Sarah Paulson admitted her biggest rookie mistake on the early seasons of “American Horror Story” was wrecking her voice with her scream.
The Emmy Award winner told “AHS” newcomer Paul Anthony Kelly that in the early seasons she went full force as a scream queen and did not preserve herself vocally.
“I would scream like my life depended on it. Bloody murder,” she said, “And I would then have no voice.”
The secret to maintaining herself for long shoot dates on set was steroid shots — not in the throat but in the butt, she clarified. Paulson also said she went to a voice specialist who advised her not to scream for real on set, but she said her performance was more important.
“I was like, I don’t know how to do that, so just give me the shot in the ass and I’ll just keep doing it the way I do it,” she quipped. “Got to do it for real. Want to be a true scream queen.”
Kelly also asked the “AHS” veteran about acting opposite herself in the “Freak Show” season as conjoined twins, Bette and Dot.
She explained that it was her idea to use an earpiece to more authentically act opposite her own voice and dialogue.
“They were going to have an actress, one of the stand-ins on our show would read off camera for me, and I thought, since it’s the same voice as my voice, since I’m playing my own twin, it should probably be me,” she said.
Paulson would come in in the morning pre-record her dialogue and then switch back and forth for whichever twin she was playing for that take.
The actress also doubled as a puppeteer for this season. They sometimes used a prosthetic head for the scenes, but other times they would act with a puppet head that Paulson would sometimes control herself.
“Sometimes I got to do it, which was my favorite thing,” she said. “It was really like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach, because whatever I was doing with the head that was on camera, I had to move the opposing head in a different direction.”
She admitted, though, that it would sometimes become frustrating operating two brains at once. The series creator Ryan Murphy had to pull her aside one day to reason with her that she needed to give herself more grace.
“He’s really such a good … papa figure when you really need him. I was really beating myself up,” she said.
Watch the full episode of “AHS: 13 Official Podcast” above.
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