It seems that Ryan Murphy still has Jessica Lange under his “American Horror Story” spell.
Though four years on the FX anthology have netted the actress two Emmys, three Emmy nominations, a SAG Award and a Golden Globe, she broke fan hearts by announcing her exit on a PaleyFest panel in March. “I’m done,” she declared simply.
Or is she?
“If Ryan came to me and said, ‘Would you want to do a small character for a couple episodes?’ I would absolutely say yes if I liked it,” Lange said during a recent interview for TheWrap’s Emmy magazine. “This was a great collaboration, so I would love to keep working with him.”
Lange is technically headed back to work for Murphy — for a Broadway staging of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” which begins previews at the Roundabout Theatre Company in March 2016. But first we’ll see if her last major “Horror Story” effort, as grande dame Elsa Mars in this year’s “Freak Show,” will earn her a fourth consecutive Emmy nod.
“There was a thread through all four of those characters, which is a kind of desperation, a profound disappointment in life,” Lange said.
“As on-edge or neurasthenic as they appear to be, they have a spine of steel,” she said. “It’s exactly the kind of complexity in a character that I love, that it appears to be one thing and it’s something else.”
The fifth season, “American Horror Story: Hotel,” returns to FX in October and will star Matt Bomer, Lady Gaga, Sarah Paulson, Angela Bassett and Kathy Bates.