On the 'American Horror Story: Freak Show' set with Sarah Paulson and Bette and Dot Tattler
The team that turns Sarah Paulson into "American Horror Story: Freak Show's" Bette and Dot Tattler — two-headed conjoined twins — were assembled in front of a bank of video monitors in the billiards room of a Metairie mansion. New Orleans-area shooting for the FX anthology drama's season, which concludes with episodes at 9 p.m. Wednesday (Jan. 14) and Jan. 21, was nearing its December production wrap. Paulson was in the nearby dining room with other cast members (IDs for which would spoil the series finale, so, "You're welcome"), painstakingly shooting a key scene.
For all of the early takes of the scene, as the cameras worked their way around the table to capture performances by the other characters, Paulson acted with her voice, or rather voices.
Then the time came to make Bette and Dot. The process included individual two-camera takes of Paulson acting the scene as each sister. Then an animatronic facsimile of a Tattler-girl head was attached first to one of Paulson's shoulders, then the other. The "puppet" head, as it's known to the production, was obscured in the shot by a table candle while Paulson acted beside it. Finally, a portable green-screen background was brought in to shoot Paulson's lines again, with two additional cameras in the room. Some of the footage would later be processed by special-effects artists in three different cities.
Capturing the scene took hours, with all of the actors working it for one another off-camera, again and again.
Creating Bette and Dot required a remarkable ensemble performance, with Justin Ball (visual-effects supervisor), Michael Goi (director of photography), a team of makeup artists led by Eryn Krueger Mekash, and Bradley Buecker (the episode's director) playing supporting roles.
At the center of it was Paulson, whose most intense, technically precise acting work — two characters interacting with the other players and each other in absentia, again and again — came at the end of the shot sequence. (Following a break, shooting would continue late into the night for the crew and some of the actors on interior sets on a soundstage across town.)
After the final "cut" for her scene, Paulson, a four-season member of the "AHS" ensemble who a day earlier was announced as Marcia Clark opposite Cuba Gooding Jr. in the upcoming "American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson," talked about the process of creating Bette and Dot, and the time, then fast approaching, when she'd have to say goodbye to them.
"I haven't really had time to reflect on it, but I can't wait for Christmas when I'm done and I'm able to reflect on it, and I hope it's not too late to say goodbye to all the things I loved about playing them," Paulson said. "I think of them as one, even though they're completely different creatures. They are twins. There is shared experience for them, even though they have different likes and dislikes in clothing and food and people. But they are born of the same people.
"It's a funny thing," she continued. "I almost think of them as shadow selves. I'll miss them both terribly because they are two sides of the same coin, and one completes the other. And that's sort of the beautiful thing about it."
Creating Bette and Dot appears seamless once it's on-screen. The reality of the process is so technically complicated, though — all the different camera angles, the animatronic head, the green screen — Paulson's distinct performances as each sister are more than doubly impressive.
"I think you happen to be catching me at a time when we're at the end of the road," she said. "There's almost something in my body, like a muscle memory, that takes care of a lot of the technical aspects of it. I can tell if my head is not in the right place. I know what to ask Justin, who's in charge of all of our VFX, so I don't have to wait to be told. I can get in front of it a little bit.
"Some times more than others, it's very helpful when the scene itself informs the emotional story going on internally."
The dramatic scene the cast had just shot "didn't require much in terms pretending," she said.
"Sometimes I play these girls — because there is so much going on in a technical respect — I am forced to go right into the essence of who they are, because I don't have time to figure out little moments," she said. "It's almost because we don't have time, my brain can get out of the way and I can lead with my heart. I think it helps the emotional part of it."
Seeing Bette and Dot assembled on-screen for the first time "was very weird and kind of jarring," Paulson said. "It was probably less strange for me to watch than for other people, because I knew every single moment that we were doing — like when I had the puppet on.
"I thought it was really seamlessly executed. At the beginning of this, nobody really knew how we were going to pull it off, so I think it's a small miracle."
It hasn't been announced where "American Horror Story," already renewed for season five, will shoot next. So "Freak Show's" wrap could've conclude a two-plus-years period of work in New Orleans for Paulson, dating back to her role in Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave" through "American Horror Story: Coven" and "Freak Show."
"It's a hard thing when you go on location, but sometimes you only go for a month at a time or six weeks at a time," she said. "I've been here for six months now two years and a row, and it almost feels like a second home.
"Something about the energy of the city, it either works for you or it doesn't, and for me it really does. I love the people. I just love shooting here. It's going to be bizarre to say goodbye.
"If you bump into somebody on the street in New York you don't know, you're likely to get, 'Sorry, pardon me,' or a different look or a kind of a nasty look or just a look in general. Here, not only do they say they're sorry, but they let you know where they were born and where their kids are going to school. It's a wonderful thing that the small contact that you make with a person, big things can come from it. You learn a lot about the person standing behind you in the grocery store.
"People feel open-hearted here, and generally interested in other people. Sometimes in Los Angeles or New York or other big, bustling cities — particularly where there's a level of narcissism that surpasses other places — I do think you live in a bubble. In Los Angeles particularly, you go from your house to a car and your car to wherever you're going, and you're kind of insulated. This is not like that. You're on the street here and there's a kind of genuine interest in other people that I think you don't find other places, and it's inspiring."
http://www.nola.com/tv/index.ssf/201...r_story_f.html