Sarah Paulson

Sarah Catharine Paulson 

17 December 1974

An American actress. Paulson attended Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Paulson began working as an actress right out of high school. She appeared in the "Horton Foote" play, Talking Pictures, at the Signature Theatre, and an episode of "Law & Order" in 1994. She then went to North Carolina to appear on the short-lived cult television series "American Gothic". Paulson then played Elisa Cronkite on The WB comedy-drama series "Jack & Jill" (1999).

In 2011, Paulson guest starred in three episodes of the FX anthology series "American Horror Story", playing a medium, Billie Dean Howard. Paulson returned for season two, "American Horror Story: Asylum", in which she played a new character, Lana Winters, a writer who is committed to an asylum for being gay. She appeared in the third season of the series, titled "American Horror Story: Coven" as Cordelia Foxx, a witch who runs an academy for other young witches. She has also appeared in the fourth season of the show, titled "American Horror Story: Freak Show", portraying conjoined twin sisters Bette and Dot Tattler. Paulson also co-starred in the 2012 film "Mud" and the 2013 film "12 Years a Slave".

Paulson has also had a successful theatre career. In 2005, she starred as Laura Wingfield in a revival of Tennessee Williams' play "The Glass Menagerie" alongside Jessica Lange, Josh Lucas, and Christian Slater. In 2010, Paulson starred in Donald Margulies's "Collected Stories" alongside Linda Lavin. Paulson starred in a revival of Lanford Wilson's "Talley's Folly" alongside Danny Burstein in 2013.

Ryan Murphy announced in 2014 that Paulson was a member of the cast of his upcoming true crime anthology series, "American Crime Story".

As actress

• Law & Order (1994)
• Friends at Last (1995)
• American Gothic (1995-1996)
• Shaughnessy (1996)
• Cracker (1997)
• Levitation (1997)
• Real Life (1998)
• The Long Way Home (1998)
• The Other Sister (1999)
• The Sopranos (1999)
• Held Up (1999)
• Jack & Jill (1999-2001)
• Metropolis (2000)
• What Women Want (2000)
• Touched by an Angel (2001)
• Leap of Faith (2002)
• Path to War (2002)
• Bug (2002)
• Down with Love (2003)
• Nip/Tuck (2004)
• The D.A. (2004)
• Swimmers (2005)
• Deadwood (2005)
• Serenity (2005)
• The Notorious Bettie Page (2005)
• Diggers (2006)
• Griffin and Phoenix (2006)
• A Christmas Wedding (2006)
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-2007)
• Desperate Housewives (2007-2011)
• The Spirit (2008)
• Pretty/Handsome (2008)
• Whose Dog is it Anyway? (2009)
• Cupid (2009)
• Grey's Anatomy (2010)
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2010)
• November Christmas (2010)
• Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
• American Horror Story: Murder House (2011)
• After-School Special (2011)
• New Year's Eve (2011)
• Mud (2012)
• Fairhaven (2012)
• Game Change (2012)
• The Time Being (2012)
• Stars in Shorts (2012)
• American Horror Story: Asylum (2012-2013)
• 12 Years a Slave (2013)
• American Horror Story: Coven (2013-2014)
• twitterkills (2014)
• American Horror Story: Freak Show (2014-2015)
• Carol (2015)
• The Runner (2015)
• American Horror Story: Hotel (2015-2016)
• Blue Jay (2016)
• The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016)
• American Horror Story: Roanoke (2016)
• Rebel in the Rye (2017)
• Feud: Bette and Joan (2017)
• Ocean's Eight (2018)

Quotations

* * *

To not have any hope is where things start to get really bleak. Things are possible. The impossible can be possible.

* * *

I had gone away from Twitter because before people had been so mean to me. Talking about my lisp and my enormous forehead and all these things. I do have a lisp, I do have a forehead I know you could land a plane on, it's no mystery to me. I just didn't have the skin for it.

* * *

The thing I worry about for myself is I spend a lot of time alone, and another person comes around and you're like, 'What are you doing here? Get out of here.'

* * *

To me, most of life kind of lives in the grey and 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'm interested in telling the character's story, not my beliefs, political or otherwise.

* * *

I think it's very important for people to not judge the people you're playing. You have to find a way to love them because their story is theirs. I just don't think there would be any use in that.

* * *

I love the idea of people walking away with the idea of hope and possibility.

* * *

The idea of being on a show where each season stands alone, and you can come back the next year and show an entirely different aspect of your personality or your talent or your anything is an enormous gift that you rarely get in television.

* * *

I usually feel like the role comes to you to sort of illuminate some piece of where you are in your life. I feel like I myself am a single woman and I'm childless - by choice - at this point, and I don't know what will happen.

* * *

Sometimes I think on television, you use maybe a tenth of what you are able to do. So it's nice to go, 'Well, I'm gonna take two months and reinvest in acting and storytelling.' You don't get to do that on television.

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