Netflix Teases Darren Criss in Ryan Murphy’s ‘Hollywood’: See The First Photos

Ryan Murphy is giving us a peek at his latest creation by taking us back to the Golden Age of film; and it’s full of dramatic furs, shiny vintage cars and plenty of cocktails and cigarettes. The producer who brought us Glee, American Horror Story and Pose is back at it with his latest series, Hollywood, a drama coming to Netflix in May.

The series, which Murphy created with Ian Brennan, is produced by Janet Mock, who also worked on Pose. And judging by the photos released yesterday (April 2), the cast is stacked with stars, many of them familiar to fans of Murphy’s work. Darren Criss, Holland Taylor and Dylan McDermott have all worked with Murphy on recent projects before Hollywood, but the series is also featuring Queen Latifah, Maude Apatow and Samara Weaving. The full cast includes Jeremy Pope, Patti LuPone, Jim Parsons, David Corenswet, Jake Picking, Joe Mantello and Laura Harrier.

In an April 2 statement, Mock explained the inspiration behind Hollywood and what the series is all about — and it sounds like Murphy and his team are shattering the status quo, as usual, and giving marginalized groups a voice and platform to share their histories.

“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,” she wrote. “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. Hollywood is a love letter to our little industry town where dreamers dwell, stars are born, and magic transcends reality.”

Check out some of the photos from Hollywood below: