With summer and Pride season around the corner (COVID-19 notwithstanding) Netflix is kicking off the welcoming of warmer weather and pride programming with two new hugely important LGBTQ-inclusive projects, both dropping on Friday, May 1st; Hollywood and The Half of It.
Ryan Murphy is out with Hollywood, his first scripted series produced originally for Netflix. (last fall’s The Politician was produced by Twentieth Television for Netflix) A new limited series from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, Hollywood follows a group of aspiring actors and filmmakers in post-World War II Hollywood as they try to make it in Tinseltown — no matter the cost. Each character offers a unique glimpse behind the gilded curtain of Hollywood’s Golden Age, spotlighting the unfair systems and biases across race, gender, and sexuality that continue to this day. Provocative and incisive, Hollywood exposes and examines decades-old power dynamics, and what the entertainment landscape might look like if they had been dismantled.
The show stars David Corenswet, Darren Criss, Jeremy Pope, Samara Weaving, Laura Harrier, Jim Parsons, Dylan McDermott, Holland Taylor, Patti LuPone, Jake Picking, and Joe Mantello, along with notable guest stars Maude Apatow, Mira Sorvino, Rob Reiner, and Michelle Krusiec. Janet Mock is an executive producer and also directed 2 of the 7 episodes.
After a 16-year absence from the film world following her 2005 hit indie film Saving Face, screenwriter Alice Wu is back today with The Half of It. The teen rom-com is described by IndieWire as, “a modern riff on the Cyrano story, this time with a gender-swap that imagines the lead as something of a Wu stand-in: shy young Chinese-American Ellie (Leah Lewis) harbors a secret crush on Aster (Alexxis Lemire), a girl she’s expected to woo through letters for the awkward but sweet Paul (Daniel Diemer).”
GLAAD’s head of talent Anthony Ramos caught up with Wu and the young cast to talk about the film, which just won the U.S. Narrative prize in competition at the 2020 (virtual) Tribeca Film Festival!
GLAAD is co-sponsoring a virtual watch party on Twitter for The Half of It on Friday, May 1st along with CAPE and Gold House. Head online and use the hashtags #TheHalfOfIt and #GoldOpen to participate!