Igby Rigney on His First Job and What Made Him Want to Be an Actor

Ryan Murphy knows how to spot Hollywood’s next wunderkind, which is why this up-and-coming actor made InStyle’s 2026 Breakthrough List. After working with supernatural-loving writer/producer/director Mike Flanagan on ‘Midnight Mass’ and ‘The Midnight Club,’ Igby Rigney, 23, is now the lead in Murphy’s The Shards, Hulu and FX’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel of the same name about a serial killer targeting rich, teenage Angelenos. Playing the character of Bret, Rigney shines alongside Kaia Geber, Homer Gere, and Hayes Warner. He’s no stranger to a murder plotline: “My first job was on ‘Blue Bloods’—I was playing a kid suspected of killing his girlfriend.”