THE BEAUTY: Official Podcast Episode 8: Anthony Ramos and Jeremy Pope

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Welcome back to the Beauty: Official Podcast. I'm Evan Ross Katz. Ready for the first poke? I'll just let that land for a minute. Today I'm back with the beauty's hatchet man. Multi-talented theater, film and television stars Anthony Ramos and Jeremy Pope.

Anthony, Jeremy, we are back again. I enjoyed sitting down with you guys so much. Last time, I was like, I think we need to reconvene.

ANTHONY RAMOS: Let’s go.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: we're here to talk about episode eight, but I think we can't talk about episode eight without rewinding the tape a little bit to episode seven. Our last conversation, you guys were talking about your friendship with one another.

And then in episode seven, we come to see a friendship really develop between your two characters. I'm wondering what it was like to have your friendship in real life be, you know, in some way brought into the show.

JEREMY POPE: I mean, I think what was interesting about, you know, these two characters in this world is there's this like, fatherly component that gets kind of heavily woven in this, this episode specifically. It was interesting having this scene that starts as us clowning around, eating junk food to then really asking him to open up. And I think it was really cool that his character does.

He takes a moment to reflect and kind of try to point me in the direction of how he's arrived at that hotel in that moment.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Right. And what about for you?

ANTHONY RAMOS: It just helps when you know someone for a long time, you know, we don't have a father son relationship in real life, but we have, like, a brotherly bond in real life. And I think that you can be real with your homie. Yeah. And then you get dialog and it's just kind of like you just still talking to your homie, but just as a different person.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Yeah.

ANTHONY RAMOS: You know, and, it makes it a little easier to, to just let go, you know, be vulnerable. I didn't know how far we were going to get with the assassin's backstory, but I was happy that we got all this information about him. And, you know, that we got the flashback scene, and we got to see him before he got the beauty and what happened to him before, and then understanding his relationship with his son and then understanding.

Right. Like that. He calls and he sends money and understanding the fact that he lives his life alone. There's no story about him dating anyone. You don't even you don't even hear about him sleeping with anyone. Really in the show or anything. Like there's nothing like that.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Which is so funny because so many of the stories that we do see about people wanting to take the beauty are predicated on the idea that they want to have sex, they want to be they want to be hotter. And in your instance, it's like there's a necessity to take this because of a circumstance.

ANTHONY RAMOS: He essentially needed it to heal physically. You know, some people needed to heal mentally, right? Or emotionally. They like, you know, when I get this shot, all my problems will be gone. You know, I think that's the common denominator between everyone who is, taking this drug. Right. But, yeah, I mean, 80% of his body is burned, you know, and he's, like, trying to live a double life and trying to still be a dad and be a husband as much as he can and work for this guy, this crazy tech billionaire psychopath.

You know, he finds Jeremy and it's just like, you, you might be able to heal a part of me. Yeah, or at least put a Band-Aid on a part of on a wound that's been open for a long time that I haven't been able to quite heal.

JEREMY POPE: I find it so interesting when you have these wild characters that are doing crazy shit across the world and killing and slashing and finding joy in it, but when you have these moments of still where you get to really see someone for a second and go, oh, that's where you come from, or that's what you're scared of, tell me how I got so lost.

In a weird way, that's when you can start to empathize and understand someone who can make vastly different choices than you. But there's a humanizing factor to it where you're like, oh, you're just lost. Or in this case, like, we're both filling a void for each other, right?

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Well, in talking about the assassin, we learned about this bad psych evaluation that happened at some point. And I'm wondering, what do you think it was in that psych evaluation that made it bad?

ANTHONY RAMOS: I mean, it could have been his PTSD. Like how severe it was being. I mean, he was a soldier, right? Him fighting and him killing before and then probably him almost being killed probably a couple times, him having to go back into society and find his way in the world and then him failing a psych, eval. And then they're like, yeah, I'm sorry, we can't do anything for you.

We can't hire you. And he's like, all right, well, I guess, you know, I still have the skills and the only people that will hire me are these CEOs and these billionaires that need protection.

So

JEREMY POPE: Right

EVAN ROSS KATZ: got to get to work.

ANTHONY RAMOS: I got it, you know? I got to get it where I can't. I got to get in somewhere. I.

JEREMY POPE: Pay the bills, need to get paid,

ANTHONY RAMOS: got

JEREMY POPE: got to be paid. You feel me?

ANTHONY RAMOS: Yeah I mean like.

