Jeremy Pope makes troubled outsiders worth staying with, even when the writing loses patience with them. We value his vulnerability and commitment, both useful qualities in The Beauty, where the acting is steadier than the storytelling.
Fi1m perspective
In The Beauty (2026), Jeremy Pope holds our attention even when the writing is impatient to introduce another idea. His commitment matters in Ryan Murphy’s programme, which cannot settle between black comedy and horror. We felt grateful for him: amid the gruesome invention, his performance kept us interested in Jeremy as a person. That is a substantial virtue, though our recommendation for this scattered eleven-episode season comes with reservations about how much space its stories are given.
The move from stage to screen was not entirely settled: in Hollywood (2020), as Archie Coleman, he was still finding his footing. His stage background helps explain the physical and emotional intensity, but vulnerability is just as important to his work. He has repeatedly played Black queer characters dealing with ambition and exclusion, in historical and contemporary settings. Such roles need someone who can suggest what a person is keeping to himself, and that is one of Pope’s strengths.
The Inspection (2022) gave him his first leading film role, as Ellis French in Elegance Bratton’s drama. The part draws on his ability to convey a character’s private feelings, one of the clearest strengths of his dramatic work. The more sinister characterisation of The Beauty asks something different of him, without making that vulnerability redundant. Pope’s nuance gives us a reason to take Jeremy seriously, even when the surrounding series encourages excess.
Murphy remains the recurring collaborator, from Hollywood through Pose (2021) to The Beauty, where Pope is also an executive producer. The acting is a better reason to watch this particular collaboration than its blunt beauty-industry satire. Evan Peters supplies a comparable seriousness as Cooper Madsen, and the cast’s willingness to commit is a considerable help. It does not bring the scattered stories together or settle the uneven tone. Watch it for Pope and the cast if body horror appeals; do not expect them to have fixed the scripts.
Biography
Jeremy Pope is an American actor and singer. Born on 9 July 1992 in Orlando, Florida, he trained at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy after attending Timber Creek High School. He made his Broadway debut in 2018 as Pharus Jonathan Young in Choir Boy and appeared as Eddie Kendricks in Ain't Too Proud the following year.
Pope received Tony Award nominations in two categories in 2019 and a Grammy Award nomination for the cast album of Ain't Too Proud. His screen credits include Christopher in the final season of POSE (2021), Archie Coleman in the Netflix series Hollywood (2020), Jackie Wilson in One Night in Miami... (2020), Ellis French in The Inspection (2022), and Jeremy in the FX series The Beauty (2026), on which he also serves as an executive producer. He received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Hollywood and a Golden Globe nomination for The Inspection.
