Grotesquerie

By starrymag | September 25, 2024

By: Kelly Kearney

 

 

Q) Nicholas, I was wondering what it was like working with Ryan [Murphy] on back-to-back projects like this, completely different characters.

 

Nicholas Alexander Chavez: Well, Ryan [Murphy] is a world builder, um, and it was interesting because I got to work with him on two very, very different worlds. Uh, the Menendez project kind of had a- a context already set for it, right, where we’re, uh, telling the story that’s based on true events that happened in 1989 and the early ’90s. Whereas this project was an entirely new world where the only limitations were, um, our creativity, our imagination, and, um, it was interesting to just be thrown into, uh, the depths of what Ryan is capable of coming up with. And it was an honor and a privilege to experience both.

 

Q) For Ryan [Murphy], I was wondering, how did Travis Kelce get involved and what can you tease about his character?

 

Ryan Murphy: I love Travis [Kelce]. I had a general meeting with Travis Kelce. He, um, had a conversation with me—he- he liked my work, and he said he was interested in getting into acting. We were just talking about that and his future and his interest and what- what’s- what does he want to do during the football season, after football season, and I was just kind of giving him some, I guess, fatherly advice. I always have a motto in my world and in my work that a star is a star is a star. It doesn’t matter what field you’re a star in—if you have that charisma, you are going to bring it to whatever you do. So, it was a very lovely meeting, and it ended me saying, “Okay, well, I’ll keep you in mind and maybe we’ll come up with something,” and he said, “No, I want to do it now. I have- I have three months now and I really would love- do you have anything?” And I was thinking, and we were, I think, just in the starting to get in the pre-production of Grotesquerie and I said, “Well, I have this one part and if you’re interested, I will specifically write it and tailor it for you,” and he said, “I would love that.” So, we were off to the races and the thing about Travis is I directed the first episode he did with Niecy [Nash-Betts], and Niecy and I just instantly loved him and took him by the hand and let him know that he would not, could not fail, and he- he really was amazing. He worked with an acting coach for several months. He showed up off-book, he knew everybody’s lines, he was so professional, he was so committed. He kept saying to me, “I’m real coachable – coach me, coach me.” So, I did, and he ended up being a delight and I would love to continue working with him on this and other things. I cannot say enough about him as a leader, —he’s just the kindest, sweetest, everything you think about him is true.

 

Q) Nicholas, from playing Lyle [Menendez], then now to “Father Charlie,” both these characters are so intense. How did you find time in between to, like, decompress and get back to yourself?

 

Nicholas Alexander Chavez: There was no time in between and there was no decompression. One of the nicer parts about playing “Father Charlie” is that I could really just follow my impulses. And I just trusted my instincts and everyone around me enabled me to make really bold choices. With Lyle, there was intensive, intensive preparation. This one was more so just raw, unbridled impulse.

 

Q) Ryan, there’s a lot of mystery around this show. What can we expect? Would it be a mix of some of your previous shows, your previous teams that you have faced in, uh, your previous show?

 

Ryan Murphy: I mean, look at the cast. I mean, many of them—Courtney [B. Vance], Niecy [Nash-Betts]—I’ve worked with repeatedly, love. It’s a very interesting project, ‘cause it’s- I had just started a new deal and I wanted to write something for myself, which is what this became, so I wrote this, all episodes of it, with Robbie [Jon Robin Baitz] and Joe Baken. And it was kind of a, for me, a very personal piece, it was a meditation on what I think is going on in the world and what we’re all going through. And how we’re feeling like this existential question, are these end times? And if so, what can we do to fight and keep our humanity? And those were the things that I was writing about, and I also wanted to write something very specifically that was- had a procedural element, which I had not done for a while, specifically a crime procedural, I was really interested in that. And lastly, I think if you look at the canon of my work, I always have these sort of, uh, an interest in bogeymen and I was interested in sort of creating a five-year-long odyssey for Niecy and Courtney and- and everybody in the cast where we’re following one of the biggest badass villains of all time and everybody is a suspect and we’re trying to figure out who it is and what they want. I was very interested in that, and I think the show also—differently from what I’ve done – with plays with reality and time. And that was fun to- to work with, and of course I love the new people we’re working with here today—Raven [Goodwin] and Nicholas [Alexander Chavez] and Micaela [Diamond], and I’ve been trying to work with Ms. Lesley Manville since God was a boy back in 2010 or something, so it all came together and I couldn’t be more proud of it. And- and what I like about it is mysterious, like I feel so often in the landscape of television now and entertainment, you are told everything about what you’re watching for three, four months, so by the time you’re watching it, you’re like everything. So, I really kept this under lock and key. We didn’t share the scripts. There are twists galore every week. And that was important to me, was to not sort of- to let people experience the story as it unfolds. I’ve not done that a lot in my career, but this is something I wanted to do.

