Evan Peters

Peters plays Cooper Madsen in The Beauty (2026) with a seriousness that makes the gruesome material matter. We found ourselves caring more than the scattered writing deserved, because he commits to the horror while the series wavers between that and black comedy. Ryan Murphy's series has enough invention to reward a strong stomach, but its beauty-industry satire is blunt. Peters and Jeremy Pope, as Jeremy, give us reasons to stay with the people when the writing would rather introduce another idea. That is useful work, though it cannot make eleven episodes feel necessary.

The breakthrough was Tate Langdon in American Horror Story (2011), the Murphy collaboration that kept finding different uses for him. Those parts could be sympathetic, monstrous or comic, so treating him simply as a specialist in menace misses much of the work. There was room alongside those horror parts for the fast-moving Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). For the lead role in Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022), his preparation included changing his posture and accent.

TRON: Ares (2025) shows the limits of hiring a capable actor and handing him a familiar type. Peters plays Julian Dillinger as a rich boy who has never been told no, the owner of the machine that sends Jared Leto's Ares into the world. The entitlement is clear enough; there is little in the script to make it interesting. Director Joachim Rønning has good actors, including Greta Lee and Gillian Anderson, but the film keeps repeating ideas it has barely developed. Nothing here suggests that more effort from Peters would have fixed the problem.

Wish (2023) gives him still less to do as the voice of Simon, one of Asha's friends. Only Gabo's grumbling registers among that group, which leaves little basis for judging what Peters might have brought to a fuller part. These are not performances that justify following him into every project. For a useful example of what he adds, try The Beauty, provided a tolerance for body horror comes with a tolerance for untidy storytelling.