Sarah Paulson talks about her role of Lana Winters in American Horror Story: Asylum

Check into Briarcliff as the second terrifying slice of the Emmy-award winning anthology show American Horror Story: Asylum comes to Blu-Ray and DVD on 23 September 2013 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

The year is 1964 as we’re introduced to the doctors and nuns who occupy the asylum alongside Nazis, mutants, innocents and serial killers who all make up the fabric of patients. These include Sister Jude (Emmy award-winner Jessica Lange – Cape Fear), Dr. Arthur Arden (James Cromwell – L.A. Confidential), Dr Oliver Thredson (Zachary Quinto – Star Trek) and Kit Walker (Evan Peters – the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past), a patient assumed to be the notorious masked serial killer Bloodyface. As journalist Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson – Martha, Marcy, May Marlene) visits Briarcliff intent on exposing its mistreatment of patients, she unearths unthinkable horrors that could end with her very own imprisonment.

Meanwhile, in the present day, two young adults visiting the now-derelict asylum are stalked by another incarnation of Bloodyface…

Asylum see’s cast returns from the brilliant Jessica Lange, Zachary Quinto, Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under) and Dylan McDermott (Olympus Has Fallen) who are joined by new additions James Cromwell and Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love). There are also guest appearances from Ian McShane (Deadwood) and Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine, all who complete the stellar cast line up.

From the creators of Glee and Nip/Tuck, every new episode of American Horror Story: Asylum brings a fresh amount of insanity-fuelled shock, horror and gore to surprise even the most hardened of fans. This season has earned more rave reviews than its predecessor, earning three nominations for the upcoming Emmy awards including Best Actress (Lange), Supporting Actress (Paulson) and Supporting Actor (both Cromwell and Quinto).

Authentically stylish and scary as hell, be sure to visit Briarcliff when American Horror Story: Asylum comes to Blu-ray and DVD on 23 September 2013 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.  Be warned: once you enter, you may find it impossible to leave.

Is Ryan Murphy a calculated genius or not?

Well I certainly think it’s meant to be organic to the premise.  I know that it’s very out there but I think that’s what makes it so exciting.  It’s a very visceral viewing experience and I know that Ryan has a very specific editing style.  He works with the same editors I believe on most of these shows.  And there’s a kind of aggressiveness to the editing which I think helps to tell the story.  It’s what he wants in terms of calculation. 

There is a line in the second episode where it says “times may have changed but the nature of evil hasn’t”.  Do you think that’s what people are so galvanized by in this universe?

Yes, I really loved the first season but this party thing is 20 times more terrifying because it’s based in reality.  I think a very horrifying reality but a reality nevertheless because the first year there were a lot of, if you died in the house you know your character was a ghost.  I personally don’t really believe in ghosts.  I haven’t had any encounters and I’d like to keep it that way.  So whereas this year it’s really a sort of psychological terror and people who have power versus the powerless.  In 1964 there was a certain stopping point where you couldn’t pass if you didn’t have enough power.  This show really explores that, which is very terrifying.  The idea that women, like my character, could get committed to an institution specifically for being a lesbian in 1964 is a pretty terrifying concept when you think about it.

What makes living in the grey such an exciting prospect for actors?

To me that’s like life, most of life kind of lives in the grey.  I don’t just mean morally.  I just mean kind of everything.  If things were black and white it would be a lot clearer as to what to do all the time.  I just feel like life kind of lives.  that’s another thing I think Ryan does is that he just kind of takes you to the brink and lets you hover in this uncomfortable place and that’s what makes it so creepy and awful.

For a show with the title asylum I like the word commit.  It can have a lot of meanings in this particular context.  Why as actors commit to such challenging disturbing material?

It’s been hard.  There’s something that happens to me around episode six and seven, in particular that was so disturbing that I had to take a minute and ask if they could give me a second.  I went into a corner and balled my eyes out by myself because it got to a point where the kind of torture that was happening to an innocent woman was — and the kind of torture is — which is really horrifying and it is a difficult thing to suspend yourself in.  It’s one thing on the page, you see a two-page scene but you’re shooting it for seven hours.  If the terrible is happening over and over and over again and you’re having to stay in this emotional place and it’s really hard.  At the same time, in episode two my character gets electroshock therapy and it was a more terrifying thing to do and I couldn’t walk for two days afterwards because what I had to do to my body to be that rigid and move in that way.  I had a conversation with my mother the next day and she said well how are you?  I said well I’m okay.  I’m a little tired.  We did this electroshock therapy yesterday.  She said well that is just so horrible.  I was like well yeah it was kind of exhilarating actually because the actor part of me is very excited by the fact that I get to really sink my teeth into something.  You don’t always get those opportunities, if you think about Claire Danes or somebody you know who’s got this incredible part on Homeland that’s so multifaceted.  But prior to that in the last couple of years she was doing great parts in movies but it wasn’t you know, before Temple Grand, and there was kind of a dearth of like real great stuff for her to sink her teeth into.  Now she can really let it fly which I think is an incredible thing.  It’s similar with this and it’s why it’s attracted the caliber of actor that’s you know, James Cromwell, Jessica, and all these people.  It’s because there’s something really meaty there, which you don’t find in a lot of places.  But more you’re finding it on television than anywhere else I think.

You’re going to have Sarah Paulson master class.

I don’t know.  Well you know, we’ll see.  There are things I wish I could tell you that you won’t really believe that happens to poor Lana Winters.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM: SEASON 2 IS OUT NOW