All the Details on Ryan Murphy’s Feud Season 2, Starring Naomi Watts

In Ryan Murphy's second season of Feud, Naomi Watts will star as the alluring Babe Paley, author Truman Capote's friend-turned-foe.

By Cydney Contreras Apr 01, 2022 8:19 PMTags
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Ryan Murphy has found his latest muse in Naomi Watts.

According to Deadline, the actress is set to star in season two of Murphy's FX series Feud. She will play socialite Barbara "Babe" Paley, who fell out with famed writer Truman Capote in 1975 after Esquire published an excerpt of his unfinished book Answered Prayers, a thinly veiled tell-all about New York City's elite. The excerpt La Côte Basque 1965 included intimate details about Babe's unhappy marriage to CBS founder William S. Paley. After its publication, Capote's formerly close circle of wealthy female friends—who the author affectionately called his "swans"—shut him out.

Showrunner Jon Robin Baitz will base the eight-episode series on Laurence Leamer's book Capote's Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era, with Good Will Hunting's Gus Van Sant attached as director.

Murphy has yet to find his Capote, who wrote the Breakfast at Tiffany's, which later became a movie starring Audrey Hepburn, as well as the true-crime classic, In Cold Blood. The late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman famously won an Oscar for his uncanny portrayal of the author in the 2005 biopic Capote.

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Prior to this news, first reported by Deadline, it was said that Feud season two would focus on the divorce between Princess Diana and Prince Charles. Baitz was attached to showrun that series and even got a 10-episode order from FX. 

However, Murphy clearly decided to go in another direction.

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As for Murphy's other projects, fans were interested in seeing his take on Hurricane Katrina, which was supposed to be the focus of American Crime Story's third season. "We tried developing that," he explained to Collider in 2020. "It was just too vast and expensive. I ultimately just couldn't figure out how to crack it to be honest." Season three of American Crime Story ultimately detailed Monica Lewinksy's affair with President Bill Clinton.

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He added, "We have many, many, many different Crime Stories in the works, but it's a very hard show. It always takes two years to write. And we never do it, we never move forward unless we're absolutely sure that the scripts are great."

Murphy and Watts will team again on his upcoming Netflix series The Watcher, based on The Cut's 2018 article about Maria and Derek Broaddus' chilling stalking experience. Watts plays Maria in the show opposite Bobby Cannavale.

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