 

Q) Niecy [Nash-Betts], you have a lot of horror in your résumé—you also have a lot of comedy in your résumé. How does horror allow you tap into your artistry in a way comedy doesn’t?

 

Niecy Nash-Betts: Well, it is said that people who can make you laugh can make you cry, but the reverse is not always true. So, I’m grateful that I have a duality in my art. I didn’t know because I wasn’t welcomed into the drama side for a long time. I didn’t know how cathartic it was, I did not know how healing it could be sometimes to be able to revisit emotions and be able to share them on screen. I’m so, so grateful for Ryan [Murphy] because this opportunity, especially in this genre, is not typically led by Black women. I’m very grateful that I can unpack some of my own mayhem and foolishness through this series, so thank you, Ryan.

 

Ryan Murphy: Mmm.

 

Courtney B. Vance: Mayhem and foolishness.

 

Niecy Nash-Betts: Yeah!

 

Courtney B. Vance: I love that.

 

Q) Micaela [Diamond], what was the challenges of playing a nun? And for anyone else, was there a scary moment on the set?

 

Micaela Diamond: I think audiences have been tortured by nuns for a very long time. And of course, there’s the Ryan Murphy nun-ography and there’s also stories of Magdalene Laundries and there’s Doubt. I think the challenge of it was just figuring out who this one was. I think nuns are really concealed and inaccessible, so your fantasy about them can kind of run wild. And they’re also sometimes pure and innocent and end up quite corrupt and hypocritical, and I think the horror nun genre kind of cracks open the question of, um, if nuns have trouble being good, what happens to the rest of us? It’s that question that kind of runs through the entirety of the series. Was our life good or evil? Have we done well or ill, which is- I just butchered a Steinbeck quote, I think, from East of Eden. But, yeah, I think playing a nun, you can justify many, many choices when- when you’re given a Ryan Murphy show to- to play in. So, it was fun to kind of surprise myself on set and see- see what I came up with.

 

Ryan [Murphy] and uh, it’s more about trends—religious horror has become one of the whole trends on TV and film now. Why, and how would- keeping this in mind, how would you describe the flavor of Grotesquerie?

 

Ryan Murphy: I would call Grotesquerie a horror, thriller, drama in that- in that order. One of the things I also love is, you know, it’s following a serial killer, it’s a procedural. It is also about a family, with Niecy [Nash-Betts] and Courtney [B. Vance] and Raven [Goodwin], which I love, and Travis Kelce is a part of that family at some point. Um, I’ll tell you why I like it, which is all I can ever do. I like watching horror because it makes you feel something. It demands that you have a reaction. And most of the time, you do. And I feel that about also romantic comedies—like, anything that makes you feel love, fear, something, as opposed to being a passive view, is very good, particularly now in the world we live in. And it’s escapism, and I think people also- I know this because I’ve heard this from so many people who watch my work. We live in a very anxious world, and I think when you’re watching a horror show like Grotesquerie, you can put all of the anxieties you’re feeling into a box. You can kind of deal with them in that way. I certainly feel that way when I watch something, and also, usually horror is good versus evil, which is a very profound sentiment which I think we’re dealing in- in the world a lot right now. It’s a way to explore those feelings, and- and sometimes our helplessness, and I think horror, lastly, just really puts an order in the world and we all want to live in a world of order, not chaos, and I think that is ultimately what Grotesquerie is about.

 

Q) Ryan, I was curious if you could explain how your experience working on Grotesquerie compared to your previous horror shows.

 

Ryan Murphy: Hm. That’s a very interesting question. It was a different experience for me. It was a very cool experience because I sort of feel like I wrote all of it at once, it was a very personal experience. I didn’t really have a big writers’ room, there were three of us, and I was writing something very personal to me about what I thought was happening in the world, so that was different. Um, I also love the process of the casting of it, which was very different for me. When I cast Niecy [Nash-Betts] and Courtney [B. Vance] and Raven [Goodwin] and Nick [Nicholas Alexander Chavez] and Lesley [Manville] and Micaela [Diamond], like, I would do two, three drafts of all of the- the scripts to really pinpoint it, not just to the actors I was working with, what their talents were, but what I wanted as a fan to see them do. So that was very different—it was pushed, um, and I rewrote all of those parts for these specific actors with their input and advice and what they liked and what they didn’t. And also, it was a much more free I think, set because at this point in my career, I’m really not in- interested in the outcome, I’m interested in the process. So, for example, there’s a scene in Episode 3 where Micaela just had to walk down the hallway and go down the stairs. And we had a little extra time and I said, “I would like you to do this scene as if you were possessed. And she was shocked, but we spent an hour doing it and it was fun and it was loose and visual. And, um, that was a different experience, I think, on this show, it was much more fluid and written with love for new and old collaborators, I think. And also, like, you know, Lesley, for example, I’d always wanted to work with Lesley. And I really wrote this role for her specifically, like everything that I had always wanted to see her do or say or how she looked. I guess I came at it from a fanboy approach, this show, this season specifically, but it was very rewarding. I loved doing it.

