Sarah Paulson Beyond American Horror Story: Sarah Paulson has spent much time being terrified, terrifying or standing somewhere very uncomfortable in the centre, so it is almost unfair to reduce her horror legacy to just American Horror Story.
Sarah Paulson Beyond American Horror Story
American Horror Story did give us an entire museum of Paulson performances, but without the series itself, there is still a very particular kind of horror actor left behind: one who can make a mother look suspicious, grief look monstrous, paranoia look reasonable, and a seemingly perfectly normal woman feel like the scariest person in the room.
She does not always need a haunted house: sometimes all she needs is a kitchen, a child, a secret and approximately five minutes on screen to make you think that something is deeply wrong.
Stepping firmly outside American Horror Story, here are five of Sarah Paulson’s most memorable horror and adjacent characters: genuinely terrifying to quietly devastating.
Merlyn Temple: American Gothic
Before American Horror Story or the Emmy wins, or even before Paulson became synonymous with prestige television’s particular flavour of emotional devastation, there was Merlyn Temple.
In American Gothic, which premiered on CBS in 1995, Paulson plays Merlyn, the deceased sister of Caleb Temple. The series revolves around the sinister Sheriff Lucas Buck, a supernatural presence manipulating the people of Trinity, South Carolina. Merlyn may be dead, but she continues to appear to Caleb as a ghost attempting to steer him away from Buck’s influence.
There is something eerie about the fact that Sarah Paulson’s first major television role was a ghost already. The show developed something of a cult reputation over the years.
Jessica Hayes: Bird Box
Even with less screen time, Sarah Paulson made a great impact with the role. In Netflix’s 2018 post-apocalyptic horror thriller, Paulson plays Jessica Hayes, Malorie’s sister. The film centres on an ominous unseen presence that causes people who look at it to die, forcing survivors to navigate the outside world blindfolded. Netflix officially categorises the film among its horror and monster titles.
Jessica’s role is essentially the emotional doorway into Malorie’s nightmare. Paulson brings an immediate sense of familiarity and warmth to the relationship, which makes the horror that follows feel even more brutal.
Mildred Ratched: Ratched
Mildred Ratched is not technically a traditional monster. She is worse and extremely competent.
Netflix’s Ratched reimagines the infamous nurse from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, with Paulson playing a younger Mildred arriving at a psychiatric hospital in 1947. Under the polished clothes and perfectly controlled manner is a growing darkness. The series itself is categorised as horror, thriller and mystery.
Paulson rarely needs to raise her voice; she can smile while saying something horrifying, walk into a room looking completely composed while quietly calculating how to control everyone inside.
Ratched is glossy, colourful and excessive, but Paulson anchors it with a character who is always thinking three steps ahead. She makes Mildred sympathetic in places without ever allowing us to forget that there is something deeply dangerous under all the elegance.
Margaret Bellum: Hold Your Breath
In Hold Your Breath, Paulson plays Margaret Bellum, a mother living in 1930s Oklahoma during the devastating Dust Bowl. Searchlight Pictures describes the film as the story of a woman who becomes convinced that a sinister presence is threatening her family. The film, released in 2024, is officially classified as a horror and thriller.
The dust storms swallow the landscape, visibility disappears, and the world feels contaminated. Margaret, already living with grief and fear and the possibility of something supernatural, enters the picture. Paulson, in all of this, makes you believe in the character.
Diane Sherman: Run
One Sarah Paulson performance outside American Horror Story that deserves to be stamped, underlined and highlighted with the best colours is Diane Sherman in Run.
The premise initially sounds painfully simple with a teenager, Chloe, who has spent her life receiving isolated medical care, beginning to suspect that her mother Diane is hiding something from her. This is where the mother-daughter relationship cracks. Diane does not immediately look like a villain: she is a concerned, protective mother who has spent years caring for her child.
The way Paulson can switch from tenderness to menace without making the transition feel theatrical is commendable.
Sarah Paulson’s Horror Superpower Is Making People Feel Human
Sarah Paulson does not play fear as one emotion. Her characters are scared and angry; loving and manipulative; vulnerable and dangerous, all at once. Her characters belong to completely different kinds of horror, yet Paulson gives each of them a pulse.
Perhaps that is why her performances get glued. The monsters are rarely the most interesting thing; it is the woman looking at the monster, wondering whether she should fight, believe, become or open the door she was very specifically told not to.
Sarah Paulson has been doing that for years, and we keep opening the door with her.
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