Jessica Lange is set to team up with Ryan Murphy–the showrunner of American Horror Story–once more, but it won’t be for an onscreen project.
The veteran actress will take to the stage on Broadway in a production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night in a role she’s played before, which actually earned her an Olivier nomination in 2000. Murphy, who owns the stage rights to the play, reportedly had a hand in placing Lange in the revival opposite actor Gabriel Byrne. Lange and Murphy have formed a friendship over the last several years after she stole every scene she was in on AHS and came back for three more installments of the series.
In 2013, Lange disappointed legions of fans when she announced she would only be doing one more season of the show (Freak Show) before moving on to other projects, but stressed that she’d had a blast in her varied roles, especially when the plot took some of its darker turns.
“I think Ryan was maybe even surprised by how fast and how dark it got last year,” Lange said of American Horror Story: Asylum. “Of course, that’s right up my alley. I like that a lot. But I think this season was a deliberate attempt to lighten it and add some humor. And I’m not against humor; my sensibilities just always tend toward the more tragic or the darker.”
Jessica Lange will return to the stage next spring, but it’s unclear what projects she might have waiting in the wings until then. Ryan Murphy said in December that he wouldn’t stop sending her his character ideas in the hopes that she would come back at some point.
“She and I will probably have a dinner date over the holidays. We always start with the character and she decides from there. Before I was met with a really quick no and now I’m hearing, ‘Let’s keep talking.’ So that’s a promising sign…I think if I presented her with the right character, it could work. That’s my hope. I’m sending bribes every day!”