JEREMY POPE: Ahora

ANTHONY RAMOS: So

EVAN ROSS KATZ: obviously you two really bond in episode seven. Yeah. And in episode eight Antonio's giving him a lot of information, but he's withheld one key detail, which is the pesky, you know, the combustion of it all.

JESSICA ALEXANDER: You really think there's a version of any of this where you just walk out alive?

ANTHONY RAMOS: Oh. Oh, he really doesn't know, does he?

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Why do you think your character didn't want to be forthcoming about that kind of critical detail?

ANTHONY RAMOS: I mean, I think he I think he's starting to genuinely care about Jeremy, you know, and I don't know if he wants to tell them you're going to die.

JEREMY POPE: In a way, he still has the power over my life. And like in a weird because I think we meet him in the top and he chooses, I'm not going to kill you now,

EVAN ROSS KATZ: right?

JEREMY POPE: But he ultimately knows what his fate is. So you could just let me rock out. And he's like, well, he has an expiration

ANTHONY RAMOS: He’ll die anyway.

JEREMY POPE: he'll just die anyways.

And like, so it's like the job is still going to get done.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Which is funny because it seems like this benevolent act of like, I'll let you live when you relax, like I'll let you live, but there's a bomb on you.

JEREMY POPE: Yeah. He's like, I'll let you live, but let's go to Applebee's and get a little bite real quick, right? You know, and then that turned into, let's go over here, I'll teach you to do this. And I felt like going pop anyways. Like, I don't even have to work, that hard for this.

ANTHONY RAMOS: It's almost like having a fling and you know, it's going to explode at some point where you just like I.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Might as well.

ANTHONY RAMOS: This is my this is going to die off at some point anyway. So I'm just going to enjoy this while you'll be my sidekick. You'll be my fake son for a little while.

JEREMY POPE: Yeah, yeah.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: And also like, what other relationships does he have?

JEREMY POPE: Right. I think neither of them. You know what I mean? Like, you lose that, and then. And then what? You never gave a shit about.

ANTHONY RAMOS: Me hun? Why are you stringing me along with this? With this father, son, take the lead. Bullshit.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: He's the one that got fucked with your bitch ass.

ANTHONY RAMOS: You want my help? I suggest a speedy change in tone. A lot of what was happening on this show was being figured out. As we were going to the like. It wasn't like everything was like things were being even the transformations, the transformation was one thing on the paper. And then I think Ryan came in. One thing was like, I just, I hate it.

Like, I don't like.

JEREMY POPE: Right? It was like right wing rehearsals. He was like, it's all wrong.

ANTHONY RAMOS: It's all wrong, right? I said something like that.

JEREMY POPE: I'm like, on my knees in the carpet, like so no crawling. Then he was like, I see it this way. I mean, Ryan's one of those people. Like, he gets in the room and you watch kind of like the spirit move him like he has to see the thing. He's a very visual person. And he won't stop until it's visually correct.

Even the assassin, you can have an interpretation of, okay, the assassin looks like this. Whereas this. But then he throws on an eyepatch.

ANTHONY RAMOS: Even the eye patch like something that was the eyepatch, was just a thing that came about as we did the hair makeup test, you know, and we tried different things and we tried different shades and we tried variations of different, you know, covering one eye, but, like, there was like a half metal glasses kind of thing that I tried on.

I don't remember that there, but I was then there was an eye patch with no slits right where I was truly could only see out of one eye. Then I was like, yo, it'd be nice to have something where I could see at least a little bit on the side and then a little side, you know what I'm saying?

Just give me

JEREMY POPE: give me some.

ANTHONY RAMOS: Just any and that. But then there was, you know, then we landed on this eye patch with these slits. That actually was the coolest looking thing out of them all. And then it ended up being a thing that I wore for the whole show. Right? We didn't know. We didn't know. Like we were figuring.

JEREMY POPE: I remember that I was like, should he wear the eye patch? And I was like, Ryan likes the eye patch. Like keep the eye patch.

ANTHONY RAMOS: Asking like, okay, eye patch and no eye patch. Like every episode we like eye patch, you know, when do we show the eye like that, that like that

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Do we show?

ANTHONY RAMOS: You know what I’m saying? it seemed like it wasn't until episode seven that we were like, yo, that's when we reveal the eye. When, you know, he has that, that scene with Evan and we have that face off and all of a sudden I take them glasses off.

We see it in a close up for the first time. What do you think? And I'm showing it to Evan. And you see Evan visibly freaked out. Everything was kind of being discovered as we.