 

Q) This question’s for the members of the “Tryon” family. So, this show obviously has an unhuman element as, uh, was mentioned in the trailer, but you guys have the difficult task of really grounding it in a familial conflict. What was that like? What was the balance process like for you guys?

 

Ryan Murphy: You go.

 

Courtney B. Vance: Well, you know, in our talks this morning, I really felt that the horror was in our family.

 

(Laughter)

 

Courtney B. Vance: We could have done a much better job of—I mean, she’s dealing with demons and nuns and priests and fathers and oh my. And then, she comes home and she’s dealing with worse. So, I mean, I really felt that we…which is very—that’s what our world is today. People, I really think they’re going to be able to identify with the fact that all the drama that’s in families and how difficult it is to deal with the family unit. And so, there’s a lot of discussion points to be had, I felt. And you know, this one, Niecy [Nash-Betts], about a month or two prior to me getting the call from Ryan [Murphy], I saw her at an event. And I said, “You know, we need to do something.”

 

Ryan Murphy: Mm-hm.

 

Niecy Nash-Betts: He did.

 

Courtney B. Vance: And all of a sudden, there it was. And this one here [Niecy Nash-Betts], I just—whew, I love this one here. Anyway, you, what did you think?

 

Raven Goodwin: You know, I think…I think about the same. Mom [“Lois Tryon”] is—what did I say earlier, she’s infected in every aspect of her life—emotionally, spiritually, mentally. And to come home and try to nurture the unnurturable (sic) and trying to help people who clearly need to help themselves is all the battle. So, it was a joy.

 

Niecy Nash-Betts: You know what I said earlier?

 

Raven Goodwin: What?

 

Niecy Nash-Betts: I said I feel like at some point, “Lois” was a public success but a private failure. And then, some of that started to seep over into her work. So, it’s a mess all around but a delicious mess.

 

Raven Goodwin: All around. All around.

 

Q) Ryan, you just mentioned you are asking existential questions about humanity, good versus evil, and I applaud you for doing so because we need it. But do you ever find answers and in which way does it finding (sic) answers? And maybe the actors would like to jump in, as well.

 

Ryan Murphy: I did, writing this. I really did. When we were writing it, we were studying a lot of philosophy and we were studying a lot of sort of existential questions. And there’s one scene, we wrote something about a phrase…I think Courtney [B. Vance] says that, it says something like, “Your words are your actions.” It’s just little lessons like that about how you deal with what comes at you in life. And what I love about it is I love that everyone in the cast is really—their characters, as screwed up as they are and funny and damaged, they’re all looking for the light. They’re all looking for either love or optimism or hope, and they’re not giving up. They’re trying to restore order, sometimes in a very warped, fantastical way. And I felt that was, you know, really wonderful to write to. Most horror pieces, I think, also can get very violent and sort of cynical. And I feel like this definitely has raciness and some action, but it’s not cynical. It’s about the search for hope and light in a dark place. That’s what ultimately I found and what I was interested in writing about. And it gave me hope. You know, we premiere this week, I’ve just finished editing the last of the episodes for this season. And I think as shocking as the show is—and it is very shocking—it also gives you hope. And make no mistake, our last episode airs on October 30^th, right before the election, and I think that that’s kind of what we’re writing about. It’s kind of what we’re dealing with. And it gives you something to think about. At least I was thinking about it, as we go into the next phase of our country’s life. I found that to be very profound.

 

Q) Lesley, earlier Ryan [Murphy] mentioned that he’d been trying to work with you for a while. What specifically about Grotesquerie helped actually make that happen?

 

Lesley Manville: Well, listen, I mean, it always has to start with scripts, doesn’t it? And as Ryan [Murphy] said to you just now, I was really…well, flattered and impressed by the way he did tailor it for me to play “Nurse Redd.” And clearly for everybody, that was what he was doing. And isn’t that the best possible way to work? Other than just saying, “Here’s me, I’ve got my view and you’ve just got to be the conduit to make my ideas work,” he actually made it a collaboration, where I could say what I thought about Redd and where she might go. But I mean, really, she was pretty much there. She’s such an extraordinary character. I don’t want to get out of bed and play the same character every week, every month, every year. I want to play people that are different from the person I’ve played before and certainly hopefully not like me. And this ticked the box in many, many ways. And of course, it was, I don’t know, 10, 12 years ago that we met and finally, there it was. And I thought it was rich pickings. And the way he went with it, the way Ryan shifted her and listened. The beauty of this whole piece which is so many ingredients, there’s humor in this piece, as well. And I find it quite—the way we shot it and the way we all worked together, there was a kind of freedom and therefore for me reminded me of a theatre rehearsal room. There was a real kind of theatricality about it. And all of us—I mean, practically all of my stuff was with Niecy [Nash-Betts] and Courtney [B. Vance]—I mean, hooray, lucky me—and we would just—I felt every day we were there and we were able to just go in and see what came. And mostly, it was pretty damn good. And I suppose now that I’m hearing that everyone was having their say about where their characters should go, that’s all part—if you give actors—good actors—some rope, you know, we don’t usually squander it.

