What To Know
The Beauty Episode 5 introduced the pre-Beauty version of the billionaire Byron Forst, with deadly results.
Here, Vincent D’Onofrio breaks down key scenes from this killer backstory.
[Warning: The following post contains spoilers for The Beauty Episode 5, “Beautiful Billionaires.”]
If you thought Byron a.k.a. the Corporation was a horrible, megalomaniacal monster before when Ashton Kutcher played him, well, the pre-Beauty version was somehow worse.
Portrayed in flashbacks by Vincent D’Onofrio, in a hilarious and evil guest turn on FX’s The Beauty, Byron is a billionaire who joins a retreat with other one percenters to try out a dream drug that promises to bring them eternal youth and vitality — the one thing money couldn’t buy them before.
While the others are skeptical, Byron, donning a coat made of stuffed animals just because, doesn’t hesitate much. His life is one of privilege and misery — as evidenced by his bitterly contentious dinner argument with his wife, portrayed by Isabella Rossellini — so a reset is just what he needs. Once injected and transformed, though, he murders the others and takes the doctor who doled out the drug hostage before burning his mansion to the ground.
TV Insider caught up with Vincent D’Onofrio about playing the pre-Beauty Byron, chewing on scenery with Rossellini, and more.
This character has such a colorful introduction in the car scene. When you’re signing on for a project with Ryan Murphy, knowing the eccentricities of his show history, how much do you just have to kind of let go and trust him?
Vincent D’Onorfio: Yeah, I’ve done a couple of things with Ryan now, and it’s in the writing, really. The scenes are appropriately written for the world that he’s writing them in. And everything is handled so carefully… so there’s never any kind of tension on set or weirdness about performing that stuff, because it’s all playing to… My character’s incredibly pathetic, and so his behavior is one that follows that perfectly. You know what you’re doing. You know why you’re doing it. You know how it surfaces the story and stuff. So it’s kind of you just go in expecting, and you have to just commit to make it work.
Did you try to avoid thinking about real-life billionaires, or did you model your satire after them?
Well, I mean, these days, it’s hard to avoid it because of social media and stuff. We hear so much about the super-rich these days, and some of them do some great things for the world, and others are pretty pathetic characters. So, yeah, there were a few models.
The scene in the house, when they have the billionaire retreat, on days like today, those seem to have some special meaning. Was the line about the island an ad lib, or was it already scripted?
No, that was already scripted.
Did you think about the connection there? Or was that just accidental?
I mean, I think about everything when I’m doing stuff. So, yeah, crossed my mind. I wouldn’t say that this scene is based on anything, but definitely, I mean, the writing of this story that we’re doing… it’s just the world around us. We’re so conscious of it these days. Most of us don’t live those lives, you know? So it’s around us all the time, more than ever before. So we get to see it and be happy that we’re not in it.
This character has some really great little details. I mean, the coat, the Burning Man jacket, and just his little quirks. How much input did you have on that, and how fun was it for you to play to those idiosyncrasies?
We tried a bunch of different things. We had a lot of costumes — many, many different, different costumes. And then we tried a bunch of them, and then one day, that showed up in the room, and it was like, “We’ve got to try this on.” Everybody’s like, “You have to try this on.” So I tried it on. It lacks purpose in such a big way. That outfit has no meaning whatsoever. It’s just bizarre and a good look into his mind, what he would think is abstract enough for Burning Man.
This character is split, and you’re playing like the past version of it. Did you work with Ashton Kutcher at all to develop his persona? Or did you guys just both do your own takes on it?
We pretty much had our own takes on it. We did speak about it, though, yeah, and we went over a couple of things that we wanted to be similar, but we didn’t want to hammer it over the head or anything like that. It’s this particular thing. It was best that everything that I did was rooted in this kind of awful behavior, and then Ashton was able to do whatever he wanted with that. So it’s like I went full awful — and to the point where it would make my stomach sick sometimes… So yeah, it’s a little of both, but mostly I was just there to be this awful creature.
FX
For the scene with the argument with Isabella Rossellini’s character, how fun was it for you to play those dynamics with her?
Well, I don’t think there’s an actor of my generation that wouldn’t want to have worked with her at some point in your career. She’s an icon. So it was, “Finally, yes, I got to.” I’d seen her in so many movies. We have friends in common, but we’d never met before, and it’s just a thrill. She’s just awesome on set. Her set etiquette is amazing, and she wears clothes so well. The outfits that she has in there, she makes him look elegant somehow, I don’t know how, but she does. She’s just wonderful. She’s really good on set. She’s a really good actress. She plays scenes out in a very full way, and we don’t stop until we get it right. I had always been impressed by her from afar, but up close and actually doing scenes just the two of us in the scenes, I was super impressed by her.
You’ve had a history of playing villains. Is there something about the antagonist perspective in films and television that draws you particularly?
Well, I don’t know. I think it’s the character actor thing. I guess the biggest parts seem to be, these days… for a character actor, are villains, and so, yeah, so I do a lot of it, and it’s a challenge because you want everything that you do to service the story. You want it to be unique in some way, as unique as the story you’re telling. So it’s fun, in that way, to invent them. All the characters that I played, I hope, are very different. So it’s put a lot into making sure that they’re telling your story properly, but they’re unique as well.
What was it like for you to do the transformation of the character into this cocoon and everything before he turned into Ashton?
So when I was on set, all I had to do was kind of squirm in pain for that scene, and then the rest, it was done. I wasn’t even there when it was done, so I don’t even know what that looks like yet. So it’ll be interesting to see. But that was a fun scene because all the actors were together, and I love all those actors we were working with. Peter Gallagher, we’ve worked together before, years ago. I’ve known him for so many years. He’s just an amazing dude and really fun to work with. Everybody in that room was just hilarious and had their own character going. I just love those actors so much. Yeah, so it was a blast. We all had to do that scene. We all committed 100%, too. I hope it turned out OK. I haven’t seen it.
It’s pretty great. All of them are very goopy, but that one has some interesting effects, so I think you’ll enjoy it.
[Laughs.] My daughter was watching the show the other day. She was like, “I hate this show. I love this show!”
The Beauty, Wednesdays, 9/8c, FX & Hulu
