American Horror Story Asylum has been just as perfect this year as American Horror Story was last year. And FX has been even better about making its actors available for press Q&A panels. Last week there were two: Franka Potente, who plays Anne Frank, and Lizzie Brochere, who plays Grace. They were both terrific.
I asked each of them about how they first got involved in the show, and then about the mechanics of a couple of their more memorable scenes from last week’s episode. First we have Franka Potente, who plays Anne Frank:
SciFiMafia.com How did you first get involved in this part?
F. Potente I got asked to take a general meeting with Ryan Murphy. So, I went to the Paramount lot and met him in his very nice office, and I didn’t really expect anything until he went right ahead and was talking about a really awesome, cool part that he had for me. And well, he writes for … American Horror Story, Glee, which one of your shows is it, and he didn’t tell me too much. There was really no script at
the time, but I was a fan of the first season of American Horror Story, and of course, I said I would be part of anything that he was envisioning for me.
SciFiMafia.com How did it progress? What point did you find out that you would be Anne Frank?
F. Potente That was something that he kind of explained to me without going into detail. Honestly, I think I got the script maybe a week before, and that’s when I really found out how it would come about and what was going on with her and all these things, but yes, very secretive and it makes sense. I totally appreciated that because if you watch a show like this, you know all these scripts … and stuff like that and with guests that come in and just kind of have more extreme character that stirs things up, you don’t want to know. With internet and everything, stuff gets out so easily that they kind of have to do that. They have to be so secretive about their scripts, and it would have kind of sucked if people had known like waiting for what was coming.
I wanted to ask you a little bit about that final scene that you were in in the first episode that we saw last night. Did it take a lot of coordination? Did you get beat up very much? Because wow, you kind of hit the ground there…
F. Potente To be really honest with you, you mean the fight scene with James, right?
SciFiMafia.com Yes, exactly.
F. Potente I said to my husband because when you watch the show, the way it’s edited so fast and this and that, I don’t know it’s probably a minute and a half, and we shot that scene—it probably took us like six, seven hours and both James and I go to the floor a lot. … people involved.
I remember the next day, I went to him and I was like please tell me, you have bruises today on you, and James was like yes, totally. So, it’s crazy because we were sweating. It was awesome, but it was a lot of work, and you do have to plan these things.
You can’t just—he’s a tall and strong man. You can’t just grip someone by the hand and push me anywhere. So, some people did coordinate that. I remember coming onset like okay, let’s do rehearsal and I was like wait a minute. What do you mean, what’s going on here because it read very violent in the script?
I was like yes, you know, … on here and this goes there and I remember there was this cart that—you can barely see it because it’s so fast. They just pushed me into this cart and it’s like scalpels and stuff on it. One time, if we get tired or never the same, and it fell on top of me and all these things, but there’s so much adrenaline going in scenes like this, you get a rush from it like from the motion and working and I remember the take … like James spit on me and stuff, and it was like stuff happens. It was really cool and at the very end, poor Chloë Sevigny was behind that door, go in there and sees it. It was like half a day of work, that whole thing for sure.
SciFiMafia.com I was going to ask too, was that room actually, that Chloë was in, was that actually just right there? Was she right there, or was that a separately shot part? It looks like it’s all part of the same scene.
F. Potente We broke it up. I think one shot was just separated like her, but then it had more to do with the gun and me shooting him in the leg and the prosthetics for that. We broke the scene, I think at some point, it was kind of like the last half of the scene would lead up to me opening the door and seeing Chloë.
SciFiMafia.com How many different expressions did you have to practice to get the one that you got to? The reaction to it was perfect.
F. Potente When I see Chloë?
SciFiMafia.com Yes because boy, she was hideous looking.
F. Potente I honestly I didn’t see much of her before I opened the door. I knew she was there. They had to wheel her in because of the nature of her prosthetics and all that stuff. She couldn’t even walk.
So, I knew she was there , but I kind of avoided seeing her because I knew it was not going to be pretty and I kind of saved that, but it was horrendous. I was like bluh. In my mind, I was just like, “Come on. Just let your face move and breathe and just take in what you see.” … it was kind of gross. ….
Yes. Yes it was. Now for Lizzie Brochere, who plays Grace, the axe murderer:
SciFiMafia.com How did you first get involved in the show?
L. Brocheré Weirdly, I self-taped from France. I had no idea that I could get the part because it was supposed to be an American part.
I did the audition anyway because I never felt safe and my managers here sometimes get mad because I never send anything in, and because also the process of the audition was so much fun. I watched the first season of American Horror Story and have been a big fan, and the audition for the part of “Grace;” it was two scenes. One was a scene taken out of Girl Interrupted, “Lisa’s” character…
It was very, very out there. It was very provocative, a very strong character and very …. So that was fun, it was like, wow, what is that character that they’re auditioning for? The other scene was a scene from …, which was a masturbation scene, very provocative as well.
I was like; I don’t know where they’re going with that character, but she’s wild. So I did the audition with my friend, and didn’t really believe in it, and then two weeks later I was in L.A. meeting Ryan Murphy … for five minutes and they were talking to me about the part … and that was it.
SciFiMafia.com Oh, that’s great.
L. Brocheré Yes, it was amazing.
SciFiMafia.com Can you tell us a little bit about shooting the murder scenes; was there a lot of … coordination needed? Was the atmosphere creepy?
L. Brocheré Oh, shooting the murder scenes, that was so fun. It was fun because we wanted to–I mean the whole crew was so happy to change my look, and they were really excited about doing some kind of flashbacks and knowing a little bit more about “Grace.” So everything, costumes and hair, for example, I don’t have the same haircut at all. They really wanted to show “Grace” as she was before the asylum, and everyone was really excited about that.
The actual murder scenes, there was a lot of blood, a lot of different axes. I think we had six different axes that are still in the props office, and they’re all on the walls. You have one that’s a rubber axe, and then you have another one that’s a real axe, and you should never mix up with the other one.SciFiMafia.com Right.
L. Brocheré Then you have another one that’s a half cut axe, so that you can pretend that it’s in the body. You only have a part of it sticking out of the body. I mean we have so many different axes; it was funny. Then you have, for example, when I kill my stepmom, we have these effects guys that were behind the body of my stepmom (who squirted) blood on my face each time that I hit her. There were so many people in that closet, but it was fun.
We can’t wait to get more of each of their stories tonight. What do you think – is she, or isn’t she, Anne Frank?
American Horror Story: Asylum, starring Jessica Lange, Zachary Quinto, Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson, Lily Rabe, Chloë Sevigny, James Cromwell, Joseph Fiennes, Adam Levine, Lizzie Brocheré, Britne Oldford, Mark Consuelos, Clea DuVall, and Jenna Dewan, airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on FX.
