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 EYRICH; ASSISTANT STYLISTS: ROBERT SPARKMAN AND AND SPARKMAN ROBERT STYLISTS: EYRICH; ASSISTANT STYLING:(PREVIOUS SPREAD) LOU IS IT A TRUE FOURSOME IF HALF THE SANDRA AMADOR; HAIR: FREDERIC ASPIRAS/THE ONLY AGENCY AND MONTE C. HAUGHT; 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; 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 MIHO OKAWARA/AIMO MANICURIST: 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 DRESS: VINTAGE LAGERFELD; RINGS: ON AURA TOUT VU; EARRINGS: IDEZEN; NECKPIECE: FORGE; NECKLACE: VINTAGE 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.