MOTHER MONSTER CHECKS INTO HOTEL

Lady Gaga with Lennon Henry, Cannon Mosteller, and Emmory Mosteller photographed exclusively for EW by Michael Avedon on the set of American Horror Story: Hotel on Aug. 12, 2015, in Los Angeles

FEEDING HER TASTE FOR THE MACABRE, LADY GAGA HEADLINES THE TWISTED NEW SEASON OF AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL. IN THIS EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK, WE LEARN THAT IN PLAYING A BRUTAL BUT GLAM BLOODSUCKER, THE BOUNDARY- PUSHING STAR ATTACKS THE CHALLENGE WITH ABSOLUTELY NO RESERVATIONS.

23 PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL AVEDON BY TIM STACK CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT ◆ Finn Witrock; Lady Gaga and Matt Bomer; Evan Peters; Max Greenfield; Christine Estabrook, Cheyenne Jackson, and Lyric Lennon; Angela Basset (PREVIOUS SPREAD) STYLING: LOU SPREAD)(PREVIOUS STYLING: ASSISTANT EYRICH; STYLISTS: ROBERT SPARKMAN AND

IS IT A TRUE FOURSOME IF HALF THE HAUGHT; C. MONTE AND AGENCY ONLY ASPIRAS/THE FREDERIC HAIR: AMADOR; SANDRA a sock covering his junk, goes first, with co- has fueled the soundstage with a giddy, MAKEUP: SARAH TANNO/THE WALL GROUP, ERYN KRUEGER MEKASH, AND LOU EYRICH; EYRICH; LOU AND MEKASH, KRUEGER ERYN GROUP, WALL TANNO/THE SARAH MAKEUP: sexual participants are dead? This question creator and director Ryan Murphy calling REVEALED! surreal energy. Case in point: Her presence for the ages is being posed on a hot Monday out commands like “Stab! Feed!” Gaga sits attracts a visit from John Travolta, who is MORE LINKS BETWEEN evening on the Los Angeles set of American behind the monitors and watches like a HORROR STORY SEASONS shooting Murphy’s miniseries American Horror Story: Hotel. Lady Gaga, making her superfan. “Yaasssss, queeeeen! Work that American Horror Story co-creator Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson next Ryan Murphy dropped a bombshell last AHS debut as an enigmatic figure named glove,” she yells at the end of a take. Murphy year when he told EW that the stories door. Still in costume as defense attorney the Countess, and Matt Bomer, playing comes back and imitates the superstar’s of AHS are all connected. It was Robert Shapiro, Travolta hugs Gaga, who’s in something that fans had theorized, but her paramour Donovan, are filming their enthusiastic chant. Laughing, Gaga exclaims, then it was confirmed when both a robe and diamond pasties, and they launch

MANICURIST: MIHO OKAWARA/AIMO CREATIVE Pepper and Sister Mary Eunice from aforementioned tryst. It involves the “I’m gonna wet my merkin!” In between Asylum appeared two seasons later on into a conversation about Travolta’s good pal Freak Show. Now the AHS universe Countess and Donovan having naked fun scenes, the six-time Grammy winner enter- is about to get even smaller with Hotel. Barbra Streisand. (Photos of Streisand enter- with another male-female duo in her hotel tains with stories about everything from her “We do go to the Murder House taining Travolta, Gaga, and Murphy at her [from the original season] for one penthouse—then slashing their compan- love of the Real Housewives franchise (she episode,”says Murphy. While he home popped up on social media days later.) wouldn’t elaborate, EW did learn that ions’ throats with razor-sharp chain-mail watches all of them) to her celebrity pals Marcy (Christine Estabrook), the Soon enough it’s Gaga’s turn for blood- gloves and feasting on their blood. (she’s currently babysitting Cher’s horse). real estate agent for the haunted shed in the bedroom, which Travolta stays home, is also the Realtor for the Next Gaga and Bomer rev up to shoot The set of AHS is always lively, but the arrival similarly horrific Hotel Cortez. So many to watch. The camera is positioned on the questions remain, but our main one I their respective killing scenes. Bomer, the of a star at the level of Lady Gaga, known for is: Who the hell is still hiring Marcy? bed from the perspective of Gaga’s victim. weaponized black glove on his hand and only (PREVIOUS SPREAD) GAGA’S ROBE: VINTAGE; BOYS’ SHIRTS AND TIES:AND J. SHORTS: CREW; VESTS FRENCH SHOES: TOAST; STRIDERITE; LENNON’SCANNON’S JACKET: TAZIO; JACKET: FERRECCI; EMERY’S JACKET: MICHAEL KORS; (6) (THIS TENNER/FX SUZANNE SPREAD) hits like “Born This Way” and “Applause,” Murphy says, “Action!” and the star, clad in

24 EW.COM SEPTEMBER 4, 2015 SEPTEMBER 4, 2015 EW.COM 25 heat to it. It’s pulsating. Every season has a different tone or a color. And I think this year for sure would be blood red.”

