[This story contains major spoilers from The Beauty episode two, “Beautiful Jordan.”]
Rebecca Hall‘s on-screen time in The Beauty was short, but it was definitely memorable.
Hall didn’t mind, though. She tells The Hollywood Reporter it was always the plan. “I knew from jump — before I’d even read the script,” she says of how long she would appear on the new FX horror series. “I was told I was going to be a very deliberate bait and switch, sort of like a Janet Lee in Psycho situation that there would be all this expectation I would be there for the whole thing and then — whoop — gone!”
In the series from creator Ryan Murphy, Hall plays FBI agent Jordan Bennett, who partners with Cooper Madsen (Evan Peters) to investigate the incident in the series’ opening scene, where supermodel Ruby (played by Bella Hadid) went on a violent rampage and then explodes — a side effect of taking the super drug “The Beauty.” The drug is being unleashed by The Corporation (Ashton Kutcher).
While trying to figure out what’s happening to the models, Jordan and Cooper also find themselves casually hooking up, letting their pride get in the way of being a real couple — something Halls says she wishes the characters had admitted right out of the gate. In an ironic twist, Jordan ultimately catches “The Beauty” by sleeping with a man she meets at their hotel in Rome, unaware at the time that the drug can also be sexually transmitted.
The episode then shows Jordan undergoing a gory transformation, turning into actress Jessica Alexander. Hall explains how she prepared for the physically taxing shoot.
“It was a combination of choreographed stuff that was quite specific so that there would be some commonality between all of them, and a contortionist who did some more extreme stuff that I didn’t do,” she says. “Then, a lot of stuff that I just sort of improvised. I was prepared to throw myself around and look rabid and insane.”
After its reveal, Alexander takes over the role. While Hall wasn’t on set for Alexander’s scenes, she says the two discussed sharing the character.
“I was long gone, actually, when Jessica did the other part of that transformation,” she says. “But I did get to hang out with her and we spoke about what was going to happen. It was kind of nice in a way — and odd. It’s not very often that you literally share a character with another actor. There was something interesting about it, passing it on and being like, ‘Alright, good luck, off you go, have fun!’”
Although episode two marks the end for Hall on the series, she thought it was “a really fun concept” to surprise audiences with the twist. She adds, “[I thought] I was gonna get a lot out of it because I got to work with Evan, I got to go to Rome and Venice and it was very glamorous and fun. I got to play a really fun character, so I had a ball. I was in favor of all of it.”
The first three episodes of The Beauty are currently streaming on Hulu. Check out all of The Hollywood Reporter‘s The Beauty coverage, including our premiere interviews with Ashton Kutcher, Bella Hadid and a full cast and characters list.
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