\n\tThe longtime Murphy collaborator has appeared in nine seasons of American Horror Story and will return for its 13th installment. He\u2019s often taken on Murphy\u2019s darkest roles \u2014 most recently, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in 2022\u2019s Monster, which earned him an Emmy nomination.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn FX<\/a>\u2019s The Beauty, Peters plays Cooper Madsen, an FBI agent investigating supermodel deaths linked to a mysterious drug that can be injected \u2014 or transmitted through sex \u2014 that transforms users into more physically perfect versions of themselves.<\/p>\n \n\tHis partner, Jordan Bennett, initially played by Rebecca Hall<\/a>, transforms into a different person<\/a> in episode two after contracting the drug in Rome; Jessica Alexander takes over the role from there. As the case intensifies, Cooper and Jordan finally move beyond their friends-with-benefits dynamic and admit their feelings.<\/p>\n \n\tWhen Dr. Diana (Ari Graynor) unveils a plan to stop Byron (Ashton Kutcher) and his trillion-dollar empire from taking the drug public in episode nine, Cooper volunteers to take it himself to bypass facial recognition at Byron\u2019s corporation. Instead of injecting it, he contracts it by sleeping with Jordan \u2014 leading to the season\u2019s most brutal sequence, as his bones crack and his body contorts. But rather than becoming an unrecognizable adult, Cooper transforms into a young boy.<\/p>\n \n\tIn the finale, desperate to change back, Cooper tries a test reverse version of the drug. The episode ends with Jeremy (Jeremy Pope), The Assassin (Anthony Ramos) and Jordan staring in shock at the unseen result.<\/p>\n \n\tSpeaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Peters reflects on filming that painful transformation, the finale\u2019s twists and how it sets up a potential second season. He also teased what fans can expect from the upcoming \u201cgreatest-hits\u201d season of American Horror Story and shares how \u201cshocked\u201d he was to learn Jessica Lange would be returning ahead of The Beauty\u2019s premiere. (Click here for that info<\/a>.) <\/p>\n \n\t***<\/p>\n \n\tThe transformation scenes from taking \u201cThe Beauty\u201d drug are really intense and physical \u2014 how did you prepare for that, and what was the hardest part to shoot?<\/p>\n \n\tMark Fichera and Jason Mello are our stunt team, and they worked really hard to develop a previs with a lot of different moves, a lot of wire work. They had contortionists. Ryan worked very hard to fine-tune it. The main note was just pain, writhing pain, (laughs) thirst and a fever that is unlike any you\u2019ve ever had before. It was intense, but ultimately fun to shoot. It was hard, but interesting. I\u2019ve never done anything like that before, and I did not know I could do a backbend. (Laughs.) I can\u2019t ever do one again. There\u2019s a take where I did bend and actually, I think I pulled my back. I was screaming like, \u201cThat\u2019s real!\u201d (Laughs.) That pain is really, really real.<\/p>\n \n\tYour transformation had a huge twist \u2014 you turned into a young boy. What was your reaction when you found out that was happening? As an executive producer on the series, did you have any say in that decision?<\/p>\n \n\tOh, no, no. There are a lot of executive producers, but really, there\u2019s only one, and that is Mr. Ryan Murphy. I didn\u2019t see that coming. I was like, \u201cSo, what are we gonna do? Who\u2019s gonna play [me]? What\u2019s happening?\u201d And then he told me it was going to be a little boy. I was open to anything, and the fact that it was that was shocking and exciting. I\u2019m curious to see how the audience responds. I think it\u2019s funny, especially Jessica [Alexander]\u2019s performance, after the love of her life turns into a little boy. So there\u2019s a lot of a lot to play around with in there. I\u2019m curious to see how people take that.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tHudson Barry as young Cooper in The Beauty episode 11. <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJeffrey Neira\/FX<\/p>\n \n\tThe show ends with young Cooper trying to reverse things without revealing whether it actually worked. Was that always the plan to end the season that way, or did it evolve over time?<\/p>\n \n\tI honestly don\u2019t know. We didn\u2019t know until we got those scripts midway through. So I think Ryan and the writers were developing that idea as they went along, and then settled on it. But it sets it up for season two. The episodes are very short and generally end on a cliffhanger. You really want to know what\u2019s happening, so it makes you want to binge it. Personally, I really want to know what season two looks like. What the world looks like with \u201cThe Beauty\u201d everywhere now, and people getting it on purpose and what that feels like. I think it sets it up for that nicely.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat do you want to see for Jordan and Cooper\u2019s relationship in the future? Are you hopeful for them?<\/p>\n \n\tThe whole series \u2014 the beginning of the series, and in the scenes that [Rebecca Hall] shot as Jordan \u2014 you\u2019re rooting for them the whole way through. You want them to express their feelings, be together and stop the fronts, which is why you should do it right out of the gate. Just say how you feel, be with the person you\u2019re supposed to be with. Speak your truth. I hope that for them, they can do that.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tJessica Alexander and Evan Peters in The Beauty episode eight. <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFX<\/p>\n \n\tWere you on set for scenes after your character transformed, and did you give any pointers to the actor who took over playing Cooper for the remaining episodes?<\/p>\n \n\tI didn\u2019t get to meet the young Coop. And, you know, he didn\u2019t need any help from me; the kid was great.<\/p>\n \n\tSince The Beauty isn\u2019t an anthology series and seems to be ongoing, have you and Ryan Murphy had any early conversations about what you envision for its future? And do you have ideas for your characters\u2019 arcs in mind?<\/p>\n \n\tI don\u2019t know. The comic book series starts with the world already having \u201cThe Beauty\u201d out for a while. So there\u2019s a lot of different aspects to it, like an Oprah type talk show host who has \u201cThe Beauty\u201d who is an advocate for people with \u201cThe Beauty\u201d and all these different things. And then there\u2019s this underground sex club where people are actively going down there to get infected with \u201cThe Beauty,\u201d and just what does that world look like? I\u2019m curious to see how Ryan would develop that and put that on the screen, because it\u2019ll be interesting. Fingers crossed.<\/p>\n \n\t***<\/p>\n \n\tAll episodes of The Beauty are currently streaming on Hulu. Check out all of\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter\u2018s\u00a0The Beauty\u00a0coverage here<\/a>,\u00a0including our\u00a0premiere interviews with Ashton Kutcher<\/a>, Bella Hadid<\/a>, Rebecca Hall<\/a> and finale interview with Anthony Ramos and Jeremy Pope<\/a> and a\u00a0full cast and characters list<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from The Beauty\u00a0season one finale, \u201cBeautiful Betrayal.\u201d] Evan Peters finally got to play…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88,118953,11492,171351,11494,179425],"class_list":["post-505017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-evan-peters","tag-fx","tag-rebecca-hall","tag-ryan-murphy","tag-the-beauty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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