Sarah Paulson

Birthday: 17 December 1974, Tampa, Florida, USA

Birth Name: Sarah Catharine Paulson

Height: 168 cm

Sarah Paulson was born on December 17, 1974 in Tampa, Florida, to Catharine Gordon (Dolcater) and Douglas Lyle Paulson II. She spent most of her early years in New York and Maine, before settling in Manhattan to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the High School for Performing Arts. Although she made her Broadway debut in "The Sisters Rosensweig" and performed in the off-Broadway "Talking Pictures", she debuted on the small screen in late 1994 in a guest shot on NBC's Law & Order (1990), then, in the following spring, landed her first TV-movie role in CBS' Friends at Last (1995) and finally became a TV series regular by fall 1995.Best known for her amazing performance in CBS' supernatural drama American Gothic (1995) as the benevolent spiritual guide to her young brother, she was also a regular on the WB series Jack & Jill (1999) as "Elisa Cronkite", the former girlfriend of David "Jill" Jillefsky (Ivan Sergei) as well as the main character in the TV series Leap of Faith (2002), "Faith Wardwell", and as "Audrey" in the TV movie Metropolis (2000). She was also part of the cast of Shaughnessy (1996), The Long Way Home (1998) (as "Leanne Bossert") and Path to War (2002) as Luci Baines Johnson, as well as making notable appearances in Touched by an Angel (1994) playing "Zoe" in Touched by an Angel: Manhunt (2001), 20 October 2001, and Cracker (1997) playing "Nina" in Cracker: True Romance: Part 1 (1997), 18 September 1997.Sarah has now played in movies with such stars as Mel Gibson in the romantic comedy What Women Want (2000) (as "Annie", Gibson's secretary), Diane Keaton in the romantic drama The Other Sister (1999) (as "Heather Tate", Keaton's lesbian eldest daughter), Jamie Foxx in Held Up (1999) (as "Mary", a developmentally disabled young woman with an unfaithful boyfriend) and David Hyde Pierce in the romantic comedy Down with Love (2003) (as "Vicky Hiller", Pierce's crush). She also had two major roles in the comedy Bug (2002) and the drama, Levitation (1997), where she starred as a pregnant teenager who searches for her biological mother, with the help of a guardian angel. Show less «

[on '12 Years a Slave'] What surprises me, I guess, is how powerful it is. Because I read the script...Show more »

[on '12 Years a Slave'] What surprises me, I guess, is how powerful it is. Because I read the script, I knew about all the moments that were there - the scene where he is hanging, and all that whipping, all of these things that I could read on the page. But what I think is so great and powerful about the movie is that when you put a real image to it, connect it to a person that you have connected with as the audience, it becomes personal. It takes it to a whole other level of comprehension. That's why I think it is so effective. Show less «

[on developing the role of Mary Epps] I was never afraid of the question of whether she could be lik...Show more »

[on developing the role of Mary Epps] I was never afraid of the question of whether she could be liked, because I feel - as an actress - it's none of my business whether you like me or not. It's my job to play this character as authentically and truthfully and with as much commitment as possible - no matter how horrible she is perceived and how deplorable her actions are - and they are. I had to find a way into that. She behaves deplorably and does terrible,terrible, unspeakable things but in her mind they are defensible..It s my belief that Mrs Epps is not a particularly deep or complicated woman.. I am not saying this as an excuse for her behavior or defending her behavior. I'm just saying from an acting standpoint, it's not interesting for me nor is it possible that a person just walks around doing such things horrible things without motivation. Show less «

If my life choices had to be predicated based on what was expected of me from a community on either ...Show more »

If my life choices had to be predicated based on what was expected of me from a community on either side, that's going to make me feel really straitjacketed, and I don't want to feel that. What I can say absolutely is that I am in love, and that person happens to be Holland Taylor. Show less «

I like to work and I like to work with great actors and great directors and great material - and the...Show more »

I like to work and I like to work with great actors and great directors and great material - and there isn't a ton of it. It's not overflowing. My cup doesn't runneth over in opportunity that way. To me, this was the opportunity to act something that was so opposite of who I am as a person.. Someone quite famous whose name I won't mention told me, 'I can't believe you did that part. I couldn't have done that. She was too horrible. I could never have done it'. But it would never occur to me to not take a part because something would be hard or complicated or tough for an audience to watch. Show less «

[on being directed by Steve McQueen] The main thing that we would talk about was a carriage, a postu...Show more »

[on being directed by Steve McQueen] The main thing that we would talk about was a carriage, a posture, and [Mary Epp's] own sort of loftiness, her ideas about herself. He gave me an image which was very helpful - to be a figurine or doll on top of a cake..It was a very good note to give me, because then every time I walked out, the thing that was most important to me was that I had a kind of statuesque stillness. I was unfussy and immovable. Those little statues that you pick up and stick somewhere. They just stand. They never lean. Show less «

Sarah Paulson

Sarah Paulson's FILMOGRAPHY

Sarah Paulson'S roles

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