 

Courtney B. Vance: Nicely said.

 

Q) For Niecy [Nash-Betts] and Courtney [B. Vance], what has it been like to work on a horror project like Grotesquerie, as both an executive producer and an actor?

 

Courtney B. Vance: Well, you know, it’s just more opportunity to collaborate, for me. This work we do is about people. And I think when we lose sight of the fact, that “what do you think” and “what do you feel,” we get in trouble. Because it’s really about—you know, Ryan [Murphy] has the ideas but he’s smart enough and big enough to know that, you know, what does she think about what I said? Does that work for you, does that work for you, does it work? And if it don’t work, he’ll, “Okay, well, let me go back and think about it.” And I so love that.

 

Niecy Nash-Betts: Well, I have to say, as soon as Ryan [Murphy] told me you were playing “Marshall Tryon”—

 

Courtney B. Vance: You were ready to leave.

 

Niecy Nash-Betts: …my husband, I immediately trusted it. Because I’ve been in the scripts with you before, worked with you before, understand the work ethic. And then, it also made me look at Ryan and go, “You know, now, that man is good. That’s some good ol’ casting Ryan did there,” you know? And I love being a part of the creative process. You’re an amazing collaborator and I love that you hear, that you listen, that you lean in and you feel like your actors add value. And that’s a safe space to be in, so thank you.

 

Ryan Murphy: You’re welcome. Thank you.

 

Courtney B. Vance: Thank you.

 

Ryan Murphy: I will just add to that. You know, I would say it’s interesting when you work with these world-class talents, and I’ve worked with many. But you know, for example, when we were casting the role of “Merritt” that Raven [Goodwin] plays, you know, I really was interested—particularly in the first five episodes, there were so many episodes between them, I was like, “Well, Niecy [Nash-Betts], who do you want? What are you looking for? What turns you on for an actor?” And she was very involved in all of those auditions. And you know, it was so collaborative in that way, as opposed to—and I think it led to a deeper connection because somebody chose you. And it was just fascinating and I like to do that. Again, at this point, I’m not so much interested in the outcome as the process of the making of something and how you make it. And almost all of the lead actors on my shows have executive producer credits for that reason, because I want to know what they think.

 

Niecy Nash-Betts: It was so funny because early on, I sent you a picture. It was me, you, and Raven [Goodwin], all in a line. I was like, “Don’t this make a beautiful family, Ryan? Look at this.” Sure did.

 

Ryan Murphy: She did say that.

 

Q) Lesley because, like Ryan [Murphy], I am also obsessed with her. And I felt like your resume does not have a lot of horror on it. You haven’t really done much in this genre. So, I’d like to hear about how this sort of experience dabbling in this kind of genre was for you.

 

Lesley Manville: Well, “Nurse Redd” isn’t really involved in the horror aspects of the story. But nevertheless, you’re quite right, it’s not really a genre that I’ve dealt with before. Which was another reason to say yes, really. I feel like I can’t really answer that because I’m not great at watching horror. So, this is going to be an experience for me, because I am going to keep my eyes absolutely wide open, and I’m going to commit to every frame of this series. So, it’s kind of going to be a first for me watching. So, there you go. But no, Nurse Redd is…I mean, she’s horrific in many ways but she’s not actually involved with the crimes as such. So, yeah, sorry I can’t elaborate on that for you much more.

 

Q) I’d like to ask Ryan, you worked quite a bit with Robbie [Jon Robin] Baitz now, who I love as a playwright. What does he bring to you as a writer, how does he complement you?

 

Ryan Murphy: Well, we’re old friends and there could not be two more opposite people in the world, you know? I think Robbie [Jon Robin Baitz] is a true intellectual. He really is kind of incredibly brilliant and literary. And a playwright, so he looks at the world from a very different way than I work. And I’ve loved working with him, and we have so many things coming out. The thing I liked the most about working with Robbie is we really talk about ideas before we do anything now, which is new for me. And it’s a deeper process and I think because we’re working on so many things, he was very passionate about this world, about the world of existential dread. Because he can talk about those things in a very Mike Nichols way, he elevates things and he looks at things in a different way. And I love our collaboration because I think I’m much more gut and he’s much more cerebral, and I think the friction of that in our work is interesting to me.

 

 

*PRESS CONFERENCE*