‘American Horror Story’ Season 7 Begins With 2016 Election
Update: American Horror Story Season 7 will begin with the 2016 election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump — but that's just the "jumping off point."
"I think people literally think Sarah Paulson is playing Hillary Clinton," Murphy told E! News, "and I wanted to clarify that that is not true. Horror Story is always about allegory, so the election is allegory. It's our jumping off point. It is about the election we just went through and what happened on that night and the fallout of that night, which to many people, from all sides of the camps is a horror story. And you know, that show is always so fun when it's about the zeitgeist and what we're doing now."
As to who will play Clinton and Trump, they haven't been cast.
"No, not yet. We're halfway through the writing and not yet. But it's really, really fun. It starts on election night is all I'll say…It's very scary, that night, for many people. It's fun, you will like it. It's really a season that will have a lot of people interested and I think there's something for everybody in that season."
That AHS is headed for its seventh season isn't surprising, as Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk's ensemble horror anthology series has been a solid performer for FX. More surprising was Murphy's revelation that the season would be election-themed, as he first told Bravo's Andy Cohen on February 15's Watch What Happens Live.
"Well I don't have a title, but the season that we'll begin shooting in June is about the election that we just went through," Murphy t"So I think that will be interesting for a lot of people."
"Wow, that...wow," Cohen replied. "Will there be like, a Trump in it?"
"Uh, maybe," Murphy teased. To be fair, the divisive events of the past year are the stuff of nightmares.
As Vanity Fair previously reported, FX C.E.O. John Landgraf was tight-lipped about AHS Season 7's theme (the show kept Season 6's Roanoke arc under wraps until the premiere, even folding the guessing game in as part of its promo campaign), revealing only that ensemble regulars Paulson and Evan Peters would be returning.
"We know explicitly what seventh season is about, but not eight and nine," Landgraf told a Television Critics Association (TCA) panel in January. "I’m really excited about Season 7, and utterly confident that eight and nine will be unique and interesting."
Watch Ryan Murphy's AHS revelation below.
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