Jessica Lange has returned to American Horror Story, and she made one thing absolutely clear before agreeing to do so. She wanted to sing. The Academy Award-winning actress, long known to be the beating center of the series’ first seasons, put that one stipulation out there when series cocreator Ryan Murphy proposed her for Season 13. Murphy has referred to the new season as a “greatest-hits season”, pitting characters from each era of the series against a common foe. For Lange, that means reprising 4 of her key roles on the franchise: Constance Langdon from Murder House, Sister Jude from Asylum, Fiona Goode from Coven, and Elsa Mars from Freak Show.
Returning to those characters was enticing enough to lure Lange back, even after swearing she was done with the show. They discussed it over dinner. Murphy explained he would only be able to get this season off the ground if she took part. Lange listened. Then agreed, on the condition that she was allowed to sing.
No-one who had watched her turn on the show before was shocked by the request. Lange was responsible for some of American Horror Storys most iconic musical moments, where it was that weird combination of fragile and threatening, and her theatrics that so gripped viewers. Another chance for her to be in charge of the mic seemed like the logical next step.
Lange has already commented that the series still influences how younger fans might approach her; people still recognized her for American Horror Story rather than the older film roles. That relationship managed to tip the balance in tipping what felt like a finished chapter in her career; she now was presented with an opportunity to return to that iconic role on her own terms.
The entire season is based on this number already related to terror. Murphy has been working on this concept for the past years although it is today a tribute to the long history of the series, while simultaneously offering a new beginning that gathers the more popular former characters in a storyline that, in his words, is like an ‘Avengers of the known cast’: Lange’s foursome is at the epicenter of it. For audience members who have been waiting for her for several seasons, this is a significant moment.
Lange’s appearances in the beginning four seasons set up the spirit and projections of the series that her looming returneven with quite a personal conditionregisters that the creative team is after something new, familiar, and hefty. The musical number will give her the chance to delve into one of those characters in an up-close, marginally more theatrical way than the show otherwise often indulges in.
