The Play's the Thing

For Sarah Paulson, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's Appropriate proved an irresistible lure back to Broadway.

- Alessandra Codinha

On a cool, early fall day in Los Angeles, the actor Sarah Paulson, a person of palpable charm and sincerity, pauses over lunch to consider how she came to embody a series of unlikable, and occasionally truly awful, women. (Her CV includes roles like 12 Years a Slave's harrowing Mistress Epps, Linda Tripp, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest's Nurse Ratched.) "I try not to judge them," she says finally. "I try not to think about how they're going to be perceived, because I don't think many people are thinking about how they're coming across in any given moment. People are, myself included, reactive and reacting to the environment around them."

If this sounds pretty elementary, you are probably not a Hollywood star, with all of the correlating concerns about likability and marketability that particular occupation entails. “There are a lot of incredible actresses out there who are stars because they play themselves,” the Obie Award– winning playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins tells me on a phone call a few days later. “Sarah’s not like that. She’s a legit actress.” He calls himself a Paulson “early adopter,” admiring her in New York stage productions like The Gingerbread House and Crimes of the Heart in the aughts. “And then of course she became the queen of Ryan Murphy land.” (In the Murphy-verse, Paulson is a central figure and fan favorite, having starred in nine out of 11 seasons of American Horror Story in roles as varied as Hypodermic Sally, Tuberculosis Karen, a villainous Mamie Eisenhower, and a pair of conjoined twins.)

Now Paulson is appearing in her first stage production in a decade, Jacobs-Jenkins’s 2013 play