Emmy Rossum is hypnotizing as Angelyne, the curvaceous, mysterious bombshell who made a name for herself when she dropped huge, self-promoting calling cards in Los Angeles in the summer of 1987. Who exactly is Angelyne? The Peacock limited series wants to tease you with an answer but leaving you wanting more. Angelyne shows our obsession with knowing every detail about someone’s life, but Angelyne, herself, wants you to keep guessing.
When her rock star boyfriend gets a negative review of his band, Angelyne brushes it off by saying, ‘You have to have a so-what mentality.’ Angelyne doesn’t care what people are saying about her as long as she can inspire them. All press is good press, right?
“That intentional, self-mythologizing, and not-repeating-things is something that she is very aware of. She is aware of the mythology. It’s almost like an Old Hollywood studio executive fairy godmother kind of mentality like when you realize that a man is creating Oz. It can take the hot air out of the balloon. I personally find it very hard to have a ‘so-what’ mentality. I understand, similarly to her, that once you put it out into the world that it no longer belongs to you.”
The first episode flashes back to the late 70s when Philip Ettinger’s Cory Hunt approaches Angelyne at the bar. He wants to know who she is, and it’s almost like the moment Lana Turner was discovered at the soda fountain at Schwab’s Drug Store. Rossum agreed that it was a big ‘star is born’ moment for Angelyne in the series, but she took the time to note how well the makeup and hair team slowly began transforming her from that point on.
“I cannot say enough about the hair and makeup team. They painted me like the Sistine Chapel every day, and Danny Glicker’s costumes literally changed the shape of my body. I’m 5’8, and I’m a hanger. I don’t have those proportions.”
One of the sweetest relationships Angelyne has is with Martin Freeman’s Harold Wallach. Angelyne’s invasion of the Wallach family puts a severe strain on Harold’s marriage and his relationship with his daughter, Cathy, played by Molly Ephraim. It doesn’t feel sexual at all, and that’s another example of how people take their expectations of what Angelyne looks like and twist it to be something unsavory. In one particular scene, Angelyne and Harold are spending time together on the beach, and she nervously asks him if he thinks it’s a good idea for her to sell pictures of her feet. There is a really pure, parental energy about their bond.
“We had the chance to talk to Cathy, who is his daughter, and is in one of the episodes actually. It really felt like a tender, poignant, nonsexual thing. They were in a lockstep in fulfilling each other’s dreams. He helped her with these billboards, and he truly became fame-adjacent. He always wanted to be a director and the behind the scenes of the glamour. Angelyne was so smart to find all these people who could inspire people and who she could inspire. That was a very human relationship that she had over decades contrary to what people said their relationship. But, even if it was what people suggested, it wouldn’t bother her.”
Towards the end of the five episodes (more limited series need to learn from Angelyne‘s brevity), the show delves into the life Angelyne had before she moved to LA. We see the relationship between the young girl Angelyne was desperate to run away from, and there is a really aching quality to Rossum’s body language. There is a freedom in how Angelyne expresses herself with her body, but she was dying to get out of her hometown and even her original body. Since Rossum spent so long studying the iconography of Angelyne, it was very difficult since not a lot of footage exists of her younger days.
“There is a yearning and vulnerability there. Angelyne said she idolizes the Barbie doll because the doll can get sick or die of cancer. She said some things close to that to me. Angelyne describes Angelyne as a survival mechanism, and I tried to think of someone whose body was a safe haven for her. She had to have felt so trapped in order for her to change the body that she never felt authentic in. I tried to think about finding connective tissue to show gestures to show who might become Angelyne. That was the most difficult part of the character, because I had no audio or video to go off. There’s nothing.”
You may wonder why tell Angelyne’s story if we end on so much secrecy. Angelyne is still boasted as the original influencer (she still sells merch out of the trunk of her punk Corvette in LA), but she doesn’t owe anyone anything. She is a fantasy, an enigma, and an inspiration all rolled into one. If you see her figure and are then inspired to create, she has done her job. Rossum’s performance is easily one of the best of the year. Hop in that pink corvette, and let Angelyne take you for the ride of your life.
“The show, quite literally, begins with the assembly of a woman on the billboard. Only Angelyne can be Angelyne. No one else can build her. It was so hard to understand that level of trauma in the body while trying desperately to escape it. In moments, that is felt throughout her life, especially when people are trying to trap her or confront her by figuring her out. She wanted to be in the driver’s seat of her life. It’s quite a literal feeling of being in control as she is racing down the highway in a masculine-moving, fast vehicle in a weaponized, sexualized female body.”
Angelyne is streaming on Peacock.
