Sarah Paulson Biography, Career, Filmography

Since she was little, she already knew that she wanted to dedicate herself to acting and that is why she did everything in her power to achieve it. Sarah Catharine Paulson was born on December 17, 1974, in Tampa, Florida. She moved to New York at a very young age, where she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and at the High School of Performing Arts to achieve her dream. 

Her acting career began in 1994 when she had a supporting role in the television series Law and Order. During the following years, she also participated in the telefilm Friends at Last (1995) and Forced Hero (1996), and in the television series Occult America (1995-1996).

Rise to Fame

Her debut on the big screen came in the film Levitation (1997), where she got the role of Acey, a young woman who becomes pregnant after spending the night with a man she has just met and who, on the other hand, he goes in search of his birth mother upon learning that she is adopted. Thanks to this film, Sarah got her first Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress. 

She then worked on the television series Cracker (1997), giving life to Janice, and Jack & Jill (1999), with the role of Elisa Cronkite. In the cinema, she was secondary in Learning to live (1999), a drama about a disabled woman. In the year 2000, she gets the role of Annie in the movie What do women think? , where she shared the screen with Mel Gibson. 

Two years later, she embodies Luci in the telefilm Road to War, a film set in the Vietnam War. She also had brief appearances in such renowned films as Down with Love (2003), The Spirit (2008), Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) and New Year’s Eve (2011), among others. 

Her second Golden Globe nomination came thanks to the series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-2007), where Paulson plays Harriet Hayes, a television studio actress. But despite being written by the great Aaron Sorkin, the series did not fully consolidate and only lasted one season. 

In the Spotlights…

As of 2011, Sarah begins to become more familiar to the public. She becomes part of the cast of the horror-thriller series American Horror Story. In AHS: Murder House (2011) she plays Billie Dean Howard, a medium who helps the Harmon family. In AHS: Asylum (2012) she plays Dana, a journalist who is investigating the Briarcliff Asylum. In the third season, AHS: Coven (2013), she plays Cordelia Foxx, a witch who runs a school for beginning witches. In AHS: Freak Show (2014) she has a double role playing the conjoined twins Dot and Bette Tattler. In 2015, AHS: Hotel was released, the last season (for the moment) of this series where, of course, Sarah is included, this time with the role of Sally, a drug addict locked up in the Hotel Cortez. 

It is clear that Ryan Murphy, creator of American Horror Story, must have really liked how Sarah acted since he decided to include her in every season of his series. Although for the director Paulson’s star role was in American Horror Story: Freak Show, giving life to the conjoined twins. The actress took between 12 and 15 hours to record each scene. In all, Paulson has earned six Best Actress Emmy Award nominations thanks to her various roles in American Horror Story, and she has won Best Supporting Actress in AHS: Asylum and AHS: Freak Show. 

His filmography from then on is more prominent. She gets the role of Mary Lee in the movie Mud (2012). And in this same year, she also plays Nicolle Wallace in the Game Change TV series. Thanks to this role, she was nominated for the Emmy Awards and the Golden Globes for Best Supporting Actress.

Steve McQueen decided to cast her in 12 Years a Slave (2013) in the role of Mary Epps, the wicked wife of a slaver played by Michael Fassbender. It seems that McQueen was convinced by the fear that he gave his daughter when she auditioned. In this film, Sarah shares the bill with actors of the stature of Brad Pitt and Lupita Nyong’o, among others. She earned a SAG Award nomination for Best Cast.

His latest film so far is the romantic drama Carol, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.