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Ryan Murphy looks back at making a show about plastic surgery in the early 2000s and how the conversation around cosmetic surgery has changed since then.
The Emmy Award winner, 59, created Nip/Tuck, a drama series that follows the professional and personal lives of the co-founders of a controversial plastic surgery center.
During a panel discussion for the upcoming series The Beauty at New York Comic Con, Murphy reflected on the FX show and said, “Every month that goes by, it seems like there’s less and less judgment about semaglutide (a drug used to treat type 2 diabetes and chronic weight management) and about plastic surgery.”
“In a weird way, it’s kind of a new status symbol,” he continued.
“I remember one of my first big shows a long time ago was a show called ‘Nip/Tuck,’ about plastic surgery, and I was surprised at how taboo it was to talk about it,” Murphy added. “People changed their bodies and went out in public and acted as if nothing had changed. That was the way it was done back then.”
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“I think now people are showing it off even more and talking about it, which is an evolution in some weird way,” Murphy further said.
Starring Dylan Walsh, Julian McMahon, and Joely Richardson, Nip/Tuck first aired on FX in 2003.
The show ran for six seasons until 2010. Each episode provided a graphic depiction of plastic surgery performed on a fictitious company’s customers, and also tracked the complex personal lives of the doctors.
The series won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup and a Golden Globe Award for Best Drama Series.
Murphy went on to create popular shows such as Glee, American Horror Story, American Crime Story, and 9-1-1.
His latest show, The Beauty, was co-created with Matt Hodgson and is based on the comic book series by Jeremy Horn and Jason A. Hurley.
According to the synopsis, the show follows a sexually transmitted virus that “makes those it infects more beautiful, but with deadly consequences.”
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The series stars Anthony Ramos, Ashton Kutcher, Evan Peters, Jeremy Pope, and Rebecca Hall.
Speaking about the upcoming show at a Comic-Con panel, Murphy told the audience, “There’s great action scenes. There’s a lot of body horror. There’s a great love story. There’s a great buddy comedy going on, and there’s a great villain.”
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“It’s a very sophisticated combination of genres that is inherent in the original, but it was a lot of fun to work on that tone,” he added.
“The Beauty” is scheduled to air on FX in 2026.
