From American Gothic scream queen to American Horror Story mainstay, Sarah Paulson has become a legend in the horror genre over the course of her 30 years in the entertainment industry. Her latest foray into the genre hit Hulu this weekend, with Karrie Crouse and William Joines’ Hold Your Breath. Set during the 1930s, Hold Your Breath sees Paulson as a mother on the edge as horrific dust storms, strange men, and a supernatural presence threaten to tear her family apart.

I recently sat down with Paulson to chat about her role in the psychological thriller and her return to horror. During our conversation she spoke about what keeps her coming back to the genre, what set Hold Your Breath apart from her other thriller projects, what she was proudest of in terms of filming, and how she kept her character’s descent into madness straight as they filmed out of order. She also spoke briefly about her next project with fellow horror legend Ryan Murphy, revealing when his legal drama All’s Fair begins shooting. You can read our full conversation below or watch it in the player above.

First of all, given the title of this movie, I’m just wondering, do you know how long you can hold your breath?

PAULSON: You know, I don’t know the exact number, but I know when I was a child — and things maybe are different because I smoked too many cigarettes in high school and all those other things that people do — but my sister and I, when we were kids, we would always in the swimming pool, like, go underwater and just see who could go the longest and I did always beat my sister at this one thing. So I think I can hold it for a pretty good amount of time, but I don’t really want to test it like on camera and fail miserably.

I mean, who would want to? So, my wife and I are huge, huge horror fans, and you have made such a name for yourself in this genre as a modern scream queen. What is it about horror that keeps you coming back? And what is it about Hold Your Breath that drew you into this project?

PAULSON: Well, what keeps me coming back to the horror genre is…I just love doing it. I love the extremes, and when you’re acting in those worlds of extremes, you get to kind of have a — I feel sort of liberated by the freedom of knowing that no one knows what any one person might do if it was a true live-or-die moment. And so you’re always kind of free, I think to make any choice. And sometimes they can be quite big, and they can be quite full of emotion, and terror, and all of those sort of fundamental feelings that we all feel at different points in our lives. And I just love being able to access them in myself. And I love the challenge of it, because it’s not easy to simulate that kind of terror, and it’s not easy to simulate that kind of upset or fury or grief, and I really like the challenge of it.

Of course, what drew me into the movie was the script. Also, the idea that I was really excited by was sort of like the beauty, the juxtaposition of the beauty of the landscape and the beauty of our country in that particular time period in terms of just the expanse of land, and little houses, and just how quickly it turned for the people living in that [time period] almost 100 years ago in Oklahoma, and how we had this sort climate crisis with drought, after drought, after drought, mixed with this manmade over-farming of the land, and wind erosion. Literally [the] perfect storm to create these dust storms that were very, very harrowing, and like nothing you can really imagine. It’s like a wall of black. People talk about [it] in this documentary called The Dust Bowl that Ken Burns did that I watched before we started shooting. They talked about it seeming like it was midnight at 10 in the morning if the storm was happening at that moment. And just having no real sense of time, because the light in the sky was not there, and you know, just terrifying to me.

Sarah Paulson Is Proud of Getting Out of Her Comfort Zone on ‘Hold Your Breath’
“I’m not a very outdoorsy kind of gal.”
This is such a tense film to watch, and it seems like a really challenging movie to film. What is something from this movie that you’re particularly proud of? Is there like a challenging scene that you’re really proud of, or something where you were like, “Oh, I haven’t done that before”?

PAULSON: I think in general, I do see myself and people in my life that I’m close to would argue that I’m more of a nervous Nellie or a scaredy-cat than you might imagine. But what I was — and I’m not a very outdoorsy kind of gal, I will say, don’t get me on a camping trip. I don’t want to hike with your dog. I’m not interested in almost any of that. I do like to be outdoors, but the sort of rigorous part of it is not for me. But I was really kind of proud of myself for sort of standing in the middle of these fields and asking special effects to crank up the fan to almost 75 miles per hour, pointed directly at me with these tubes of just dirt shooting out at me in this sort of high-pressure way. And not being afraid of it. And I wanted more.

I kind of surprised myself in those moments when I’m weirdly unafraid because I do think I walk around more on the scaredy cat side than not. So I was impressed with…I mean, people always talk about, in my world, they’re always like “On Survivor, you would go home immediately,” and it’s true. And yet here I was in this movie, and I was like “More wind! More wind!” I was like, wow, pretty cool, Sarah.

So you mentioned doing your research for the time period that it’s set. But I also really felt that the film was very apt for a bit of a COVID allegory, and that fear of isolation. So can you talk about the sort of slow spiral of your character?

PAULSON: Yeah, I mean, I think this is absolutely — I mean, Karrie [Crouse] wrote the movie pre-pandemic actually, but we were shooting it kind of really in the middle of it. I mean, everybody in the crew was still wearing masks when we were shooting. So that was all very, very present and front and center in our minds.

But you know, I had to have a chart to map out my descent, because so much of it — and once people see the movie, they will understand this — there are waking dreams, there are real dreams, there are nightmare dreams. There is Margaret’s reality, there is reality, reality. There are all of these different psychological states for her that were really hard to keep track of. And so I had a calendar in my trailer that was as big as the trailer walls, and it just had each little beat, micro beat, you know, figured out so that I was always sure that I knew where I was in space and time so that I was tracking it. And wasn’t just sort of left to imagine it, because it was too intricate in the script, I didn’t want to mess it up, you know?

It comes off beautifully, the spiral each minute just getting more intense as you go. One last thing before we go: You already have your next Ryan Murphy project lined up. Can you tell us anything about All’s Fair?

PAULSON: All I can tell you about All’s Fair is that I think it’s going to be so much fun. And I think it’s gonna be fun for us shooting it, and I think it’s going to be even more fun for people watching it. We start shooting in about two weeks. And I mean, I’ve been so lucky to work with Niecy Nash before, so I’m really looking forward to being reunited with her. I revere Naomi Watts, and Teyana Taylor, and Glenn Close. It’s an embarrassment of riches, and I’m really excited to get to act with Kim Kardashian. I think it’s going to be so fun and, she just seems nothing less than like a consummate professional, and incredibly fun, and game. I think it’s going to be a really, really good time.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much. I can’t wait to see it, and I can’t wait for everyone else to see Hold Your Breath.

PAULSON: Thank you so much.

Hold Your Breath is now available to stream on Hulu.

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