Kaia Gerber stars in first trailer for Ryan Murphy’s Disney+ thriller The Shards
Set 1981 Los Angeles, the series follows a group of high school seniors at an elite prep school as they navigate identity, sex and jealousy
By Callum Wells
Kaia Gerber stars in the first trailer for Ryan Murphy‘s upcoming drama The Shards, ahead of its Disney+ premiere next month.
Based on Bret Easton Ellis’s bestselling 2023 novel of the same name, the FX series launches with its first two episodes on 6 August in the UK. Set in Los Angeles in 1981, it follows a group of privileged high school seniors at an elite prep school as they navigate identity, sex, jealousy and obsession, while a serial killer known as The Trawler terrorises teenagers across the city.
At the centre of the story is aspiring writer Bret, played by The Fall of the House of Usher star Igby Rigney, whose carefully ordered life begins to unravel following the arrival of mysterious new student Robert Mallory (Homer Gere).
As suspicion surrounding Robert grows, Bret becomes increasingly convinced the charismatic newcomer may be connected to the killings, blurring the line between paranoia and reality.
Who does Kaia Gerber play in Ryan Murphy’s The Shards on Disney+?
Gerber stars as Susan Reynolds alongside Hayes Warner as Debbie Schaffer and Graham Campbell as Thom Wright, with Wes Bentley, Evan Rachel Wood and Jordan Roth playing the adults whose influence looms over the teenagers’s lives.
The Shards marks Murphy’s latest collaboration with FX following series including American Horror Story, Pose and Feud. The adaptation had originally been in development elsewhere before Murphy revived the project for FX, with Max Winkler directing. Ellis is also attached as an executive producer alongside Murphy, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Eric Kovtun, Scott Robertson, Nissa Diederich, Tanase Popa, Nick Hall, Michael Uppendahl, Kathleen McCaffrey and Brian Young.
The Shards‘s soundtrack is set to feature original music from Troye Sivan and Leland
The television series is based on Ellis’s first novel in 13 years, which was published in 2023. A fictionalised account of the author’s final year at an elite Los Angeles high school, the book became a bestseller and earned praise for its unsettling blend of coming-of-age drama, psychological suspense and horror.
The Shards‘s soundtrack is also set to feature original music from Troye Sivan and longtime collaborator Leland, who recently confirmed they had written songs for the series.
The Shards premieres with its first two episodes on Disney+ in the UK on 6 August, after airing in the US on FX and FX on Hulu.