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The Shards is Ryan Murphy‘s newest highly anticipated series, but how is the spooky — and star-studded — teen slasher related to Bret Easton Ellis‘ hit American Psycho?
According to the official synopsis, The Shards is set in Los Angeles in 1981 and follows “a 17-year-old version of Ellis during his final year at the elite Buckley prep school.” His world is upended by the arrival of a mysterious new student, Robert Mallory, whose “unsettling presence coincides with the activities of a serial killer known as The Trawler.”
Igby Rigney portrays Ellis, now 62, alongside costar Homer Gere as Robert. The cast includes Graham Campbell, Hayes Warner, Wes Bentley and Kaia Gerber, as well as Evan Rachel Wood, Jordan Roth, Owen Painter and Daniel Dale in supporting roles.
The Shards is based on Ellis’ book of the same name, which is a fictionalized memoir about his upbringing. The 2023 release was Ellis’ first in 13 years. Ellis is best known for his book American Psycho, which told the story of a fictional Manhattan investment banker who lives a double life as a serial killer.
American Psycho was transformed into a movie starring Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman. Other works by Ellis include Less than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, The Informers, Glamorama, Lunar Park and Imperial Bedrooms.
The Shards is the only book of Ellis’ to feature himself as a character, but he issued a disclaimer stating that all the major players in The Shards are fictional — apart from the narrator.
“The last time I thought about this book, this particular dream, and telling this version of the story — the one you’re reading now, the one you just began — was almost twenty years ago, when I thought I could handle revealing what happened to me and a few of my friends at the beginning of our senior year at Buckley, in 1981,” reads an excerpt from the novel.
Ahead of the show’s debut, Campbell, who plays Thom, teased how other characters exist on the page and on screen, telling Us, “What’s interesting because we’re seeing the story through Bret’s eyes is that you kind of tap in and out of other people’s story lines and a lot goes down behind the scenes.”
Daniel Dale had a similar experience while bringing Ryan to life.
“I’ve never worked with a book before as a source material,” he noted to Us. “So we had that and it talks a little bit about Ryan’s upbringing, the character of Ryan’s upbringing, his family and what that was all like. I brought all of that with me to the show — not knowing whether that would stay when we adapted it — but it kind of informed a lot about just the way he stands and the way he talks.”
Dale continued: “I feel like it was very clear to me. I could see him when I read the book. So I tried to really embody that.”
Filming The Shards also involved a lot of creativity for Painter, especially when it came to exploring his character Matt’s motivation between the lines.
“I thought a lot about who Matt was. In the book — at least to me — [it] shaped up to be about identity and imagination and what happens when you impose your own perspective on other people,” he said. “I honestly didn’t make any hard line decisions. I just kept thinking about it.”
The Shards airs Wednesdays on FX.
