Sarah Paulson Reveals Her Real-Life Phobias Were Written Into ‘American Horror Story: Cult’ Storyline
On American Horror Story: Cult, Sarah Paulson’s character, Ally, is paralyzed with fear over her phobias. Now it turns out it’s not all fictional. In an interview on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, Sarah Paulson admitted that she shares the real-life fears and phobias that her character suffers from on American Horror Story: Cult. Sarah literally had to face her fears when filming the latest installment of Ryan Murphy’s horror anthology.
In the interview, Sarah Paulson revealed to Ellen DeGeneres that her character’s fear of clowns, bees, and clusters of holes are all based on the things that give her anxiety in real life. Sarah even said the following.
“I could be carrying a small child, and if a bee came around, that baby’s getting dropped. I can’t manage my feeling about it.”
Paulson also has trypophobia, the fear of clusters of small holes or bumps. Just like her Cult character Ally, Sarah Paulson thinks clusters of holes and beehives are disgusting and she can’t even look at them without getting anxious.
“I just think they’re disgusting,” Sarah said.
“I can’t look at a coral reef or a natural sponge.”
You can see American Horror Story: Cult star Sarah Paulson talking about her real-life fears in the video below.
American Horror Story: Cult fans were introduced to most of Ally’s phobias in the first episode of the seventh season of the FX series, and it has been a hell ride for her ever since. In the first episode, Paulson’s character told her therapist (Cheyenne Jackson) that the large piece of coral in his office was triggering her anxiety because of its holes. In another scene, the holes in Ally’s souffle caused her to see blood pouring out of the dish, which then triggered a series of clown hallucinations.
Of course, leave it to prankster Ellen DeGeneres to test the waters with her talk show guest. During their chat, Sarah Paulson also revealed she has a fear of flying, which seemed like the perfect time for a man in a long black cloak to show up out of nowhere and scare her in the middle of her story.
Ellen doesn't clown around when pranking Sarah Paulson https://t.co/BomLyRCLUG pic.twitter.com/qpEs298J9V
— HuffPost Ent (@HuffPostEnt) September 19, 2017
Ellen Degeneres also played a video that showed her hiding in Sarah Paulson’s dressing room and jumping out to scare her. The American Horror Story: Cult star laughed off the joke, but she seemed genuinely terrified when a clown later jumped in her face while on Ellen’s stage. After a trip to the Ellen show, working on the American Horror Story: Cult set probably doesn’t sound so scary to Sarah Paulson anymore.
[Featured Image by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images]
