If you're among the 44 million captivated souls who've caught a glimpse of the drama, fashion, and fiery intensity teased in the All's Fair trailer, you couldn't have missed the sheer screen time Sarah Paulson commands or the unbridled lines she spews with a tongue as sharp as her wit. But when she laid eyes on it, Paulson admits it left her with a slight twinge of nerves. "At first, I thought, oh my God, this is exposing too much of Carrington Lane," the Emmy Award winner shared with The Hollywood Reporter at the show's Los Angeles premiere. "But then I realized it was just the tiniest peek at the vast ocean of possibilities that await me."
The Ryan Murphy masterpiece stars Paulson alongside Kim Kardashian, Glenn Close, Naomi Watts, Niecy Nash-Betts, and Teyana Taylor in the tale of accomplished divorce lawyers who strike out on their own to form an all-female firm after parting ways with a high-profile company. It's not a secret that Paulson's character, Carrington Lane, is employed at the firm they left behind, but she re-emerges in a case that ignites the season's fireworks. And that's why she earned a memorable moniker from one of her co-stars.
"Teyana Taylor likes to call me a menace," Paulson said with a mischievous grin. "And she's right. My character is the real menace of the show." This is a role Paulson has honed in various Ryan Murphy productions, but even with seasons of American Horror Story under her belt, All's Fair presented a new kind of challenge for the veteran star.
"I haven't been on a procedural show in a very long time, and this show is very much a procedural in that we have a new case every week. There's something about that, at least in this vein, that I've never really done before. This was a new and exciting world for me to play in, but it still holds all the hallmarks of Ryan: big drama, juicy sex, comedy, darkness, high stakes, beautiful sets, and gorgeous clothes—all in the same breath."
When asked to name her favorite scene, Paulson picked a few gems. "There's a little bit of this in the trailer, actually just a smidge," she teased. "But I dressed up like Kim Kardashian at one point. It was an incredibly special day we spent together because Kim gave us free reign to do whatever we wanted in dressing like her. 'Go for it,' she said. That was really, really fun." And every scene she shared with Glenn Close led to moments that left her breathless. "It was an iconic moment and I was constantly saying to myself, 'I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe I'm doing this.'"
All's Fair premieres on November 4th.