IT’S NOT EVERYI DAY YOU GET A COLD call from Lady Gaga, even when you’re Ryan Murphy. “I was at a construction site and my phone rang,” he recalls. “I didn’t recog- nize the number. [I answer and] I hear ‘Please hold for Gaga.’ I think ‘Bad Romance’ was playing [while I was on hold],” he adds with a laugh. “Then she got on the phone. At first I thought it was a prank, but we then had a lovely call.” And a brief one, too, says Gaga, who’s a huge AHS fan (Freak Show was her favorite season, for the record). “I called him and I said, ‘Ryan, I wanna be on Horror Story.’ And he goes, ‘Okay.’ And that was it.” It’s not a huge leap to connect Gaga with the spooky series. This is the same woman VINTAGE NECKLACE: FORGE; NECKPIECE: IDEZEN; EARRINGS: VU; TOUT AURA ON RINGS: LAGERFELD; VINTAGE DRESS: who wore a meat dress to the 2010 VMAs and arrived at the 2011 Grammys in a giant egg. But in recent years, the singer has shifted toward a slightly softer, safer route, collaborating on a jazz album with Tony Bennett and performing selections from those bedazzled pasties and a matching Gaga’s “go big or go home” attitude is The Sound of Music at the Oscars this past necklace, goes positively gonzo. She writhes representative of this entire season of AHS. year. She now says that she’s ready to go around on the bed like a famished animal. The FX series, which reboots every year back to the freaky-deaky figure whose fans “She’s the only actress I think I’ve worked with a new scary plot but the same core fittingly call themselves Little Monsters. with who wanted to do more explicit stuff ensemble of actors, will launch its boldest, “I’ve just been weeping while I’m here than was written,” confides Murphy. “You bloodiest, sexiest iteration on Oct. 7 with because I have returned to something I’ve write a foursome for her and you expect a lot Gaga becoming the face of the franchise believed in so much, which is the art of of questions. She never did that. She showed now that Jessica Lange has bowed out. darkness,” says the singer. “It’s not some- up and she was wearing diamond pasties, a “There’s a chance to do something Jessica thing that everyone understands, but, for Band-Aid on her hoo-ha, heels, and a black would not have done,” admits Murphy. “So the people that do—Horror Story fans, my veil that Alexander McQueen made for her it’s a different tone. But it’s still the show— fans—there is a true connection between on the day before his death. Then the crew make no mistake. I think it has what people us, and it’s a language within itself.” gasped in delight and we were off!” Remem- want.” Adds Sarah Paulson, who has After making four seasons of AHS, Murphy bers Gaga, “I walked in on my first day and appeared in all fiveAHS versions: “There’s is fairly familiar with that language. Last I was like, ‘I am going to give all of myself.’ ” something about this season that’s got real year’s Freak Show was the series’ most

