Hi. How are you doing today?
Good. How you doing? Yeah, very good.
Thank you very much.
I I'm only one episode in, but I love the show already.
I'm really gripped by it
and I really like your character.
And her opening scene is one of my favorites in the show.
What is it about her that made you say yes to the role?
You know, Ryan Murphy described me to her, you know, described her.
And I don't know. I hadn't.
I you know, I was trying to wrack my brains when he was talking to me.
I was like, have I ever played some like this?
And I was like, I don't think I have. And,
you know, I was one of the ones that actually knew the story.
You know, I grew up on the East Coast, and
I think I was on the East Coast when it happened.
And I just remember the story.
I remember it creeped me out.
And then, of course, you know, Ryan does years of research on these stories.
So he
he really sucks you in with with
he tells you little tidbits.
You know.
And then, of course, you
you want to do it because it's him and he can tell a really scary story.
And I've worked with him, you know, I worked with him on Nip/Tuck and and
and Glee and stuff.
So I had already worked with him, but many years went by.
And, you know, one day
I found out
Ryan wanted to rent my house in New Orleans to film a couple of scenes
for American Horror Story.
And I was like, oh, my God, this means if Ryan and I, like, run into each other
in the yard or something, he'll maybe just give me a little role in this. But
it never happened.
And here, ten years later
I'm in it's scary show so
so I'm glad it took some time
to convince him I could do scary but
and you do it so well because I mean she starts off and she's a bit funny.
She says exactly what's on the mind and she's a bit scary.
But then you weave in some kind of sadness and anger and danger to her.
How is that working that into her make up?
You know, Ryan gives you enough.
It really gives you enough to figure out who someone is
and it's I found it wasn't it wasn't a difficult job, you know.
And mainly I felt like the, you know, especially telling a scary, scary story.
We were only getting the scripts slowly, one at a time.
So you really couldn't think in the future. You couldn't.
In some weird way, it was an advantage because you're
because you don't know what's going to happen.
And so you're not playing
you're not tipping off anything because you couldn't possibly
you don't know what's going to come out of Ryan's head.
RYAN And and Ian Brennan's head that wrote that wrote it.
Yeah.
I can imagine every time you got a script, you're like eagerly,
like flipping through it, see what was happening.
And I can say yes.
And, you know, I love creepy stories, but
yeah, I mean, I do you know, we were filming.
I knew, you know, there's when we were filming,
there's a cameraman, he's ten feet away from you.
So, like, how could I not how could I be creeped out?
I don't know.
I was even with a cameraman. Right.
And I could almost touch.
The story is creepy.
And you think of what that family went through.
I don't know. The whole thing is,
you know, so
it's would
be a hard one to handle unless you had 15 pit bulls
and a safe room.
Yeah, absolutely.
And what was it like working with Naomi Watts on their friendship?
Like long there's a long history to unpack that between the characters.
Yes. And Naomi's.
And, you know, Naomi was very cool.
I mean, it's so weird.
You go, you know, I think of how long I've been in the business.
She's been in the business a long time.
And you just have an idea in your head of who somebody is.
And, you know, when I got to New York, I couldn't find an apartment
and everything.
And Naomi, which became a sort of really incredible ally and great friend and
and so that was sort of very helpful for playing this that, you know,
these are two women
that knew each other in art school and had gone to risky together.
So it was very easy to do the rapport.
And, you know, we sat in these beautiful
in this beautiful country club having lunches, filming lunches.
You sort of I don't know, we're fake drinking, but
it could turn it into real drinking at night, you know?
Anyway, it was a very cool experience with her.
And you know, she is the queen of this genre, you know.
I mean, she's been in some of the most, you know, disturbing movies of all time.
I mean, I you know, I couldn't sleep after the ring.
She was
you know, I remember when she was in Mulholland Drive and what a big hit.
You know, she was this huge splash and reading about her.
And I mean, so it was so cool to do a job with her.
And she looks the same.
She looks like she's, you know, 20 years, 30 years younger than what she is.
I mean, she's just she's just
I know she's found the fountain of youth, you know, but she is pretty young.
She's not very old anyway.
But but yeah, what a cool person.
What a cool person.
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for talking with me today.
Sweet pleasure and good luck with the show.
Thank you so much.