NFL player and three-time Super Bowl champion Travis Kelce has landed his first major acting role in a horror drama series.
- READ MORE: Ryan Murphy’s American success story: how the prolific producer became TV’s creative kingpin
The FX series, titled Grotesquerie, has been created by American Horror Story and Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story producer Ryan Murphy.
The show will feature stars of Murphy’s previous projects, including Niecy Nash-Betts, who announced Kelce’s involvement on Instagram earlier this week.
Nash-Betts posted a video of herself and Kelce with the caption: “This is what happens when WINNERS link!!”
Nash-Betts received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress for her performance in Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. In the video, Nash-Betts teased fans by saying: “Guys, guess who I’m working with on Grotesquerie?” before revealing the Kansas City Chiefs player.
Kelce, who has made headlines outside of football news in recent months through his relationship with Taylor Swift, reposted the clip on his Instagram, writing: “Steppin’ into a new world with one of the legends!”
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Also joining the cast is English actor best known for The Crown and Phantom Thread, Lesley Manville, as well as Courtney B. Vance.
Vance also earned an Emmy for his performance as Johnnie Cochran in FX series The People V O.J. Simpson, which was part of the American Crime Story anthology, also produced by Murphy.
Linking Kelce and his soon-to-be co-star Manville is a comment Swift made in her Time Person Of The Year article last December, where she cited The Phantom Thread as the inspiration behind her ‘Midnights’ track, ‘Mastermind’.
Kelce did appear on the small screen last March when he hosted Saturday Night Live, and returned in a later episode to make a cameo alongside Swift.
Back in 2020, the football player appeared as a fictionalised version of himself in one episode of comedy TV series Moonbase 8.
Elsewhere, Kelce co-hosts a weekly on-camera sports podcast with his brother, named New Heights With Jason & Travis Kelce. In September last year, New Heights became the no.1 sports podcast in the US, and the top sports podcast globally on Spotify and Apple.
In other news, a docuseries about Swift’s dispute with Scooter Braun over the ownership of the masters of her first six studio albums is coming this summer.