Lizzie Brochere talks Grace Bertrand in American Horror Story: Asylum

Check into Briarcliff as the second terrifying slice of the Emmy-award winning anthology show American Horror Story: Asylum comes to Blu-Ray and DVD on 23 September 2013 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

The year is 1964 as we’re introduced to the doctors and nuns who occupy the asylum alongside Nazis, mutants, innocents and serial killers who all make up the fabric of patients. These include Sister Jude (Emmy award-winner Jessica Lange – Cape Fear), Dr. Arthur Arden (James Cromwell – L.A. Confidential), Dr Oliver Thredson (Zachary Quinto – Star Trek) and Kit Walker (Evan Peters – the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past), a patient assumed to be the notorious masked serial killer Bloodyface. As journalist Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson – Martha, Marcy, May Marlene) visits Briarcliff intent on exposing its mistreatment of patients, she unearths unthinkable horrors that could end with her very own imprisonment.

Meanwhile, in the present day, two young adults visiting the now-derelict asylum are stalked by another incarnation of Bloodyface…

Asylum see’s cast returns from the brilliant Jessica Lange, Zachary Quinto, Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under) and Dylan McDermott (Olympus Has Fallen) who are joined by new additions James Cromwell and Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love). There are also guest appearances from Ian McShane (Deadwood) and Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine, all who complete the stellar cast line up.

From the creators of Glee and Nip/Tuck, every new episode of American Horror Story: Asylum brings a fresh amount of insanity-fuelled shock, horror and gore to surprise even the most hardened of fans. This season has earned more rave reviews than its predecessor, earning three nominations for the upcoming Emmy awards including Best Actress (Lange), Supporting Actress (Paulson) and Supporting Actor (both Cromwell and Quinto).

Authentically stylish and scary as hell, be sure to visit Briarcliff when American Horror Story: Asylum comes to Blu-ray and DVD on 23 September 2013 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.  Be warned: once you enter, you may find it impossible to leave.

Beautiful name, hard environment for Grace.  I’m curious when you first were approached to be part of this very unique TV landscape did you have any trepidation about it?

Oh, no, I was excited.  I was really excited.  It is a twisted place to be in but the world is a big asylum isn’t it?

Why is this show so popular with audiences?  It’s not an easy show to describe.  What hooks the audience in so quickly?

Everyone finds what they find.  Me, what hooks me up is that there is something behind the horror.  There’s also something that talks about the twisted kind of fears of our society, actual society nowadays and takes the risks to really confront them.  That’s what gets me.

How was the show presented to you?

It was presented very, very like that.  It was presented as saying this year it’s going to take place in an asylum in the 60’s and it’s going to be held by Jessica Lange who’s going to play a sister, nun.  That’s how it was presented.

And you thought yes, sign me up?

I was already signed up but Jessica Lange as a nun, holding a mental institute in the 60s, yeah of course, of course.

What can we expect for Grace’s arc this season?

You’re going to figure out where she comes from first in episode four.  Then I’m figuring it out every episode, for every episode.  I’m like what?  What’s happening to her now?  Again?  Where’s that coming from?  I don’t think you can expect, just you’ll see.

How do you find a voice for an entirely new character?

Grace was very straightforward on paper.  It made sense.  What’s funny is that the audition process was already giving me ideas of where they wanted her to go.  The two auditions, the two scenes I had, one was from Girl Interrupted Liza’s character, Angelina Jolie so that made her kind of edgy, crazy, rock ‘n roll.  The other one was a masturbation scene from Nip Tuck, very provocative.  I was like, okay, okay, that’s where we’re going.  It turns out it’s not really like that but there’s this touch in there.  I got lucky because before we started shooting we had the first four scripts and as I told you in the fourth episode we discover what’s Grace’s story.  So I had that before I started.  You know where she comes from.  You know kind of the tone that they’re looking for.  It’s like everyone, you talk with the hair guy, what does he want, what he got from Ryan?  We found that this kind of I feel, very punk’ish Barcelonian hair cut that I love, that’s why it is so chopped up and it’s a bit crazy and it’s not cute.  I like that.  Costume wise it sounds ridiculous but we’re all wearing the same uniform apparently but no one is wearing the same uniform.  Shelley has one that has shoulders shown and she’s always unbuttoned in front, kind of sexy nymphomaniac.  Sarah has a very plain one and I have one that’s tighter at the waist so I can be a bit more, you know, it’s like every little detail pops up comes like that.  I got a lot from story that I came from, from you no episode for that was pretty much it. 

You like her?

Oh, I love her.  I love her.  It’s been great playing her.

We are going through a rather chaotic time.  People are attracted to something a little darker.  Do you think it’s the dark part of our personalities that attracts us to shows like these?

Yes, maybe in a cathartic way.  There’s also something so exciting of seeing all this, I’m really attracted about I wouldn’t say darker, it’s twisted and the more you’re going to get into the season the more you’re going to get into the episodes, the weirder and the less maniacal.  Black and white.  There’s something black and something white and everything’s just pretty much gray and tweaking all shades of gray, that’s where they’re going and that’s what I like about that show.  You don’t have bad guys and good guys.  It’s all blurry and what’s sanity and what’s not sanity.  Who can you trust and who can you not trust?  What’s instinct?  What are you inside?  Do you know yourself?  And I think it’s true that it’s a period right now in doubt of everything.  We are like this doesn’t work anymore.  Oh this era of whatever doesn’t work anymore.  Coming to an end of something and we don’t know really where to turn to.  All these institutions in this show that are all tinted you know, tinted of black, tinted of a white, tinted of fewer, tinted of wanting, I think that’s why people recognize something in their life.

When you take on projects like this, what are you thinking when it’s over?  How do you decompress from a day on this set?

I took road trips.  I took road trips especially because I’m not from here.  I don’t live in LA.  So I don’t know a lot of people yet and I don’t have my crew of friends.  I would certainly do something else if I were in Paris.  But for me right now it’s been road trips, yoga, all this Brazilian crazy dance stuff.  A bit of reggae sound systems, some stuff like that.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM: SEASON 2 IS OUT NOW