A new show on Peacock tells the story of Angelyne, famed for being an '80s self-promoting starlet who bought a billboard with her name across it.
The investigation into Angelyne’s true identity becomes part of show’s own plotlines. A fictionalized version of the reporter behind the 2017 article and his quest to find the truth plays a bigger role as the five-episode series proceeds.piece, along with other legends about her life.
The show utilizes a variety of Hollywood magic to transform Rossum into Angelyne. The creative team also had access to hundreds of hours of Angelyne footage dating back to the 1970s, which Rossum went back to in order to isolate her mannerisms. They picked out phrases she used and worked to create something inspired by the real person.
Rossum described Angelyne as the strongest woman that she’s played. The role ended up being her most challenging and most fulfilling, Rossum said, and it was a long way to get there. The project took four years to come to fruition as it faced pandemic delays and dealing with a complicated real-life subject.
The show is a love letter not just to Angelyne, Rossum said, but to Los Angeles itself, “about the kind of fantasy that you can create when you move [here], and how you can shape your identity almost out of clay and fairy dust in Los Angeles, in a way that you can’t anywhere else.” “She’s the first person who decided, ‘I don’t need to be famous for something that I do,’” Rossum said. “‘It’s me — it’s my personality, what I represent and who I am, how I make people feel — that I should be celebrated for.’”