Ryan Murphy Explains Why He Cut Back on ‘Graphic’ Teen Sex Scenes in ‘The Shards’

Ryan Murphy hinted that his shows will have less “graphic” sex scenes — starting with The Shards.

“I’ve done a couple of shows with high school characters, and I love doing them. I think that arena is really interesting,” Murphy, 60, told The Hollywood Reporter in a profile published on Thursday, August 6. “It’s an arena of first times: First kiss. First makeout. First sexual experience. First breakup.”

The setting of his new show made Murphy reconsider the sexual content featured in author Bret Easton Ellis’ 2023 novel of the same name, which inspired The Shards.

“I always thought it was a story of longing and romance more than sexuality. Also, I’m a parent. I have three young boys,” Murphy, who shares his kids with David Miller, added. “I’ve done erotic shows, sexual shows. I wanted it to be tasteful and palatable.”

He continued: “The interesting thing about The Shards is that it’s made for everybody. Specifically, it’s made for you if you grew up in the ‘80s, and it’s made for young people who are that age. In the back of my mind, I was always like, ‘Being too graphic and too sensational is not the way to go.’”

Murphy teased “longing and eroticism” in the FX series that was approached “very responsibly” with intimacy coordinators.

“But I would say that the older I get, the more I become an old Victorian prude,” he noted. “Maybe because I’m a father, I’m like, ‘We don’t need to show that.’”

While teasing the series, Murphy called the sexual scenes “tasteful,” adding, “It certainly will launch discussions. We were all conscious of that.”

He concluded: “A lot of this cast is new, and I didn’t want to put anybody in any situations in any of the scenes. The thing I always lead with actors is, ‘What do you feel comfortable doing?’ I always empower actors in those situations.”

Based on Ellis’ novel, The Shards is set in Los Angeles in 1981 and follows a 17-year-old version of the author during his final year at the elite Buckley prep school. His world is upended by the arrival of a mysterious new student, Robert Mallory, whose “unsettling presence coincides with the activities of a serial killer known as The Trawler,” according to the synopsis.

The Shards is the only book of Ellis‘ to feature himself as a character, but he previously issued a disclaimer stating that all the characters featured in The Shards are fictional — apart from himself.

Igby Rigney, who was tapped to play Ellis, spoke with Us about approaching the challenge.

“Ryan was really fun in the way that he directed us where he would have us do multiple takes multiple ways. So we were never clued in on which take he was going to use,” he recalled last month. “And then I’m sure some of those takes got combined to make it extra confusing.”

Rigney continued: “Getting to have the narration sometimes was a little challenging on set though because everybody around me is having fun and I’m staring deeply into the distance thinking about this big long paragraph I have but I’m not saying it out loud.”

The Shards airs Wednesdays on FX.