‘The Beauty’: Jessica Alexander, Anthony Ramos & Jeremy Pope Talk That Finale & Cliffhanger

The Beauty has punctuated its first season with a giant question mark, and the stars of the series are just as confused about it as fans probably are. Be warned, there are spoilers ahead!

In the 11th and final episode of the season, the Assassin (Anthony Ramos) and Jeremy (Jeremy Pope) reluctantly teamed up with Jordan (Jessica Alexander) and Cooper (first, Evan Peters, then Hudson Barry) to retaliate against Byron Forst a.k.a. the Corporation (Ashton Kutcher) after he turned on them all and left them for dead.

First, they tried to plot a sneak attack by transforming Cooper so he’d be unrecognizable to Byron, but that backfired; as it turned out, one of the (many) unexpected side effects of STI transmission of the Beauty is that it can turn people into children.

After being captured and sprung from certain death by Dr. Diana (Ari Graynor), the group soon learned that she was making a move against the Corporation — with the help of his sons, who now opposed Byron after he vowed to dismantle the Beauty due to his wife’s tragic experience with it. In exchange for their cooperation, she could offer a reversal agent she discovered in the lab files. Cooper, desperate to return to his adult body, agreed to be the new serum’s guinea pig, but the credits roll before we get to find out whether it was successful or not.

To break down the chaotic finale and the season as a whole, TV Insider caught up with The Beauty stars Jessica Alexander, Jeremy Pope, and Anthony Ramos.

What, for you, was the highlight of the season?

Jessica Alexander: I had so much fun filming with you guys. There were a lot of 1 a.m. scenes being shot that it was like we were just being hit by delirium and a lot of laughs. These two are so fun to work with, honestly. So filming with you guys was definitely a big highlight. I remember that big scene around the table with Ari Graynor doing that monologue, and Anthony was asleep at one point, then he was awake…

Anthony Ramos: Wait, I fell asleep during that scene?

Alexander: You fell asleep in the green room, and we had videos of you…

Ramos: I wasn’t snoring, was I? [Laughter.]

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Jeremy Pope: You were watching the game, and there was a little slobber coming out on the floor, and you were with eye patch…

I think the most beautiful thing for me in this experience was I got to work with Anthony. We have known each other for so many years. We went to college together, and it’s just like family. So to be in a project that is wild, but you feel like you have someone that you really trust and respect with you, it makes those long shooting hours a lot of fun, because there’s such a history. So when I think about, for any actor, when you’re working on a show or film or whatever, you spend a lot of time away from your family and from people you love, so you start to build that on set, whether it’s the hair and makeup team, craft services that are bringing you lunch or whatever when you need it… So I think we had such a beautiful team with the Ryan production. But then also having Jess, having Ant, who I’ve known for so many years, and made a lot of the long days not feel as long, because you’re like, “At least, I really f*** with these people.”

Ramos: I mean, it was dope working with Jay. We’ve been friends for so long, but the whole cast, I mean, was awesome. And Jess and Jeremy are right. The scenes that we have with us three. What was the day when we were in the we had to hold down baby Cooper…

Mini Cooper!

Ramos: That sh** was hilarious, that day. We had so many good times, so many laughs. And I will say, though, shooting in Italy was really special…

Alexander: Oh, so good!

Ramos: Being at the forum. We shut down the forum. We had a whole scene at the Trevi Fountain, that was really special. Just being in Italy and feeling that, it’s just something about shooting over there that was — even our first AD, this chef thought he spoke Italian at one point — he had me laughing with that. Everybody had such a great time… We were going out, having beautiful dinners and drinking wine, and it felt like — we were working, but the days are shorter in Europe as well. Legally, they can’t work as many hours as we work here in the States. So we were getting off and then hanging out. It was so nice. So nice.

In the abduction scene, the script gets flipped on your characters, Jeremy and Anthony, and they seem very surprised. How fun was it to play that? 

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Pope: I think it was a lot of fun because… I speak for myself, I had a good time, I think, because we didn’t know where the world was going. I think Ryan had conversations with us separately about who our character was on the way in, and you’re kind of on the ride. You think you know what the stakes are and what’s happening, and then you get a script where you’re like, “Oh, not even the Corporation is on the Assassin’s side.” Or like, “What does that mean for my character?” And when we get to the end of the season, that’s the first time we’re all kind of together.

