Updated August 20, 2021 69.7K votes 10.4K voters 3.8M views
Voting Rules
Upvote the creepiest, most surprising facts you didn't know about FX's American Horror Story.
As much as it's known for its odd humor and gore-soaked setpieces, FX's hit horror television series American Horror Story is just as notorious for its grotesquely convoluted storytelling and shocking, soap-opera-style plot twists. Fans of AHS are definitely used to being surprised, but when it comes to behind-the-scenes trivia, even loyal viewers might not know the whole story. Regarded as one of the best horror TV series of all time, American Horror Story requires a dedicated and intelligent viewer. How much do you really know about American Horror Story? What are the most surprising BTS facts and American Horror Story Easter eggs?
Which American Horror Story characters were inspired by real people? Wasn't that song you just heard in a different movie you once saw, or are you just slowly losing your mind? What other plans to series creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have in store? Never fear - these questions are about to be answered. And plenty of other important American Horror Story facts you never knew you needed to know are also in store.
From odd facts about the cast and life on the American Horror Story set to casting choices that fell through (for better or worse) there's plenty of AHS trivia for fans of the TV show to nerd over. Read through the list and be sure to vote for the most surprising tidbits about your favorite creepy series. And make sure to check out these other shows like American Horror Story.
It takes Naomi Grossman over three hours to get into her costume and make-up to play Pepper, and when she's out of costume, needless to say, she looks pretty different. So much so, in fact, that she was once thrown off the set by confused security officers who didn't recognize her.
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2,123 VOTES
Denis O'Hare Refused To Speak While Playing The Role Of Spalding
In AHS: Coven, Denis O'Hare plays the butler, Spalding, at Miss Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies. Spalding cut out his own tongue out of devotion and thus doesn't speak. To keep in character, O'Hare stayed mute on-set even while the cameras weren't rolling. He was functionally mute for production on several episodes of the season, only speaking up once Spalding began verbalizing on the show itself.
"It made it very difficult to kind of just navigate," O'Hare recalls. "People would sort of walk into me, they'd walk around me. I was like wallpaper. I would just stand there in my little corner, and people would not notice me. They wouldn't ask me things. They would break for lunch and not tell me."
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2,432 VOTES
Meep Was Also In Season 1 (And Has A Surprising Day Job)
When he's not pretending to bite the heads off chickens, Ben Woolf, that guy who played Meep on Freak Show, spends his day-to-day life (believe it or not) teaching core curriculum to school children.
His occasional dabbling in show business didn't start with his portrayal of the hapless geek, however - aside from his assorted roles in smaller productions, Woolf also played the deformed mutant baby, Thaddeus Montgomery, on AHS season one.
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2,195 VOTES
James Cromwell's Son Played Him In A Flashback Scene
If you were feeling kind of freaked out by the uncanny similarities between James Cromwell and that guy who plays the youthful version of his character in the flashback sequence from Asylum, rest assured you're not losing it. The actor was actually James Cromwell's son, John Cromwell, hence the eerie family resemblance.
19-year-old Jyoti Amge, who plays Ma Petite, quickly became a lot of people's favorite character from Freak Show. Though her premiere in show business may seem thrilling to the rest of us, in Amge's home country of India, where the majority of the population is Hindu, she's widely regarded as a living incarnation of a goddess due to her unorthodox stature.
Becoming an American television star is probably no big deal by comparison.
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Kathy Bates's Baltimore Accent Was So Difficult She Had To Speak That Way At All Times
Kathy Bates gets all the difficult accents in American Horror Story. A New Orleans drawl in Coven, a Baltimore accent in Freak Show, and her old world accent and dialogue in Roanoke. The Baltimore accent in Freak Show was by far the hardest to be consistent with. As a result, Bates would speak with the accent outside of the set as well while filming commenced.
