Warning: This post contains spoilers for American Horror Story season 10, episode 3
Season 10 of American Horror Story was originally much more over-the-top according to Adina Porter, one of the show’s stars. American Horror Story premiered in 2011 and was created by prolific Hollywood producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck, who together also created Glee, Pose, and many other popular shows. American Horror Story, which airs on FX, has remained a hit with audiences over the years and has already been renewed through season 13. Each season of AHS acts as its own miniseries, telling a self-contained story. Many actors, most notably Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, and Lily Rabe, have appeared in many of the seasons playing different characters.
Porter is another actor who has appeared in multiple seasons of AHS. Season 10, AHS: Double Feature, marks her fifth outing on the show. In Red Tide, the first of two stories that will be told this season, Porter plays Chief Burleson, the new head of the police department in Cape Cod’s Provincetown, a creepy locale plagued by a sinister drug problem with unexpectedly bloodthirsty roots. So far, season 10 has maintained a somewhat serious tone, which came as a surprise to many viewers who were used to the sillier quality of previous seasons.
Speaking to TheWrap, Porter revealed that American Horror Story: Red Tide underwent some noticeable changes between when the episodes were filmed and when they aired. She says season 10 was originally “a little bit more over the top, line-wise and character-wise” than what viewers ended up seeing onscreen. Read her comments below:
“There’s what I’ve read in the original script that was given to me. And then there was what I performed. And then the editor created things. And I was surprised at what has made the show and what hasn’t made the show.
I think, you know, there’s that amazing expression from Hamlet, ‘the play’s the thing.’ And when we were filming it, there was a lot more — a little bit more over the top, line-wise and character-wise than what’s in the finished product. And as an actor, I saw it and I went, ‘Oh, OK.’ They filmed like the raw materials. And then they kind of put things together to see, which was the best way they wanted to make this particular dish this year.”
Porter’s character met an untimely end at the hands of young violin prodigy Alma (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), daughter of Harry (Finn Wittrock) and Doris (Lily Rabe), but that doesn’t necessarily mean she won’t pop back up in future episodes this season. Porter understandably didn’t give anything away about what might happen going forward but did say “anything is definitely possible” in the world of American Horror Story.
It’s not unusual for big changes to occur between script and screen. A common saying in filmmaking, usually attributed to French director Robert Bresson, is that a movie is made three times: once when it’s written, once when it’s filmed, and once when it’s edited. Many factors could have contributed to why Murphy and Falchuck decided to tone down the “over the top” nature of Red Tide. Perhaps it had something to do with Death Valley, the second part of AHS: Double Feature - if the creators wanted the two stories either to match tonally or to be extremely different, it could make sense that Red Tide was tweaked in editing. It’s also possible that the story just worked better this way. One thing viewers can count on is that with American Horror Story, the fans - and, it seems, the actors - never know what to expect.
Source: TheWrap