Ryan Murphy has picked Jake Picking to play Rock Hudson in his upcoming Netflix series Hollywood, which looks at 1940s Tinseltown. Picking and an array of new cast members have just been announced, including Jim Parsons, who will play Hudson’s agent Henry Willson. Murphy has said the series will be “a love letter to the Golden Age of Tinseltown” and demonstrate “how absolutely everything has changed and nothing has changed.” Little is known plot-wise beyond that.
W sums up Willson and Hudson’s relationship: ‘Hudson was just a kid named Roy Harold Scherer Jr. who had moved to Southern California after a stint in the Navy to live with his biological father and chase stardom. He wasn’t particularly successful at first, and even worked as a truck driver, but eventually caught a break when he sent his picture to talent agent Willson. Willson has worked and schmoozed his way through Hollywood at first as a gossip writer and then as a talent scout. He had helped to launch the career of Lana Turner, but became widely known for shepherding the career of young actors with “beefcake” appeal. Of course, many of (but not all of) his clients were secretly gay, bisexual or otherwise “heteroflexible,” and of whom Willson exploited for sexual favors. Inside Hollywood, just about everyone knew what was up, but Willson worked hard to keep it out of the gossip columns. Hudson would become Willson’s biggest success, and later in his career when a tabloid threatened to out Hudson, Willson instead offered up to essentially out another of his clients, Tab Hunter, instead.’
Picking and Parsons join already announced cast members Jeremy Pope, Darren Criss, David Corenswet (who will play the three leads), as well as Patti LuPone and Holland Taylor.
Deadline reports on the additional casting announcements of Dylan McDermott, Samara Weaving, Maude Apatow, Joe Mantello, and Laura Harrier.
