Samara Weaving and Jim Parsons star in a series about what Tinseltown could have been…

Streaming on Netflix from May 1, Hollywood is a retro alternative reality series with its own twist. Part of American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy’s megabux slate for Netflix, the show stars Samara Weaving, Jim Parsons, Laura Harrier, Darren Criss, Holland Taylor, Dylan McDermott and Patti LuPone, and depicts the golden age of Tinseltown with an interesting new “what if?”-style history-skewing concept.

Here’s an official synopsis from Hollywood‘s writer and director, Janet Mock:

“With the present so fraught and the future uncertain, we turned to the past for direction, uncovering buried history to spin an aspirational tale of what ifs: What if a band of outsiders were given a chance to tell their own story? What if the person with greenlight power was a woman? The screenwriter a black man? What if the heroine was a woman of colour? The matinee idol openly gay? And what if they were all invited into the room where the decisions are made, entering fully and unapologetically themselves to leave victorious and vaunted, their place in history cemented. HOLLYWOOD is a love letter to our little industry town where dreamers dwell, stars are born, and magic transcends reality.”

The first trailer for the series lies below…