Ashton Kutcher is stepping far outside his familiar comedic comfort zone with a chilling new role in Ryan Murphy’s upcoming FX series The Beauty. After keeping a relatively low profile in recent years, Kutcher is making a high-stakes return to television as a powerful, morally corrupt billionaire who sits at the center of a disturbing new world obsessed with perfection.
Kutcher revealed that he wasn’t actively looking to jump back into acting. His days were focused on raising his kids, coaching flag football, and running his venture capital firm. That changed when Ryan Murphy personally reached out with a concept that felt uncomfortably close to real life. The show taps into society’s growing fixation on self-optimization, wealth, and beauty at any cost.
Murphy pitched the idea through the lens of today’s booming culture around weight-loss injections like Ozempic and Mounjaro, along with the rise of cosmetic enhancements. The core question behind the series is simple but unsettling: what would happen if a single injection could instantly make someone beautiful? Kutcher said the idea felt disturbingly believable in a world where appearance often translates directly into power and influence.
In The Beauty, Kutcher plays a character known only as “The Corporation,” the head of an unimaginably wealthy empire with no limits and no accountability. He’s introduced living in extreme luxury aboard a yacht off the coast of Croatia, instantly signaling the excess and detachment that define his world. His character is responsible for launching a revolutionary drug called “The Beauty,” which promises youth and physical perfection but comes with devastating consequences that begin to unravel as the story unfolds.
Kutcher shared that Murphy wrote the role specifically for him, telling him outright that he was the character. That personal connection pushed Kutcher to take on the role, even though it required him to justify deeply troubling actions from the villain’s point of view. Rather than playing him as a caricature, Kutcher approached the character as someone who genuinely believes his choices are necessary, a mindset he says is key to making a villain feel real.
The series also explores the emotional cost of extreme wealth. Kutcher’s character has a strained relationship with his wife, played by Isabella Rossellini, who openly condemns his decisions and serves as a moral counterweight in the story. Her character delivers some of the show’s most brutal warnings about power, greed, and consequence.
As online buzz grew, viewers began speculating that Kutcher’s billionaire villain was inspired by real-life tech moguls, especially Elon Musk. Kutcher quickly shut down those rumors, stating that the character is not based on Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, or any specific individual. While Musk may be closest in terms of wealth, Kutcher said the role reflects a broader aura shared by people with so much power that the world seems to bend effortlessly around them.
For Kutcher, the role marks a major shift in how audiences see him. Long known for playing charming and likable characters, he described this performance as one of the most challenging of his career. The show forces viewers to wrestle with uncomfortable questions about beauty, empathy, and what truly matters in a future shaped by artificial intelligence and endless self-enhancement.
Ultimately, The Beauty goes far beyond a thriller about a miracle drug. It’s a dark reflection of modern society’s obsession with perfection and the dangerous price people are willing to pay to achieve it—and the powerful few who stand to profit from that obsession.