26 EW.COM SEPTEMBER 4, 2015 watched season—and its most Emmy- personality. I think he’s hypersexual, also, Based on the Cortez’s nefarious staff and nominated—but Murphy and his writers and just follows his gut. It makes him a occupants, it’s not surprising to learn that it went a different route for year 5. He knew WHO’S WHO IN prime candidate for the Countess’ charms, might also be housing a serial murderer nick- he wanted something modern and grue- and he very willingly is seduced and then named the Ten Commandments Killer. some but also primal. “I’m not afraid of THE turned by her.” This, naturally, does not sit LAPD detective John Lowe (Wes Bentley) is freak shows. I’m not afraid of clowns. I’m NEW HOTEL well with Donovan, and sets the stage for a on the hunt for the killer—whose methods of not afraid of witches,” he proclaims. “But macabre love triangle. “She needs them offing victims are based on biblical dictates— I’ve had a couple of very scary experiences both in different ways,” says Gaga. “What I’VE JUST and begins to think the guilty party is living in hotels with people getting access to makes the story interesting in both vile and in the hotel. Lowe moves into room 64 rooms. People can be hiding under the bed. humanistic ways is she truly loves them, no BEEN WEEPING (March’s old office—cue scary music) in the So I think the scares are more modern and matter what they go through together.” hope of solving the crime. But he unwittingly real, and they play on people’s senses of Donovan is not the only one in L.A. with WHILE I’M pulls his pediatrician wife, Alex (Chloë paranoia and fear.” an ax to grind, though. One of the Countess’ HERE BECAUSE Sevigny), and their daughter into this wild While bedbugs might be the biggest con- former flames, film actress Ramona Royale world of bloodsuckers, dildo-wielding cern for most real-life travelers, AHS’ Hotel (Angela Bassett), also seeks revenge on the I HAVE demons, and maybe-dead 1930s hoteliers. Cortez unleashes a whole slew of far more Countess and sees Donovan as her way into With each season of AHS growing in the frightening vacation terrors. Built in 1930 by the hotel. “They are powerful women at RETURNED TO ratings and the addition of Gaga this year, the rich and charming but deeply psychotic odds with one another, each believing that Hotel could be the most popular yet. The James March (Evan Peters), the beautiful they’re right,” says Bassett, who likens it to SOMETHING audience appetite has already led Murphy art-deco hotel is, in actuality, a labyrinthine season 3’s Marie Laveau/Madame LaLaurie and his team to consider doing two itera- CLOCKWISE I’VE BELIEVED structure built to hide March’s murderous FROM feud. “I think it hearkens back a little bit to tions a year instead of one. He reveals, TOP LEFT ◆ activities (think dead ends, secret rooms, Naomi Campbell, Coven, a little of that vibe.” IN SO MUCH, “Next year we might do one in the fall and Wes Bentley, endless shafts). In present day, though, the Kathy Bates, and While the Countess might seem heartless another in the spring. We have to decide. Cortez is acquired by Gaga’s Countess, a Sarah Paulson with all this partner swapping, she does have WHICH IS THE The next [story] we’re crafting is very, very glamorous socialite who attends art open- a softer, maternal side and has adopted/ different than this. Not smaller. But just not ings and fashion shows and maintains her kidnapped a brood of blond, bloodsucking ART OF opulent. More rogue and dark.” looks not from a steady diet of kale but from children. Says Murphy, “There’s nothing DARKNESS.” Hotel hasn’t even premiered yet, but imbibing human blood. Murphy doesn’t like scarier than a platinum blond baby running Gaga says she’d happily come back for LADY GAGA to call it vampirism. “I prefer the term around doing evil deeds.” Also roaming another round. While other stars might THE RESIDENTS pops up now and (Chloë Sevigny), are ‘ancient blood virus,’ ” Murphy says of her again. “It’s like The about the Cortez are Donovan’s clingy mom, balk at the bloodshed or gruesomeness of Everything (and still struggling with affliction. “It’s really a form of hemophilia, in Shining almost,” says Iris (Kathy Bates)—who’s the front-desk what’s still to shoot, Gaga is positively exhil- everyone) in the Hotel the disappearance Peters. “You don’t a way. There are no capes and fangs.” Cortez falls under of their 6-year-old clerk—as well as a cross-dresser played by arated. “I always wanted to be an actress,” know if he’s interacting the control of Lady son. But when Lowe The virus does have an upside, though: It with them or they’re Denis O’Hare. Explains Murphy: “He’s a she says. “I was terrible at auditioning. I Gaga’s bloodsucking checks into the imbues the infected with certain vampire- crazy.” businessman who had been coming to the this fella. If its eyes and mouth, which look would clam up. I was very awkward. I wasn’t owner, the Countess. Cortez in the hopes esque perks like agelessness. (Take that, “Everybody works of finding a killer, hotel to live out his secret world. He would like they’re covered in melted wax, weren’t particularly pretty in high school. I was THE GUESTS Botox!) But with all that time on her hands, for her and they all the family, including steal his wife’s fur coat and wear her slip. terrifying enough, this monster sports a sort of…blooming. Now I’m here.” Kathy NYC fashion designer their 10-year-old the Countess desires some romantic dis- have an agenda And the Countess lovingly says his female conical drill-bit dildo. That last piece of, Bates is a believer: “We’ve shot one scene about protecting her Will Drake (Cheyenne daughter, encounter traction—or “projects,” as Gaga puts it. at any cost,” teases Jackson) arrives a whole new set of persona reminds her of Liz Taylor.” ahem, hardware features in a rendezvous together. She walked past me and literally One of them is Bomer’s Donovan, her lover Ryan Murphy. Those with his young son nightmares. “Alex is AHS has tackled overarching social the demon has with both Sally and her had one line and she just scared the s--- out and decides to willing to sacrifice for more than 20 years. And like any couple, minions include issues every season, from homophobia fellow junkie Gabriel (New Girl’s Max of me. She’s got tremendous imagination the Countess’ lover make the hotel his everything for her they’re struggling with commitment issues. Donovan (Matt atelier, which draws child,” says Sevigny. (Asylum) to race (Coven). For Hotel, Murphy Greenfield); Murphy has called it “the most and creativity, and she’s really throwing “He’s very interested in domesticity and Bomer), drug addict the fashion crowd, focuses on addiction, which is embodied in disturbing scene we’ve ever done.” Let’s just herself into this.” including impetuous THE DEMON sort of nesting and hunkering down and Sally (Sarah Paulson), Paulson’s grungy junkie, Hypodermic Sally. say it is not a gentle love scene. “We were Even before Gaga arrived on set, she cross-dresser Liz model Tristan (Finn Just one of many having her to himself every now and then,” Taylor (Denis O’Hare), Wittrock) and Vogue creatures lurking “She’s a real bad girl who will do anything like, ‘F---, yeah, man,’ ” says Greenfield. made her unique presence known. “She says Bomer. “And that doesn’t go over so and Donovan’s editor Claudia (Naomi in the Cortez. “He’s to fuel her addictions,” says Murphy. “And “ ‘Let’s push this, and let’s see how far we sent me a box of dead flowers and a ripped- Campbell). well with her limitless hunger.” mother, Iris (Kathy a representation she and the Countess are friends.” Sally can go.’ ” He jokes, “Alex [Ward, who plays up teddy bear,” says Bentley. “I think she

