‘The Shards’ Star Igby Rigney on Wooing Ryan Murphy, Never Meeting Bret Easton Ellis and Not Worrying About Sex Scenes: ‘It’s Like Doing a Dance Under a Microscope’

Igby Rigney is exhausted.

It’s a day before “The Shards” launches, and he’s just gotten back from Berlin, the final stop of a global press tour that also took him to New York and London. When the series debuts on FX on Aug. 5, he’ll be celebrating at the official launch party at a roller rink in Los Angeles.

Right now, during this brief moment of calm, he’s home in L.A. and resting with his cat, Plusha, who meows throughout our Zoom interview. “I feel like a Bond villain,” he says, petting the animal in his lap.

Rigney plays Bret in “The Shards,” Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ 2023 autofiction opus that follows the author in his high school years. Bret navigates teenage social politics, the drug-fueled excesses of 1980s Los Angeles and his closeted homosexuality, all while a serial killer stalks the Valley and picks off his classmates in an increasingly gruesome fashion.

The series marks the first time the 26-year-old actor headlines a major project. “They asked if I wanted to see the reviews when they come in. I guess they’ll put them in a packet,” Rigney says. “I was like, ‘Oh man, do I? I don’t know.’ I think I said, ‘Yes, I’ll take the packet, but I can’t promise to read all of them.’”