Emmy Rossum became aware of Angelyne shortly after moving to Los Angeles as a tween to pursue acting. Angelyne, for the uninitiated, is an enigmatic Hollywood figure who became famous by putting up a series of billboards of herself in the 80s. The woman in the hot pink Corvette made an impact on Rossum, then 12 or 13 years old and a newcomer to Hollywood, which has never been kind to adolescent girls. Angelyne’s autonomy spoke to her, as did seeking fame on her own terms.
Actually playing her became Rossum’s mission turned reality as producer and star of the miniseries Angelyne on Peacock. We Got This Covered spoke to Rossum and showrunner Allison Miller at ATX TV Fest about bringing a version of her to life.
“This is a woman who has complete confidence in her body, she has turned her body into hyper sexual superhero armor,” says Rossum. “And almost like a weaponization of her sexuality and femininity as a protest, at least in my opinion, of patriarchy. Not to be controlled or dominated by men, and to do the opposite, to dominate them and take the power back.”
The “superhero armor” took up to seven hours in the makeup chair to create as Rossum plays Angelyne all glammed up over the decades.
Angelyne herself, ever the cipher, has gone back and forth on her approval of the show. Though producers were able to buy her life rights and welcomed her to participate in creating it, she opted for minimal involvement. Angelyne met with Rossum and Miller individually and emphasized that whatever they came up with would be a mirror to themselves.
“I think that once we said we’re part of that failure, and it is a failure to tell someone else’s story, let them tell their own story,” says Miller, “That became the story for us rather than trying to capture something so elusive about someone else.”
So when the real Angelyne told Inside Edition the portrayal “misrepresented her,” it was pretty much what they expected going into a project on this particular subject.
Besides their own lives and Angelyne’s, Miller and Rossum drew inspiration from the seedy to the surreal.
“Boogie Nights. We talked about Big Fish. We talked about Pan’s Labyrinth, and Barbarella,” says Rossum. Barbarella in particular was a visual touchstone for director Lucy Tcheerniak. The pandemic forced the crew to rethink scenes in a way that required fewer extras, and the resulting fantasy scenes enhanced the show’s fantastical quality.
“Ultimately, it’s very hard to tell a story about a famous person without surrounding them by people,” says Rossum.
And one point, we see Angelyne film a cameo as herself in 1988’s Earth Girls Are Easy, bringing her alien-like daily presence to a group of aliens masquerading as people.
“Angelyne’s version of the truth, and her commitment to illusion and fantasy, can be more honest and thrilling than all of the different stories that have been told about her,” says Miller. “And how all of the men in her life have tried to kind of capture her and diminish her and define her for herself.”
To that end, the show switches perspectives throughout the show as people weave in and out of Angelyne’s life over half a decade.
Avoiding a straightforward biography does not mean they didn’t do their research, analyzing hundreds of hours of footage of the woman herself. Rossum and her movement coach, Julia Crockett, even went to visit a mall Santa with the actress staying in character as Angelyne but looking like Emmy Rossum, a famous adult woman visiting Kris Kringle unaccompanied by children.
“I had to do this so many times in order to feel like I could do that through all those layers of latex and fully embodied,” says Rossum.
Miller weaves Angelyne’s idiosyncrasies, like ordering a plate of salted tomato slices at a diner, into the script, as well as her signature turns of phrase. When Rossum met her, she asked the actress, “Why do you have such a hard-on to play me?” In the show, Angelyne poses a similarly-worded question to Hugh Hefner.
“And ultimately, we wanted to return some of that mystique and power back to her,” says Rossum. “By using her words and her specific way of defining things. She kind of has her own language.”
Angelyne is streaming in full on Peacock.