Tonight, American Horror Story’s own Sarah Paulson made her directorial debut behind the camera of the sixth episode of American Horror Story: Apocalypse, aptly named “Return to Murder House.” In an interview with Variety, Paulson revealed she was originally meant to direct the eighth episode, but creator Ryan Murphy changed his mind and asked Paulson to handle episode six about a week before filming was set to begin. “I thought, ‘Don’t let your fear of failure stand in your way. It’s never worked for you before to shy away from something because you’re afraid,’” she said. “So I just thought I better heed his call.”
Though Paulson admitted it was a considerable challenge to shoot all 72 scenes of the episode. “The one that we shot prior to episode six was 28 scenes, if that gives you any idea of the volume and responsibility,” she told Variety. Luckily, she had the motivational tool to end all motivational tools, telling the magazine, “It doesn’t hurt to have Ryan Murphy with a megaphone behind you going, ‘You can do this, you can do this! You have to do this!’”