On this episode of The Movie Podcast, Daniel and Shahbaz are joined by Nicholas Alexander Chavez & Micaela Diamond of GROTESQUERIE, a new horror series from Ryan Murphy. In FX’s Grotesquerie, a series of heinous crimes have unsettled a small community. “Detective Lois Tryon” feels these crimes are eerily personal, as if someone—or something—is taunting her. It stars Niecy Nash-Betts, Courtney B. Vance, Lesley Manville, Micaela Diamond, Nicholas Alexander Chavez, Raven Goodwin and Travis Kelce. Grotesquerie is Written and Created by Ryan Murphy, Jon Robin Baitz and Joe Baken and premieres Wednesday, September 25, at 10 p.m. on FX with the first two episodes, and will stream the following day, Thursday, September 26, on Disney+ in Canada and Hulu in the U.S.
Watch and listen to The Movie Podcast now on all podcast platforms, YouTube, and TheMoviePodcast.ca
Contact: hello@themoviepodcast.ca
FOLLOW US
Daniel on X, Instagram, Letterboxd
Shahbaz on X, Instagram, and Letterboxd
Anthony on X, Instagram, and Letterboxd
The Movie Podcast on X, Instagram, TikTok, Discord, and Rotten Tomatoes
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping Kroger for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouth-watering meals. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices, plus extra ways to save, like digital coupons worth over $600 each week and up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with points, so you can get big flavors and big savings, Kroger, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. Hello, and welcome to the Movie Podcast. My name is Shabazz, and joining alongside me, he is not grotesque at all. It's Daniel. Daniel, how you doing? I always love being introduced as, "Hey, he's not gross." Yes. Don't worry. You always want to preface everything like this person that you're about to meet today that you don't know. They're actually not gross. Yeah. They're not gross. That's always what you want to hear. Hey, this is not a gross person. This is not a gross person. Every person I met, I would feel so much better because immediately I'm like, "Oh, what's this person's gross?" Shabazz, I have something to tell you. What? You're not gross either. Oh, thank you. Yeah. That means a lot to me. Yeah. It's just, again, it's a weird thing to just call attention upon. Yes. It's like looking at you like, "What if I think you're gross?" And there we are. It's life. But the best part is, dude, the people that we're talking today, I'm going to get to them right away actually. Okay. Let's do it. And then I'm going to give you the backstory. Okay. They're also not gross. They're also not gross. They're also not gross. So we just make this part of our show and we're talking to people now. Like, guess what? Every this person, not gross, not gross. Yeah. Gross warning. Yeah. They're not gross. Yeah. These people right here, Michaela Diamond and Nicholas Alexander Shabazz are not gross, but they are in the movie podcast. That's a good sign. Yeah. Yeah. That is a good sign. We're talking to them for FX's new show, GrowTescree, which will premiere on September 25th at 10 p.m. on FX and will stream the next day for us lucky Canadians. That's on September 26th on Disney Plus. Hell yeah. Hell yeah, brother. I don't know why did that. So I feel like you could never just say, "Hell yeah." You always have to turn into like your wrestler. Yeah. You got to add a brother in there. Yeah. When I went out, "My God, these people are just unhinged," and that is because we are the movie podcast. Yeah. We love to have fun. We love to have banter, and we love for you to follow us. So if you can, the show notes down below have all of our social media pages on there. The also have our Discord channel, which you can join and talk about all the latest movies and shows or whatever you're watching out there. We have some great people from around the globe. Yeah. We're in that show. We're some great Tom Foolery in there all the time. Tom Foolery. Didn't expect that word today. I'll be honest with you. FX is Tom Foolery. It's the next Ryan Murphy show. We're going to be interviewing the guests, and we're like, "This person, they don't have any Tom Foolery." No, Tom Foolery. Only serious business. Only serious business. Man, yeah. We had a great conversation, and we're going to be talking to Nicholas, either already have spoken to him, or we are going to be talking to him, depending on when you're listening. Yeah. Double Ryan Murphy shows, like all within a week of each other, which is wild. Yeah. We'll be talking to him again. So stay tuned for that. So without further ado, let's kick it on over to Mikayla Diamond and Nicholas Alexander Shahves on the movie podcast. See Mikayla. Hey, Nicholas. How are you both doing? Good work. Yeah. Good. We're so happy to hear it. We're so grateful for you sharing your time with us today, and we are just so excited to talk about this show as much as we can talk about it, but we're so happy to be here with you. You got to start off with this really intense trailer that we kind of got for the show a few weeks ago, and how shocking it was. And I think for you both, what was your reaction to kind of seeing that trailer and to see your work finally kind of coming together? Well, I will say that the trailer was scary to me. And so, you know, the first moment was telling my mother she can, in fact, watch this. I think it is definitely a horror show, but there is also a real, you know, it's a psychological portrait to where we're trying to solve a crime here. And so I wanted to, you know, tell all the people in my life who are afraid of horror shows that you will be okay in this one. I really do believe that. I'm just a creepy nun. But yeah, I think it's so fun to see your work who finally come out. There's something weird about, you know, as an actor, you show up and do your job, and but you don't own it in any way at the end of the day. It goes to editors. It goes through producers. It goes through the network. And so it's always a like a little, you know, I have jitters today before we see the screening of the first episode knowing that, you know, it's, it's going to be cut together that moment you felt so proud of on the day might be two seconds long, you know, and will flash by as you blink and you're like, Oh my God, fuck, you know, so, you know, all the feelings. Yeah, I just want to echo the same sentiment that it's always really, really nice to see