Sarah Paulson has fired back at critics who say her Aileen Wuornos performance falls short of Charlize Theron’s Oscar-winning turn.
Paulson, 50, addressed the backlash during an appearance on Netflix’s Shut Up Evan podcast after viewers of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story flooded social media with comparisons between the two portrayals. The Ryan Murphy-created anthology series, which premiered last week, unexpectedly inserted Wuornos into its narrative despite the serial killer living nearly a century after Lizzie Borden.
The American Horror Story alum told the podcast she never intended to compete with Theron’s 2003 performance. “It’s just the sort of weird thing where it’s like, I didn’t set out to do something better than Charlize Theron,” she said. “I didn’t set out to blast hers off the screen or something – as if anyone could do that. It’s the most glorious performance in the world.”
Paulson pointed to theater traditions to defend her right to reinterpret the role. “People get to reinterpret great plays all the time,” she continued. “No one goes, ‘Oh I don’t want to see Glenn Close’s version of this play because I saw so-and-so’s version or this director’s.'”
The Emmy winner admitted she anticipated the scrutiny before she ever stepped on set. “It flashed in front of me like, ‘People are going to compare it to Charlize, and that’s going to be so – why would I do that?'” she recalled. “Why would I want to go out in the world and give a performance when someone has won an Oscar for that? Like, that’s some kind of psycho behaviour on your part, Sarah Paulson.”
Wuornos, a sex worker convicted of murdering seven men who solicited her, initially claimed self-defense before later admitting she killed them to rob them. Her brief appearance in The Lizzie Borden Story was framed as Borden having “inspired” the future killer, though Borden herself was never found guilty of any crimes.
Paulson emphasized that her portrayal stemmed from her own research and perspective rather than any attempt to mimic Theron. “This is my interpretation of Aileen Wuornos based on the research I did and based on my personhood and how it comes out through me,” she explained. “It’s not an attempt to do something like anybody ever did.”
In a separate interview, Paulson described the role as both terrifying and rewarding. “I feel very, very honoured and touched that people have been responding positively to it. It was a really scary thing to do,” she shared. “Obviously, many people have played that role, and brilliantly. So, to throw my hat in the ring of one of the many interpretations of the character felt like a real honour and a total parachute jump out of a plane.”
Paulson also called the experience “one of the greatest experiences of my life getting to do that and hard and scary” in the interview.
The fourth installment of Murphy’s Monster franchise follows previous seasons about Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez brothers. Netflix has not announced whether Paulson will appear in future anthology entries.