[Editor’s note: The following containsspoilersthrough the Season 8 finale of American Horror Story.]
EveryAmerican Horror Storyfan has their favorite seasons. Mine? The very first season,Murder House, and also Season 3,Coven. I love how contained and truly terrifying the first season is; when it comes toCoven, I just totally fell for that cast of characters. So, whenGabourey Sidibe’s Queenie returned inAmerican Horror Story: Hotel, I was hyped, to say the least. But then we only get her for one episode.
Queenie reserves a room at the Cortez and while she’s there, she survives an attack by Ramona (Angela Bassett) only to then be killed by James March (Evan Peters). Ultimately Queenie does return inApocalypsethanks to Cordelia (Sarah Paulson), but at the time, I wasn’t thrilled the show brought back a favorite character just to kill her off in a single episode. During a recent installment ofCollider Ladies Night, I got the chance to talk about that with Sidibe and hear about how that cameo came to be:
“Death doesn’t really mean anything over atAmerican Horror Story. I became really, really close to one of the head writers, John Gray … so they were discussing bringing back a character fromCovenand John was like, ‘Can we bring back Gabby because I want to go to dinner with her?’ [Laughs] Literally that’s [it]; he wanted to go to dinner with me, because I was in Chicago at the time. And so flew me back into LA, he’s like, ‘We’ll just kill her. You know, it’ll be a death scene!’ And that’s what we did so that we could go to dinner. I was fine with it!”
While Sidibe does make a very fair point about death onAHS, even after four seasons of the show, clearly I hadn’t learned my lesson. Sidibe also highlighted how much fun it can be to film a death scene for the show; “Everyone’s death is quite poetic and usually ties into something else and everything is very cyclical in that universe.”
So given that Queenie is back in play, death doesn’t really mean anything,andthe show is known for bringing back its cast members to play different roles, will we get to see Sidibe back onAHS? She said she’s very much up for that, but she’s also interested in getting behind the lens forAHSas well. She’s already got two episodes ofEmpireunder her belt as a director, andSarah Paulsonalready knocked it out of the park making the move fromAHSstar to director with her episode ofApocalypse, “Return to Murder House.” Why not Sidibe next? Especially considering she’s very interested in the opportunity to honeher craft through the show:
“Yeah, I would absolutely direct an episode ofAmerican Horror Story. There’s so much room to play, there’s so much room to learn. I’m still a very young director and so I’m still learning and I think the lessons that I would get fromAmerican Horror Storyare just so valuable. Yeah, I would absolutely direct, and also I would be on the show again as a performer.”
If you’re looking for more from Sidibe, we’ve got you covered! Her full episode of Collider Ladies Night drops on Sunday. If you’d like more right now, find out what Sidibe had to say about herexperience after getting her Oscar nomination.
