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The hype for American Horror Story Season 13 has been real for some time, in part because the seasons themselves haven’t been able to hit their annual release cadence that was once there, but also because of the lingering allure of that number to the spooky season. Production is already well underway for the series’ return, which is bookmarked for this fall, and reports of who will be involved have seen fan hype go into overdrive. Though American Horror Story is no stranger to crossovers between seasons, AHS Season 13 will officially be its biggest yet.
Speaking with Entertainment Tonight at the world premiere of FX’s new series, The Shards, offered the most confirmation about American Horror Story Season 13 to date, comparing it to Marvel’s The Avengers. Murphy confirmed that the series isn’t just a “Coven” Season, but “all the seasons.” He went on to reveal that Sarah Paulson is set to play “six or seven roles” in the show, with Jessica Lange also playing all four of her previous characters from the series and Evan Peters playing five different characters. In short, it might very well be the AHS Avengers.
American Horror Story Season 13 Gets First Real Details
“It is like the Avengers,” Murphy teased about American Horror Story Season 13. “They all come together to defeat the ultimate evil, so it’s very fun. And as soon as I pitched it to them—many of them had said no over the years—and they were like, ‘Well, okay, we’ve got to come back for that.’ But I pitched Jessica Lange. She was like, ‘Oh, s***, now I have to do it.’ It’s all of them in one season. And it’s 13 episodes because it’s called 13.”
Murphy’s comments are pretty exciting for long-time fans of the show, not only because it means some of your favorite characters that have never returned will be back, but that storylines from all sorts of seasons will now intersect. The biggest question, of course, is what “the ultimate evil” could possibly be. American Horror Story already used the Antichrist as one of its primary antagonists (in the previous crossover season, Apocalypse), which perhaps leaves only the Devil himself as the candidate who most fits the bill.
It’s worth noting that Murphy’s tease of the multiple characters that the cast will play doesn’t exactly narrow down which of their former roles they might return to. Sarah Paulson, for example, has played upwards of a dozen different characters across American Horror Story‘s run, and that’s not even counting the potential for her playing a NEW character. The same can be said for Evan Peters, who played seven different roles in the first six seasons, only to then play seven more in AHS: Cult, all of which doesn’t count the other three he played later. In short, they could be anyone.
Jessica Lange, on the other hand, has only played four characters in American Horror Story, meaning she’ll return as all of them in the new season, returning as Constance Langdon from “Murder House,” Sister Jude Martin from “Asylum,” Fiona Goode from “Coven,” and Elsa Mars from “Freak Show” (assuming, again, one of her characters isn’t also new).
One person who won’t be in the series despite previously being confirmed is Ariana Grande, who had to drop out of the show following scheduling conflicts with her tour.
American Horror Story Season 13 will premiere on FX on September 24, 2026.
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