As soon as someone told teenage Sarah Paulson that she looked like Julia Roberts, it was over. To be fair, her locker at her NYC Performing Arts high school was filled with photos of America’s Sweetheart, so the comparison wasn’t entirely unexpected. Still, she ran with it.
“That’s all I needed to hear to decide that this is what I wanted to do and be,” says Paulson. “I dreamed of doing romantic comedies and working with incredible directors like she was working with. She felt like she could do it all, and she could. But it definitely wasn’t working out that way for me. I wasn’t going to become an internationally beloved superstar that way. That wasn’t my journey.”
Although he and Roberts have certainly led different careers, a large number of fans around the world will consider Paulson an international superstar. In fact, she makes a great case for holding on to the title of America’s Sweetheart, just for the titles on her resume: “American Horror Story,” “American Crime Story,” “Miss America” and 1995’s “American Gothic.”
“It’s a completely strange topic,” she laughs.
For that “American” race and many other accomplishments, Paulson will be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on December 2. It follows her Tony win for “Appropriate” on Broadway and her renewed partnership with prolific producer Ryan Murphy, for whom she is starring in two upcoming series (“AHS 13” and “Monster” Season 4) and the current hit, “All is Fair.” But as she reflects on her journey, she’s pushing herself to dream even bigger.
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“I want to be a little more fearless in terms of betting on myself,” says Paulson. “If I look back at what I’ve gotten to do, I never dreamed I would have done any of those things. I can only imagine that if I really accepted that and let it live within me as truth, the best would probably be right in front of me.”
Paulson went through “the lean years”, as she calls the ’90s–’00s, when she worked enough to pay the rent, but not enough to “satisfy my hunger for acting experience”. In fact, “American Gothic”, in which she played a teenage ghost, was the first time she went to Los Angeles to audition. Talking about it 30 years later, she feels nostalgic for that bygone part of her career.
She says, “I haven’t auditioned in person for many years. A lot of people see it as a blessing and a communication to move forward in their careers. But I look forward to the day when you have a personal connection with any kind of creative.” “There was a time when the only chance I got to act was when I walked into a room to audition. It’s something I think about very fondly – that feeling that you’ve won the job.”
Her turning point was in 2011 with three projects, including her Emmy-nominated role as Nicole Wallace in HBO’s “Game Change,” a role in the indie darling “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” and FX’s “American Horror Story.” The latter changed his life.
He only had three episodes as psychic Billy Dean Howard in the first season, but Murphy gave him a lead role in Season 2. She led a new generation of scream queens for seven more seasons, before being tapped out after season 10. Although it was not an easy decision, she was tired.
“This phenomenon I’ve talked to other actors about is really hard to describe, unless you spend six months every year running around in the woods simulating terror,” she says. “Your body doesn’t know the difference between real and imaginary, at least not the way I work. If I’m frightened, I’m hyperventilating and I’m running from something, I’m actually experiencing it.”
She kept in touch with her former co-stars, watching them with a sense of longing from the group chat as they moved on. On Halloween this year, Murphy revealed that Paulson would be reuniting with Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Evan Peters and others for the yet-to-be-titled “AHS 13.” That reunion of old friends was enough to send him running into the woods again, so to speak.
“I’ve missed it and I’m really looking forward to doing it again,” she says. “It was this harmony of my longing for it and the idea that I would reconnect (with all of them) that came together at just the right time.”
“American Horror Story”
Courtesy of FX
The new season will film in early 2026, but Paulson’s resurgence in the Murphy-verse also includes appearances in “All’s Fair” and the upcoming fourth season of “Monster” as serial killer Eileen Wuornos.
The latter is the latest real-life project Paulson has worked on following her “American Crime Story” role as Marcia Clark and later whistleblower Linda Tripp. The thrill of playing a real person is in the railing. “I like to have a template and undeniable facts about a character that is not open to my interpretation, because I can have more freedom inside that,” she says. “You would think it would be the opposite, but it kind of taught me that I like to immerse myself in the other person’s experience, in their reality.”
And she’s already researching Wuornos’ life, chronicling every documentary and interview she’s produced. He accepted Murphy’s offer to join the show, script unseen. But don’t expect wall-to-wall Paulson in “Monster,” which focuses on 1892 accused ax murderer Lizzie Borden.
“I’m going to do a special thing that I can’t talk about. But I’ll always be interested in the reasons for human behavior. If there’s an opportunity for me to go inside something that’s been predetermined by society and look at it through my own special lens, I’ll always want to do that. Ryan knows that.”
On the road to Wuornos and “AHS 13,” Paulson is testing the pledge of fearlessness by playing something new — a comedic villain. In “All Is Fair” she plays an evil lawyer bent on destroying the lives and cases of her former partners. Paulson happily delivers graphic insults, which she finds liberating. She says, “Their way of retribution for being hurt and abandoned is all-out war. And I have to tell you, it’s a bloody good time.” “There was a kind of freedom in knowing that I could actually hit a wall because of the writing. I actually called Kim Kardashian ‘Beef Curtain.’ I call her ‘Cuntburger’ and ‘Mayor McHeadcheese!'”
Like almost every turn in his career, “All Is Fair” has inspired some asking “How did I get here?” Reflections, which Paulson is still excavating. But what’s for sure is how happy she is to have found her own lane – Carrington and all. Even the show’s underwhelming critical reception couldn’t lift that enthusiasm.
She says, “Does anyone like to get reviews from critics who are not fabulous? No.” “It’s always a weird thing to put something you’ve been working on out into the world and have people put a price on it. But I think what matters most to me is the joy and fun we’ve had creating and promoting the show. There’s not a single thing or person in the world that can replace that.”
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