How far would you go to be beautiful — and who would you trust to sell it to you?
From Ryan Murphy, the mind behind some of television’s most provocative and style-forward hits, The Beauty is an FX series that turns the beauty industrial complex into a full-blown horror story. Ashton Kutcher stars as a powerful tech executive embedded near the top of the corporate machine behind a designer drug that promises instant physical perfection — with a terrifying catch. The miracle substance secretly spreads a deadly STD, and Kutcher’s character plays a key role in making sure it reaches the right people while staying out of the wrong hands.
Premiering January 21, 2026, on FX and Hulu, The Beauty is based on the Image Comics series by Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley. The show imagines a world where beauty isn’t cosmetic, genetic, or surgical — it’s chemical. In true Ryan Murphy fashion, the series frames the drug as a chillingly logical extension of modern tech culture, wellness obsession, and curated perfection, asking whether our hunger to be flawless has finally crossed a point of no return.
An Injectable Miracle Drug with a Horrible, Irreversible Side Effect
The drug, known as The Beauty, instantly makes users physically flawless. What initially appears to be a miracle becomes a crisis when people begin dying—literally exploding—without obvious cause. As the disease spreads, authorities realize the drug is carrying something more lethal than the physical benefits it promises.
The series follows investigators trying to trace the source of the epidemic while corporations work to hide evidence—because who doesn’t want to be beautiful despite the consequences? Ashton Kutcher is inside the fashion machine, not as a rogue villain but as a powerful influence and manipulative public messenger. The show avoids simple good-versus-evil framing, focusing more on how systems, like the government and the fashion world, protect themselves from the inside.
Ashton Kutcher in a Sharper, Darker Role
For Ashton Kutcher, The Beauty is totally different than anything he’s done before. He plays a figure shaped by control. He’s charming in a cold, calculated way. He’s someone who speaks calmly while chaos builds around him. The performance shown in the trailer suggests restraint and detachment. He simply doesn’t care about anyone but those in his inner circle, and even that will come into question.
His character is a tech billionaire, but he’s not presented as the inventor of the drug. He’s the gatekeeper, the one who decides how information flows and who benefits. That position makes him more dangerous than anyone acting openly. The role fits the series’ larger interest in institutional deception over individual blame.
The Supporting Cast and Their Roles
Alongside Ashton Kutcher, The Beauty features a supporting cast caught up in the drug’s fallout.
- Evan Peters stars as an FBI agent working to trace the cause of the mysterious deaths tied to the drug, representing law enforcement’s blunt, procedural perspective.
- Rebecca Hall plays his partner, a more analytical and methodical agent.
- Bella Hadid is a fashion influencer. Her rise and subsequent decline highlights how quickly public perception can change when beauty standards collide with real-world consequences.
- Anthony Ramos and Jeremy Pope round out the cast. Each is connected to the unfolding epidemic from different social angles, giving the series multiple viewpoints on how the drug affects society.
What The Beauty is Really About
While The Beauty uses thriller and body-horror elements, its focus stays grounded in familiar pressure. The desire to look better, feel younger, and gain a sexual and sensual edge drive the drug’s popularity. The series showcases natural impulses, treating them as normal to make the consequences more realistic and unsettling. In other words: this could happen.
FX has positioned the show as a limited runner, allowing the plot to move toward a conclusion instead of stretching it over seasons. With its January 21 release date, The Beauty arrives as part of a growing wave of genre shows that are focused on what could happen when tech goes too far.
For Ashton Kutcher, the project offers a chance to play a character who doesn’t ask for sympathy. He exists within a system the rewards silence and control.