Perry Mason star Chris Chalk is set to star as James Baldwin in Ryan Murphy’s latest TV project, Feud: Capote’s Women.
The series is a continuation of Murphy‘s Feud series on FX, which began detailing the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. This time, the anthology series takes a look at Truman Capote’s friend group as written in Laurence Leamer’s book, Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era.
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The book focuses on the true stories behind Capote’s final, never-released novel, Answered Prayers. According to the book’s description, the book captures “the dark secrets, tragic glamour, and Capote’s ultimate betrayal of the group of female friends he called his ‘swans.'” Deadline reports that Capote’s betrayal came in the form of a 1975 Esquire expose he wrote called “La Côte Basque 1965.”
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While appearing on an upcoming episode of Deadline podcast 20 Questions on Deadline, Chalk said that he has always wanted to play Baldwin and added that the set was “such a supportive environment, like, mind-blowingly supportive.” He also revealed that he shot “20 pages in two days,” as well as a five-page monologue.
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Chalk joins a cast including Molly Ringwald, Calista Flockhart, Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Tom Hollander and Chloë Sevigny. The series will debut next year.
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This is not Murphy’s first time making efforts to include marginalized voices in period pieces. One of his splashiest projects, Hollywood, centered around retelling the classic Hollywood stories of fame and success, but through the eyes of people who were discriminated against either because of race, gender, or sexual orientation. Murphy and Steven Canals also brought stories of LGBTQ Black and brown people to the forefront in Pose, set in New York between the 1980s and 1990s.