some version of the product of your work. And I thought it did a nice job of at least getting me excited and friends that I watched it with. That's amazing. Also seeing other people's work, like we didn't get to see, you know, Raven's work in the show who plays Merritt, and it was so lovely to be able to watch her. It's like fun when you're not on set with people to be like, Oh, that was your part, you know. You were up to the whole time. Yeah. Like all these pieces coming together. Yeah. It's a real puzzle. Yeah. So you know, your character, sister, Megan Duvall is a nun and a journalist. So we'd love to know how you began to piece together someone who was like bound by faith, but also on the pursuit of truth that she see those as two separate things. That's it. Yes. That's a beautiful question. I think when I first went in for my screen test, Ryan, and I really were inspired by squeaky from and the Manson family, I watched a lot of cult documentaries to prepare for this role. I think, you know, I think that she believes that the truth, despite how gruesome, will actually bring people to the church. And you know, I was just saying this, but I really feel like part of what drew me to the story was Lois and sister Megan's very unlikely friendship. In another moment, I think these women wouldn't even look at each other. And for some reason, there's something that draws them together. I think Lois is at such a bottom in her life and so confused by the morality of the universe. And sister Megan represents some sort of hope for her. And I think that's exciting to play as an actor. Yeah, for sure. And Nicholas for yourself, this is another Ryan Murphy project that you're collaborating on. What do you guys love so much about working together? Isn't it cool that you can say that? Yeah, it actually is. Ryan has really specific ideas in terms of texture and feel and inner life for his characters. And he's also really communicative and communicates the ideas effectively in a way that I feel like I'm really able to understand and internalize as an artist and then give him a performance that he can feel reflects what's in his mind, which is really important to me. So more than anything, I think it's the fact that it's such a constant feedback loop. And that both of us feel the strong urge to be as precise as possible and everything that we do. I think that that's what makes this such a delightful process working with him. When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping Kroger for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouth-watering meals. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices, plus extra ways to save, like digital coupons worth over $600 each week and up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with points so you can get big flavors and big savings. Kroger fresh for everyone. No restrictions apply. Obviously from watching your other project, which we'll save for another time, but yeah, it's incredible to see and I think you guys have great work together. And I think what, you know, what rained us as well as assembling these incredible casts and we spoke about that a little bit earlier, you know, what was it like getting to play with so many incredible people on this project for both of you? I mean, it's so fun. I'm so grateful. I feel like you're right. He assembles these troops of actors. And I texted Sarah Paulson before coming out to LA just being like, how did you become so successful in this universe? And she really was just like, play the stakes, play this heightened world. You know, don't be afraid of that. And I feel like we all did that. I mean, like to brag about him, like he real that is what him and Ryan are so good at collaborating on. Like they just are so unafraid to make these bold choices. Like, now that it's over, I can like say moments that I loved on set, but there was one moment where I'm like watching him preach. And he like literally on like a random take, like snuffed out a candle as he was like stepping onto the stage, like mid-modologue, like with his own hands, like real, real, full physical, realized candle. And I literally like, I don't even know if there's a camera, but my jaw like fell to the floor. And I was like, how did we think of that in this moment? How did one find the impulse to do that? But like, that is what makes it so fun to play off of these actors who are just like, he assembles people who take risks. And that was my goal going into this was like, just try and surprise yourself as much as possible on set because I think that is where you find really interesting work. Yeah. I'll slide the $5 for the compliment on your ear. Ice cream would be better. Okay. Actually. You know, in other words, this spooky season, we'd love to know what are your spooky season traditions at Nicholas? We kind of have to start with you. My spooky season traditions, I kind of am, I love haunted houses. I love walking through them. I'm such a big haunted house nerd. Terrible. Yeah, which is weird. You know, I really don't like reach for horror movies terribly often, but October is the one season where like all indulge and really, really wanting the experience. I love that. October is a full season. Scared. Yeah. No, it totally is. The shortest season. The shortest season. There are so many good haunted houses that pop up. I've been to ones that are insane asylum themed. I've been to ones that are hotel themed. They're just, they're terrifying to walk. I have so much, I have so much fun. I get scared in an escape room. So like haunted houses are a whole other level for me. I like this is the worst answer I can possibly give you for like doing press about a horror show. Like I will not reach for, reach for a scary movie. I think like I'm into the, I'm into documentaries. Like I could watch Menendez, okay, but like I'm really just reaching for like feel good movies during this season. And by season, I actually mean like the season of fall. Not the month. Right. Get over. Hey, it's a, it's a great season and great month. We're so appreciative of your time as well. Nicholas, we're actually going to be talking to you later this week in Toronto. So we're very excited for that. Thank you both so much for your time. The show is going to be absolutely fantastic. I think people are going to be really scared when it finally comes out. Yeah. Thanks guys. Thank you so much. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
