'Hollywood' Trailer: Ryan Murphy Tells An Alternate History Of Tinseltown In Latest Netflix Limited Series
Revisionist stories seem to be all the rage lately, especially revisionist stories about the Golden Age of Hollywood. After Quentin Tarantino took a revisionist brush to the dying gasp of the Golden Age in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ryan Murphy is tackling postwar Tinseltown with his latest Netflix limited series. Hollywood, co-created with frequent collaborator Ian Brennan, follows a group of actors and filmmakers as they mingle with both real and fictional movie stars in post-World War II Hollywood, and attempt to "change the world." Watch the Hollywood trailer below.
Hollywood Trailer
Hollywood shows the Golden Age of Tinseltown as a little different than how history remembers it. Centering around a group of actors and writers of color who break into the Hollywood studio system, Hollywood takes advantage of its revisionist angle by tackling issues of race and politics in its glamorous vision of Hollywood.
Series director and writer Janet Mock stated, "We turned to the past for direction, uncovering buried history to spin an aspirational tale of what ifs: 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 color? The matinee 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."
The cast includes a number of Murphy regulars and newcomers, including 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 — certainly looks the part in the above images. But the most uncanny resemblance is Michelle Krusiec as Anna May Wong, with the Taiwanese-American actress proving to be a dead ringer for the Asian-American icon.
Here is the synopsis for Hollywood:
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.
Hollywood premieres on Netflix on May 1, 2020.