Ryan Murphy almost had a Watchmen cameo as Ryan Murphy, creator of American Hero Story

One of the cleverest ways that Damon Lindelof situates his elaboration of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen in the here and now is with American Hero Story, a show-within-the-show that unspools the Minutemen era of the world’s superhero culture in the style of Ryan Murphy, the mind behind FX anthologies American Horror Story and American Crime Story. Lindelof chatted about the choice in a new interview with Paste, calling it a friendly “elbow to the ribs” for Murphy and revealing that the showrunner was even considered for a cameo at one point.

Per Lindelof, there was early chatter of including post-credits sequences that would evoke the “ancillary materials” found in the comic series, and one would’ve been a behind-the-scenes featurette about American Hero Story featuring an interview with Murphy, who would play himself as the show’s in-canon creator. But “it can’t actually be Ryan Murphy,” Lindelof adds, “because then I would start feeling like the show actually has to be up to Ryan Murphy standards.”