Portraying two characters meant twice the amount of work, and playing each side of Bette and Dot was a nightmare for Sarah Paulson. Paulson would spend upwards of 15 hours on set getting footage of both Tattler sisters acting against a prosthetic head as she went between the characters. Bette and Dot have wildly different personalities, though Jessica Lange still had difficulty telling them apart. During an interview with ABC News, Paulson spoke about helping Lange remember which sister she was supposed to be focused on during Elsa’s scenes with Bette and Dot.
“Yes, it was hard because they had to use their imagination, as well,” the actor explained. “And also, Jessica Lange had a really hard time keeping track of whoever she was supposed to be speaking to. So I was sort of, sly behind [the] camera, pointing. When she would look in the wrong direction, I would be like, ‘No, no. Other head, this one.'”
Lange’s frustration with working around Bette and Dot was so profound that Paulson mentioned it in another interview with GQ, saying, “It was the scenes Jessica Lange hated shooting more than anything because she’d be like ‘Ugh, are we shooting with the twins today? We’ll be here for 20 hours.'”
Despite the confusion, all those long hours paid off. The creative team behind Paulson’s transformation went on to win the Emmy Award for outstanding prosthetic makeup for their work.
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