I feel like so much of the top of the show is learning these side bits about everybody and relationship-building, but then you’re like, “What happens when they’re all in the room together?” So it was dope to work with Evan, because we didn’t really share a lot of screen time on the first half of the show. So, for our characters to kind of be integrated, and you learn a lot about the rules of the world, I think, once we’re all put together about what can happen when you have sex and you become a MiniCooper, what happens when you know like people are mistrusted or misguided, and who’s really after who, or who is really the villain? Because I think then there’s a turn, especially with the Assassin, where what we’re doing doesn’t feel so bad anymore. So I think they’re just interesting turns.

Eric Liebowitz / FX

What was it like for you all to work with MiniCooper? I mean, that was the one part. There’s a lot of big swings in the show, but that was the one where I was like, “This is borderline hilarious.” So I just wanted to know, what was that like for you guys to keep a straight face during all of that?

Alexander: I mean, to be honest, I think the nature of this young actor coming into the show probably worked quite well story-wise because we were just thrown in at the deep end with that storyline, just as much as the audience were. And this young actor came on set, and he didn’t really know us, and we had spent all these weeks together, and we didn’t really know him… and when there’s a young actor on set, too, the vibe does change. You’re obviously trying to keep the vibe up and be mindful about the fact that you have a child.

So I think it actually, weirdly worked quite well because, obviously, it is inevitably uncomfortable for my character what’s happened in the storyline. So I took that level of unfamiliarity between me and this young man worked pretty well, but, yeah, it was definitely a curveball. He was so cute, though. I feel like he was having a great time. All of us in our little Matrix sunglasses. When he took off those sunglasses off and he said, “Cut the sh**, Junior,” I was like, “Whoa!”

Pope: He was so cool. He was so down. I think you have to be, as an artist in the Ryan world, and he was coming into a world, or a group, an environment that was already established. We had been working together. We had spent time internationally together. So him and his mom were just super dope, and they were kind of trying to get as much information as they could about the character, about the world, to then play the stakes as such. So as an artist, it made it like a yes man. It’s like, what you thought it was, it’s not. So now you’re acting with this young child, and what does that mean for your character? So it just made it more interesting to play because I thought I knew what was going on, but alas, I did not.

Alexander: And he was game too, with the action everything. I mean, we were literally just talking about that scene where we kind of have to pin him down, and he’s going through the transformation again, and he’s fighting us and everything. I mean, this child had four grown-ass people pinning him to the ground. And at one point, our camera operator was there, we were pushing him around. It was a POV shot. It was — it just got crazy in there. It was hot, too, and he did really well. He was very game for it, and stronger than he looks, too.

Why do you think your characters don’t want to take the reversal agent?

Ramos: That’s what’s awesome about the show, right? I think they’re a little bit hypocritical, especially the Assassin. He’s like, “Yo, I’m one of the first people that ever took this.” It saved him. It changed the circumstances of his life in not being able to be a father, and him having to work for this guy now, and him being indebted to Ashton’s character, and so forth. But I think that there’s this vanity that we see in humanity. People like to look good and feel good, and there’s a drug that makes them do that. And even though, if this booster is not available, they could die, people will still go to crazy lengths to achieve beauty. I love that we see that in the characters.

We see that in Jess’ character. She didn’t mean to get it. It just happened to her. Jeremy’s character was looking for something to make him feel better. Finally, he’s got it, and it’s this thing that has given him meaning. The Assassin, although it has put him in a circumstance that is not the most ideal, he’s still like, “Yo, I like how I fit. I’m 65, and I feel good. I feel like I look good. My eye’s still f***ed up, but whatever.” And I loved that moment where she offers it to everyone, the camera’s [panning], and you see all of them looking at each other like, “I never said I wanted it. We just want it for our guy because we hope we get him back, but we don’t want it.” Which I think happens a lot in life: We want something for somebody else, but not for ourselves, or we’re good at giving advice to somebody about some sh** that we don’t necessarily apply to our own lives.

Eric Liebowitz / FX

All we see is the hand after the reversal is taken. I’m just curious if any of you have any thoughts on whether it works and what that might portend if the show returns for a second season?

Alexander: Girl, wouldn’t we like to know! The possibilities are endless.

Pope: There are no rules in a Ryan Murphy universe. And I think you can always expect the unexpected. We realized that as we got to the end of the season and we started to get — they give you scripts as you’re shooting them. So we got the finale as a two-parter. So we got half of it, and then we got the second half, and we realized there’s no more pages. We don’t know.

So it made it interesting to play on the day because we were looking at a stuntman do stuff, but we don’t know what it actually is. So we all have our own different interpretations, and we chose different ways to think about it each take. They chose the take that works the best. So we’re gonna see. We gonna see who’s on the other side next.

The Beauty, FX & Hulu

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