Ryan Murphy loves a bit of stunt casting, and for his next big name-drop, he’s booked the chief of the Chiefs.
Taylor Swift’s Super Bowl-winning football beau Travis Kelce landed his first big acting job with a part in the American Horror Story creator’s next big TV show, Grotesquerie. Deadline was the first to report the news, but Kelce confirmed the casting by popping up in some videos Emmy winner Niecy Nash posted from the show’s set.
“Guys, guess who I am working with on Grostequerie?” Nash said in the first video, before unveiling Kelce in a nearly all-white outfit with gold accessories.
Niecy Nash/Instagram
“Jumping into new territory with Niecy!” he exclaimed. The athlete then appeared beside Nash wearing a beige bomber jacket in a vintage-looking convertible to say, “Buckle up!” Nash, meanwhile, said her own look, which included a headscarf, is “giving Bodyguard, it’s giving Whitney Houston, it’s giving ‘I Wanna Run to You.'”
Nash also shared footage of when they wrapped for the night, with Kelce exclaiming, “I’m just glad I didn’t hurt nobody.”
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Details on what Grostequerie is actually about are scarce, but we know it’s a new horror show from Murphy that’s coming to FX sometime this fall. Courtney B. Vance, who won one of his two Emmys for playing Johnnie Cochran in Murphy’s American Crime Story, will appear alongside Nash, who won an Emmy for playing Glenda Cleveland in Murphy’s Monster. They’re both joined by Lesley Manville, Oscar nominated for her role in Phantom Thread.
“I don’t know who else is in it yet, but I’m excited,” Vance told Entertainment Weekly and PEOPLE on the 2024 SAG Awards red carpet. “The only thing I will say is it’s a half hour. That’s all I’m gonna give ya,” he added.
Ryan Murphy Productions released a cryptic teaser in February that featured Nash’s voice saying, “I don’t know what’s started. I can’t put my finger on it. But it’s different now. There’s been a shift. It’s like something’s opening up in the world. A kind of hole to the center of nothingness. What I saw today…they sent shrinks for everyone who worked this crime scene. You say, ‘Well, hon, evil has always existed,’ and cite some statistic about how the world’s getting better, less murder, more help, less global horror, never been a better time to be alive, hon. Come back. It’s not getting better. And I keep needing to hear your answers, because something’s happening around us, and nobody sees…but me.”
Kelce hasn’t had much professional acting experience until now. He previously headlined his own reality dating show called Catching Kelce, and he appeared on stage as the host of Saturday Night Live for a stand-out episode. He has since signed on as the host of Amazon’s upcoming Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?