Denis O’Hare felt honoured playing a transgender character in ‘American Horror Story: Hotel’
The actor admitted he thought the character was a man in drag
By Steve Brown
Words: Steve Brown
Denis O’Hare says he felt honoured playing a transgender character in American Horror Story: Hotel.
The actor played the transgender character, Liz Taylor, in the fifth season of Ryan Murphy’s hit anthology series alongside Lady Gaga and Kathy Bates and O’Hare has revealed he assumed the character was a man in drag rather than transgender.
While speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the actor said: “I felt honoured to play this character, and when we did it in 2015, this was sort of the last moment when a cisgendered man could play a trans character or play a female character.
“My rationale for that was, we didn’t know what the character was when it was written.
“Initially, I assumed that Liz was a man in drag who maybe had a male counterpart. As we got into it deeper, we all realised that wasn’t the case… we didn’t know that at first.
“As the character is growing into her own identity, I’m growing into her identity. It was really interested.”
The new season, 1984, started airing last week and stars Emma Roberts, Cody Fern and Billie Lourd, as well as newcomers Gus Kenworthy and Angelica Ross.