Bates), who runs of what people SUZANNE TENNER/FX (4) Temptation arrives in the form of high- the front desk. And THE FAMILY go through when also has a fairly intimate relationship with the demon] was easily the greatest scene sent it to a couple of people.” With this fashion model Tristan (Finn Wittrock), despite the fact that Detective John Lowe fighting addiction,” one of Hotel’s main monsters, the Addiction partner I’ve ever had in my life. I would say hotel of horrors, Mother Monster couldn’t who catches the eye of the Countess. “He’s he seemingly died in (Wes Bentley) and his says Murphy. “It’s Demon. Viewers who thought previous Damon Wayans Jr., and then Alex. Alex is a have found a more fitting home. the 1930s, the Cortez’s pediatrician wife, Alex not done lightly or the guy who does what people tell him to original owner, James blithely. I think it’s AHS creations like Rubber Man and Bloody close second. But I will say I would take Alex do,” says Wittrock. “He’s got an addictive March (Evan Peters), very powerful.” Face were disturbing should prepare for over Jake Johnson any day of the week.” Thoughts or questions? Tweet the writer @EWTimStack.

28 EW.COM SEPTEMBER 4, 2015 SEPTEMBER 4, 2015 EW.COM 29 THE WEAPON ◆ The Countess kills with the claws of a chain-mail glove designed by L.A. accessories wiz Michael Schmidt, who has created custom pieces for Cher and Madonna. Murphy wanted it to look “both rock & roll and old at the same time,” says Eyrich. “The nails have diamonds on the edge to slice.” GAGA’S DRESS: ALEXANDER MCQUEEN; SHOES: JIMMY CHOO; RING: GUILTY; GLOVE DRAWING: LOU EYRICH; GUINNESS: CINDY ORD/FILMMAGIC.COM;

BEHIND GAGA’S KILLER HOTEL LOOK

DAPHNE GUINNESS ◆ “I’m obsessed with Guinness (above) and B. Åkerlund,” says Eyrich of the avant-garde muse and stylist, respectively. GIVEN LADY GAGA’S STATUS AS A “They’re so elegant and perfectly put together. style icon, it’s not surprising that The nails are done, the rings, the stockings. That’s who I feel the Countess is. She’s curated.” American Horror Story’s look this year is fashionably following suit. “It’s really, really modern glamour, which we’ve never done,” says Ryan THE WOMEN ADRIAN ◆ “Ryan loves this designer from the Murphy. Gaga, Murphy, and AHS ’30s and ’40s,” says Eyrich of the period-defining costume designer Lou Eyrich (who costumer of such classics as The Women (starring COLLECTION : EVERETT Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer, above). They nabbed an Emmy for her work on also drew from contemporary runway pieces not GAGA’S VIDEOS ◆ “She’s like a silent-film hitting stores till February, “so we could be ahead actress,” says Murphy, who praises the singer’s Coven) collaborated on the aes- of the game for television,” she adds. “Anything highly styled mini-movies for hits like “Paparazzi,” thetic of the Countess. Here’s an that was dramatic. It could be a pantsuit, a in which she dons boundary-pushing designs by jumpsuit, a fur cape with a bustier under it. It’s Dolce & Gabbana, Thierry Mugler, and Jeremy Scott. exclusive peek at their inspirations. just mixing it all up and making it the Countess.”

30 EW.COM SEPTEMBER 4, 2015 LADY GAGA PHOTOGRAPHED BY MICHAEL AVEDON