This article appears in the pages of V125: Supermodel Summer, available to order now at shop.vmagazine.com.

JEREMY POPE, Hollywood

This summer, multi-time Tony nominee Jeremy Pope makes his TV debut in Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood. Though the Netflix series marks a big break for the 27-year-old, the significance goes beyond Pope himself. “It’s bigger than just me,” he says. “I feel like I’m paving the way for people behind me and in front of me.” Amid gauzy, post-war Tinseltown, Pope’s character reflects the not-so- bygone reality of industry inequity. “It’s this idea of, ‘What if?’” explains Pope. “What if we’d had more opportunities? How different it could have been?”

Born in Orlando, Pope discovered theater in high school. Though his first major part was in the 2018 grindhouse flick The Ranger, his own storytelling tastes align with Murphy’s: highly carbonated drama, with touches of sincerity. “Our show has a dreamer’s heartbeat; it’s about people willing to do whatever it takes,” he says. Portraying a ’50s-era dreamer like Archie led Pope to re-examine his own flight path: Upon moving to New York, he says he questioned whether or not the industry would make space for him. “You get discouraged: Broadway and TV shapes our ideas, and I wasn’t seeing myself [represented] as often as I would’ve liked.”

Pope’s staggering trajectory, which in 2019 included scooping double nominations at the Tony’s—suggests the industry never had much of a choice. On Hollywood, Pope continues to expand what representation can look like—namely in his character’s nonpareil wardrobe. “I loved Archie’s style,” Pope beams. “It was a cinched waist, plaid shirts and sweater vests, hair always laid. He didn’t have a lot of money, but the boy could dress.”