JEREMY POPE: Hoping to play, I think.

ANTHONY RAMOS: Yeah.

JEREMY POPE: With Ryan, you got a you can read the page and be like, oh, someone's turning into this or someone's now transforming or what? My, you know, like it's the wild, wild West in the best way. I think you just have to like, stay open.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: I imagine that's kind of exciting getting to be in a space where it's like the energy is that kinetic where you're making these decisions that are hugely important. I mean the transformations are a gigantic part of this show. And the idea that the process is that malleable, that we're figuring out in real time strikes me as very exciting.

Did it feel that way for you both?

JEREMY POPE: It was. I mean, I think, well, first of all, I was butt naked transformation.

ANTHONY RAMOS: Butt ass naked.

JEREMY POPE: Got it, you got to bring.

ANTHONY RAMOS: Around out here.

JEREMY POPE: Just cakes, just like, you know, but it's like there's a level of vulnerability that it requires for you to one be, I think, photographed or filmed or, you know, nude and feeling comfortable in your body and using the body in the space or whatever. And it reminds me of theater, you know what I me and we, we we've done theater.

And sometimes you be in a black box with no props, no nothing. And you, you make the world of the story come to light, requires a different part of you. You don't lean on the Hollywood factor of like, everything's already planned it. It keeps you on your toes and it keeps it visceral. And I think that's when some of the most exciting lines happen.

A lot of our good stuff, I feel our best stuff was improv was us. Ryan saying like, just say what feels right. Watching your leader, your visionary, Ryan do that gives you the ultimate permission to to to do that. And it just made it more fun and exciting because you, you, you were on your toes in a very real way.

You didn't know what was going to be asked of you in that day. You know, I thought the transformation was going to be somebody on the floor doing it for me, and we get my close up. And it was it was not,

EVAN ROSS KATZ: not so

JEREMY POPE: those stunt doubles were just chillin on the side while I was in that neck

ANTHONY RAMOS: contort!

JEREMY POPE: you feel me?

I was in that neck!

ANTHONY RAMOS: not the sack.

JEREMY POPE: Listen,

EVAN ROSS KATZ: the characters called the assassin. So I think we could have expected some fight scenes, but we got a big one at the end of this episode, and I am particularly struck by the fact that it's hand-to-hand combat. You know, it's like, I feel like I he's the assassin. I'm thinking, you know, it's going to bust out a gun and just end this.

Yeah. Talk to me now. What do you make of that decision.

ANTHONY RAMOS: I love I mean, I love the fact that we got to throw down like that. Like me and Evan. You know, we didn't. You? I think the doubles were only used for one small. Oh, my God, that was it. You know, I think he and I did the whole fight. That was a tough day because we only rehearsed that fight one time, weeks before, and we didn't even do the whole thing.

We did like, a piece, like a third of it, maybe. And that was that was as far as we could get in that rehearsal. So we came in at the top of the day not knowing it and learning it piece by piece, and then shooting it like, okay, here's the first third of this fight. Now we're teaching this to

You okay. All right guys. So you ready to shoot. So we got to do it. And then we you know thankfully like I think there was something to that uncertainty and that adrenaline that that kind of took over me and Evan and you know helped us, I guess, you know, with our performances and, at the end of it, we were like, damn, bro, that was amazing.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: To close this out, I want to tease a little bit about what's to come. Episode nine is is very big and quite action packed. And is there anything without, you know, outright spoiling that you can tease about the coming episode?

JEREMY POPE: What can I tease out there just might be some more transformations.

They just might be.

They just might be some more transformations.

ANTHONY RAMOS: Definitely going to be some more transformations in this. And it's, it's pretty just jarring.

JEREMY POPE: to say the least

Expect the unexpected.

ANTHONY RAMOS: Yeah. You definitely seeing this one coming in.

JEREMY POPE: We didn't even see it.

ANTHONY RAMOS: we didn't

JEREMY POPE: We get in and be like yo, yo

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Thank you. That is that is adequate tease. If I’ve ever seen one. Thank you both so much. This is such a pleasure.

ANTHONY RAMOS: Thanks. Thanks, Evan.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: That's all for this time. On the next podcast, I'm dishing the dirt with actor Jessica Alexander about her jaw dropping transformation moment and more in FX's The Beauty. Watch new episodes of The Beauty on FX or stream on Hulu or Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers, be sure to rate, review, and follow the beauty official podcast wherever you watch or listen.

I'm Evan Ross Katz, and I'll see you next time.