As rapper Ja Rule once famously said, “No one wins when the family feuds.” Ryan Murphy’s latest psychological thriller offers a firsthand glimpse at the shift in familial relationships when things fall apart.
Grotesquerie is a 10-episode drama that follows a series of heinous crimes that have rocked a small community. Detective Lois Tryon (Niecy Nash) feels that the incidents are isolated and a little too personal, almost as if an evil force is tormenting her as she faces a strained relationship with her daughter (Raven Goodwin), a husband (Courtney B. Vance) currently in a coma, and her own inner demons.
Niecy Nash as Detective Lois Tryon
In preparation for the role, Nash said she drew from a feeling that is all too familiar for Black woman navigating life in America — the feeling of being taunted by an unseen force.
“That is a very frustrating feeling,” Nash told Blavity’s Shadow and Act during an interview before the show’s premiere. “All you got to do is be a Black woman for five minutes. You’re gonna feel frustrated by everything. So that part was easy to bake in.”
To ensure that she tapped into the story’s emotional and psychological layers, Nash said her first order of business was to do her homework and show up from a place of preparation.
“You want to be in a prepared place so when you show up, all you have to do is lay down what you’ve prepared, but also leave room for magic,” Nash said. “You got to leave that little window for what’s not on the page.”
With everything falling down around Lois at home, Nash said that her character still finds a way to do her job at the top level, something that she was excited to tap into for the psychological thriller. Nash laughed at the fact that while she’s excited to continue to portray characters in more dramatic roles, people often forget that she’s funny (she is still very much connected to her comedy roots).
“Detective Lois, her vibe in all of this, first of all, she’s the connective tissues, she’s the linchpin in all these stories,” the Claws actor explained. “So, leaning into it, I eat the elephant one bite at a time. What is my relationship with my daughter, my husband, my coworkers, my partner in crime? You know, all of these things. I think she has to look at the whole, see the part she plays in each one of those places so that the performance ends up being very nuanced.”
She added, “I’m thankful for the range because I played a lot of comedic roles very early on in my career, and then people didn’t really think that I could do drama, and then once I started winning awards for drama, those are the only scripts I get now. And I’m like, ‘Did ya’ll forget I was funny?’ But, I will say that I love being in a space and a place where my peers know that they can trust me with whatever caliber the work is.”
Peers like Courtney B. Vance, who plays opposite Nash in Grotesquerie, said that the fact that he would be able to work alongside her again and get a chance to play in a Ryan Murphy project was a double incentive to join the cast.
Courtney B. Vance on being in another Ryan Murphy show
“I was thrilled to be asked to be part of another Ryan Murphy world,” Vance said. “My wife has been a part of Ryan Murphy for about … 15 years, so this is wonderful. So much of it is casting, so much of it is surrounding ourselves with the best people … and when it’s a Ryan Murphy piece, when he asks, most people, 90% of people say yes. The fact that Niecy was aboard and he asked me, I said I love Niecy. We’ve been trying to do something together again. So, even though the character wasn’t fully formed, I said yes because I wanted to be a part of [it]. … And then I found out that Raven [Goodwin] was a part of it … and it snowballed after that.”
Vance was particularly interested in working to keep his character present despite his physical absence from much of the action in Grostequeire.
“The writing is such a key of anything, but when you have somebody that’s in a coma state, then you’ve got to do other things to keep him or her in the story,” he explained. “One of the things that Ryan and I talked about was the flashbacks … to keep him present so you actually don’t have to find out about him whenever he resurfaces. … The flashbacks are the things that — we get to know who he is in the early episodes.”
Raven Goodwin on playing Detective Lois’ daughter in the series
For Raven Goodwin, portraying Merrit Tryon and showcasing the estranged relationship with her mother, Detective Lois, was the driving force behind the overall theme of the show.
“Lois is struggling in every aspect of her life, like she almost can’t catch a break,” Goodwin told us. “She’s just in this internal battle, and I think Merritt feels that … she’s a little childlike, to me, in my opinion. … This is directly affecting her daily. But, she’s in her mess, like just soaking in it, just sitting in it, not dealing with it, so it’s a direct effect. It’s like this tug and pull with her and her mom of trying to navigate dad being down, drinking, and food. It’s like this tango of toxicity.”
“Family is the foundation, so with that not going right, I feel like everything else just feels even more extreme and strenuous and tough,” she continued. “I think with her foundational balance being off, her going to work and showing up as she is, on the bottle, just kind of aloof and just over it, I think that the heart, the family, it plays a big part of that. Especially when our other half is not even functioning at the moment — and how were they before he wasn’t functioning? Were they even in a good space? … It’s very psychologically difficult for her.”
Who else stars in Grotesquerie?
The series also stars Lesley Manville as Nurse Redd, Micaela Diamond as Sister Megan, and Nicholas Alexander Chavez as Father Charlie. Travis Kelce also appears in the show.
Where can I watch the show?
A 10-part series, Grotesquerie premieres on FX on Wednesday, Sept. 25. Episodes will stream the next day on Hulu.
The post Inside ‘Grotesquerie’: Ryan Murphy’s Crime-Horror Drama With Niecy Nash, Courtney B. Vance And Raven Goodwin appeared first on Blavity.
