The Beauty is based on the eponymous 2015 comic book series by Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley. Murphy and series cocreator Matthew Hodgson optioned the rights nearly a decade ago, long before the release of 2024’s similarly themed body-horror film, The Substance—starring Kutcher’s ex-wife, Demi Moore, in a performance that earned the actor her first Oscar nomination. But Kutcher can’t really speak to any similarities between the two projects. When asked about comparisons between the two, Kutcher shies away from his Zoom camera, lowering his voice to a whisper: “I haven’t seen that film,” he says sheepishly.
But he does have another comp in mind for The Beauty. “There was a movie that Bradley Cooper did where a drug made him hyperproductive, Limitless. I read that script, wanted to do it—but they hired Bradley instead. Good choice, he’s great.” His new show has a similar premise. “I love this notion of giving people some superhuman capability that is not 10 steps removed from today, but two steps removed from today. I think that’s always more fun because you’re not in outer space. You can imagine this actually happening.”
It’s a topic Kutcher and his wife, Mila Kunis, had been discussing even before he got the script for The Beauty. “My wife actually said to me, ‘Somebody walks around with braces or Invisalign, and that’s totally fine. But the minute someone gets a rhinoplasty, that’s viewed differently.’ They’re both cosmetic enhancements,” he says. “One’s to your teeth and one’s to your nose. And nobody’s ever going to be judgey about getting braces, or about how your teeth turn out from the braces. But they will for rhinoplasty or lipo or a hair transplant. She and I have had a lot of conversations about this. It depends on what body part it is. That’s a really weird thing.”
