We’re only two episodes into Ryan Murphy’s latest anthology series on FX, Feud, and I’m hooked already. Not only is the source material, the legendary rivalry between Golden Age of Hollywood era actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford during the filming of 1962’s Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, absolutely fascinating, the performances have been incredible. There’s Susan Sarandon as Bette and Jessica Lange as Joan, but also Catherine Zeta Jones as Olivia De Haviland, Kathy Bates as Joan Blondell and Kiernan Shipka as Bette’s daughter BD Hyman (who later wrote a nasty “tell-all” about her mother, a la Mommie Dearest.)

Part of the reason for the show’s success could be that Ryan seems to be a genuine admirer of the actresses, especially Bette, whom Ryan met and befriended when he was a young journalist. In an interview with Vulture he recalls meeting the actress “I had a really wonderful time and I got to really talk to [Bette] a lot about her pain and her regretting what it was like to be a woman and feel that you were just getting started and to be told you were done.”

Ryan, who has cast a number of older actresses in his projects, including Jamie Lee Curtis on Scream Queens and Jessica Lange on American Horror Story, has been vocal in lamenting Hollywood’s lack of good parts for actresses over 40. He shared his thoughts with The Hollywood Reporter while discussing the latest episode of the show, which aired on Sunday night. It’s a good read, packed with spoilers, mind you, but gives some great insight as to why Ryan was the perfect person to tell the story of the making of this film and the people behind it. Here are some highlights:

Could Joan and Bette have been friends? Maybe…
Jack Warner knew that two women pitted in the media against each other would probably sell more tickets. So a lot of that was created by the system, by the columnists. What they did still happens today with women. Susan and Jessica and I talked a lot about that; this sort of woman-against-woman reporting is really a device used many times by the media as click bait or back then to sell papers.

Was Ryan on #TeamBette, and did he give her preferential treatment on Feud?
I never did, I went into it knowing a lot about Davis and not about Joan Crawford but I left it knowing a lot about both of them and finding them both to be fascinating and sympathetic. Look, we weren’t making a documentary, that’s clear. And sometimes we were left to imagine things we thought had happened or that research had led us to believe even though there was no past answer.

Ryan on aging in Hollywood:
I feel like that’s a part of the aging process of Hollywood, where there is an expiration date stamped on your keister and you’re fighting to stay relevant and then suddenly you wake up and people have deemed you expired.

I’ve grown up with many women in my career now, all of whom come into my office and sometimes break down in tears, saying suddenly the phone has stopped ringing. “Suddenly people aren’t interested in me anymore just because I got older.” And I’m very moved by that. Persevering and fighting to stay in the game instead of giving up and still fighting to demonstrate your self worth is tremendously moving. For me, the saddest thing in the world is always lost potential. That is always the most heartbreaking thing when there’s something left to be mined from a situation or a person that goes unexplored; that’s a tragedy to me. I looked at the piece as a sad tragedy about this group of people who oddly had so much in common even though they didn’t know it at the time.

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

Jessica, 67 and Susan, 70, definitely share Ryan’s opinion, and they’ve discussed it at great lengths in promoting the show already. In a recent interview with People, Jessica said, “At a certain age women are no longer considered a viable or a valuable part of the community — even if that’s when they may feel like they’re at the top of their game. And that’s not just in Hollywood.” Susan added, “There are so many tragic stories of women who were so beautiful and couldn’t figure out a way to age within the system.”

I know this show is hardly going to make an impact as far as bringing more older actresses to the big screen, but I’m glad to see it finally being told, and, somewhat sadly, seeing the theme still prevalent in today’s Hollywood. Although with shows like this and Grace and Frankie, we may see more representations of mature women in the media. Let’s hope so.

Photos: Getty Images, WENN.com