Jessica Lange thinks she’s done with American Horror Story

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

The ninth season of the anthology series American Horror Story, a season that has a slasher theme and a 1984 setting, begins airing on FX tonight… but don't expect Jessica Lange to show up at any point during the season. She might not show up in any future seasons, either. Although Lange has played four different characters on American Horror Story over the course of five different seasons, it sounds like she may be done with the show for good.

Speaking with TheWrap, Lange said she only returned to American Horror Story in season 8 – after skipping seasons 5, 6, and 7 – because it was a chance to reprise the role she had played in season 1. 

But I don’t think I would want to start from scratch and create a character. And also I think a lot of the actors that I was working with, people that I really love working with, like Sarah [Paulson] or Frances [Conroy] or Kathy [Bates]– I don’t know who’s in this new season, but I don’t think it would be the same. We were like a troupe. We were like the old-fashioned kind of troupe of actors, just moving from one part to the other. And that was part of what I really loved about doing it, you’d come back with a whole different story, different characters, but the same actors year after year. And that was wonderful. But I don’t think that would be the case now and I don’t think I would want to start over from scratch really. I don’t think that will happen."

Lange is correct that she wouldn't be working with Sarah Paulson, Frances Conroy, and Kathy Bates if she had been cast in the 1984 season, since Conroy and Bates haven't been named as cast members and this is the first season that Paulson will be sitting out. Fellow series regular Evan Peters is also absent from the season.

American Horror Story: 1984 centers on 

a group of aerobics enthusiasts who get jobs as camp counselors, 1984, like all American Horror Story entries, takes a deadly turn when an escaped mental patient named Mr. Jingles turns his attention to them.

Emma Roberts, Cody Fern, Billie Lourd, John Carroll Lynch, Leslie Grossman, Gus Kenworthy, Zach Villa, DeRon Horton, Matthew Morrison, and Angelica Ross star.