How Our Ranking of Jessica Lange’s ‘AHS’ Seasons Differs From Hers (PHOTOS)
Lange’s #4: Coven
The 10-time Emmy nominee enjoyed playing Supreme Fiona Goode but didn’t care for Coven as a whole. “I was stunned that year to get the Emmy for that part,” she told the site. “The part was very well-written. I didn’t particularly like the whole set-up and season and story we were telling. … It was not my favorite.”
Our #4: Freak Show
No doubt about it. We bow at the altar of Sarah Paulson for playing conjoined twins, but Freak Show took a promising premise for a horror tale and turned it into a joyless slog with the exasperating villain Dandy Mott.
Lange’s #3: Murder House
The FX anthology’s debut season ranks third for Lange, who won a Golden Globe for her performance as nosy neighbor Constance Langdon, a part she reprised as she and most of the other Murder House stars appeared in AHS: Apocalypse.
Our #3: Murder House
On this, we agree with Lange. Of all the AHS seasons so far, Murder House might be the most straightforward: a haunted house tale told through generations of homeowners. But Ryan Murphy & Co.’s more straightforward stories tend to be the most cohesive, this one included.
Lange’s #2: Freak Show
Though this season might not be the best in Lange’s book, it is her “very favorite, just from the experience of doing it.” She played the Berlin dominatrix-turned-double amputee-turned-sideshow proprietor Elsa Mars.
Our #2: Coven
For our money, this season was the most fun: a (sometimes literal) translation of Mean Girls into a coterie of New Orleans witches at war with a local voodoo tribe and with themselves.
Lange’s #1: Asylum
Though Freak Show was Lange’s favorite experience, she allows that Asylum “was the better season.” She portrayed Sister Jude, the austere nun in charge of Briarcliff Manor.
Our #1: Asylum
Aliens, Nazis, nymphomaniacs, satanic possessions, surgical experiments, gay aversion therapies, Bloody Faces, and boozy Name Games — Asylum takes an “everything but the kitchen sink” approach to horror, and improbably, it works fiendishly well.
As she reteams with her old American Horror Story bosses Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk on their new Netflix show, The Politician, Jessica Lange told Gold Derby how she would rank her four starring seasons on AHS.
And with all due respect to the two-time Oscar winner, we think her ranking is only half correct. Check out the gallery above to see how her opinions compare to ours.
American Horror Story, Season 9 Premiere, Wednesday, September 18, 10/9c, FX
