Ryan Murphy

Ryan Murphy (born November 9, 1965, Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.) is a producer, director, and writer of television and film who has built a successful and prolific career by bringing the stories of marginalized characters to the mainstream and by exploring dark and controversial topics. He has been called the most powerful man in television and is known for creating compelling, groundbreaking TV shows that push the boundaries of the medium, such as Nip/Tuck (2003–10), Glee (2009–15), American Horror Story (2011– ), Feud (2017– ), and Monster (2022– ). In 2018 he signed a development deal with Netflix reportedly worth as much as $300 million, one of the largest such deals in television history.

Early life

Murphy was raised in an Irish American Roman Catholic family, the youngest son of Jim Murphy, who worked as a newspaper circulation director, and J. Andy Murphy, who was a writer. He attended Warren Central High School in Indianapolis and sang in the school choir, which would inform his later work on Glee. In a 2009 interview with National Public Radio, he discussed his experience of coming out as gay at age 15:

I’m from Indiana, which is a very conservative state, and I don’t know what happened to me or by what grace of God I sort of was imbued with all this confidence, but I dealt with my sexuality at a very early age.…I just sort of announced it,…and I guess because I was popular, and I hung out with popular kids,…I kind of was embraced.

After graduating from high school, Murphy studied journalism at Indiana University Bloomington. He worked as an intern for The Washington Post and several other publications after college and eventually settled in Los Angeles as an entertainment and lifestyle reporter.

Popular, Nip/Tuck, and more

Murphy started writing screenplays, and in the late 1990s Warner Brothers purchased his script for a film project titled Why Can’t I Be Audrey Hepburn? The project was never completed, but the experience gave Murphy the confidence to pursue a career in film and television. He teamed up with writer and producer Gina Matthews to create the teen dramedy Popular (1999–2001), which follows the adventures of two teenage girls from opposite ends of the popularity spectrum who are forced to become friends when their single parents marry each other. Although the series ran for only two seasons, it has become a cult classic in the years since its release.

In 2003 Murphy went on to create the series Nip/Tuck, a darkly comic drama about a pair of plastic surgeons who remain friends despite clashing over differing personal values. The series was popular with audiences and critics and ran for six seasons. It earned Murphy his first Emmy Award nomination, in 2004, for outstanding directing in a drama series.

Murphy turned his attention to the silver screen in 2006, directing the film Running with Scissors, an adaptation of author Augusten Burroughs’s memoir of the same name. Murphy and Burroughs collaborated on the script, which centers on Burroughs’s tales of youthful misadventures. The cast included Hollywood luminaries Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Gwyneth Paltrow, Evan Rachel Wood, and Alec Baldwin, but the film performed poorly at the box office, grossing less than $9 million worldwide.

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Glee and American Horror Story

In 2009 Murphy collaborated with producers Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan to create the popular musical dramedy and cultural phenomenon Glee, which focuses on the adventures of a show choir at the fictional William McKinley High School. The choir is led by Will Schuester (played by Matthew Morrison), a young teacher who takes charge of the group after its previous director is fired. Many of the show’s plotlines center on the relationships between the club’s members, as well as on Schuester’s efforts to motivate the students in a series of competitions against rival choirs. Glee was well received by viewers and earned Murphy his first Emmy Award, in 2010, for outstanding directing for a comedy series. In addition, the show spawned The Glee Project (2011–12), a reality TV program that served as an audition for a recurring role in the series, and the theatrical film Glee: The 3D Concert Movie (2011).

In 2011 Murphy and Falchuk created American Horror Story, an anthology series that mixes supernatural scares with historical true-crime and iconic horror-genre tropes. Each season has its own premise and setting and is structured as a self-contained miniseries. Additionally, the same actors have frequently appeared in different seasons as different characters, allowing cast members such as Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson, Lily Rabe, Jessica Lange, and Kathy Bates to become series mainstays despite the show’s shifting storyscape. American Horror Story has been one of the most successful and popular shows in the history of the FX network, running for 12 seasons, with a 13th to come, and winning 16 Emmy Awards.

Murphy and Falchuk serve as executive producers for the companion true-crime docuseries American Crime Story (2016– ), a series in the American Story franchise that features reenactments of the investigations and courtroom dramas surrounding infamous crimes, including the O.J. Simpson trial, the murder of Gianni Versace, and Monica Lewinsky and the impeachment of U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton.

Feud, Pose, and Dahmer—Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story

Murphy collaborated with producers Jaffe Cohen and Michael Zam in 2017 to create Feud, an anthology series focusing on famous rivalries. The first season, Feud: Bette and Joan follows the feud between actresses Joan Crawford (played by Jessica Lange) and Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon) on the set of the psychological thriller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). The second season, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (2024), based on Laurence Leamer’s book Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era (2021), focuses on the rivalry between author Truman Capote (Tom Hollander) and a group of elite socialite women whom he dubbed “the swans.” In a published excerpt from his unfinished novel Answered Prayers, Capote exposed his inner circle of socialite friends, portraying them as backstabbers and revealing their secrets.

Read more about the true story behind Feud: Capote vs. The Swans.

In 2018 Murphy and Falchuk teamed up with producer Steven Canals to create the musical dance drama series Pose (2018–21). Set in New York City during the late 1980s and early 1990s amid the AIDS epidemic, Pose explores the story of African American and Latino ballroom culture in the LGBTQ community. Pose was notable for featuring the largest cast of transgender actors in a scripted TV series.

In 2018 Murphy signed a lucrative deal to develop shows for Netflix, the most popular of which has been Dahmer—Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, season one of the Monster anthology series. Dahmer—Monster explores the dark story of the cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (played by Evan Peters). The show’s release quickly courted controversy. Family members of Dahmer’s victims described the show’s release as being a traumatizing experience for them. Netflix was also criticized for tagging the show as “LGBTQ” because of Dahmer’s sexuality. Despite the negative response, the series has surpassed the billion-hour mark in viewing time, making it one of the most watched series on Netflix.

Awards and personal life

Murphy has won six Emmy Awards and received 38 Emmy nominations. He won a Tony Award for producing the 2018 revival of the play The Boys in the Band (1968). In 2012 he married photographer David Miller. The couple has three children, who were born via surrogacy.