Hollywood Ryan Murphy reinvents the studio system of the 1940s. Two-time Tony nominee Jeremy Pope plays Archie Coleman, an aspiring screenwriter facing prejudice because of his race and sexuality. “This is a period piece and it is revisionist history. It’s a fantasy of what if. But a lot of the things that we were tackling and talking about feel very real. I’m being candid with you, it’s hard being a black man in this world and in our story a black man who has dreams and aspirations and wants to break those glass ceilings and create a lane of opportunity for his friends, his peers, his people that need to see something that is tangible,” Pope told HFPA journalist Greet Ramaekers on May 29 when this podcast was recorded.

Choir Boy and Ain’t Too Proud he was introduced to Ryan Murphy who hired Pope for his first TV show, Hollywood. “When I was growing up my nickname was Mr. Hollywood. Hollywood was for me as a child, was the dream, was the goal. I feel like a lot of my family members were, that’s how you know you’ve reached success is when you make it in Hollywood. I didn’t know where I fit in in the madness of it all but I knew that that was a place that I hoped to work in and to find success in.”