Photo by SAEED ADYANI/NETFLIX.