Evan Peters took 2 years to recover after filming AHS: Cult says Ryan Murphy

By Katie Louise Smith

Ryan Murphy also reveals that he's spoken to Evan about returning to American Horror Story for another season and it sounds promising.

With the 100th episode of American Horror Story airing this week (Oct 23), the cast, crew and creators have all been sharing their memories from the past 9 years and revealing their favourite episodes.

Guiding us through his favourite AHS episodes with Entertainment Weekly, co-creator extraordinaire Ryan Murphy detailed his favourite episode of AHS: Cult. While doing so, he also explained just how much the season took a toll on Evan Peters' mental wellbeing – something that Evan has been very vocal about in the past few years.

READ MORE: Jessica Lange says she won't return to American Horror Story

Back in 2018 with GQ, Evan opened up about how the role of cult leader Kai Anderson left him exhausted and feeling mentally drained. In a later interview with GQ, Evan revealed that he was going to "take a break" following the intensity of his last few roles. This then lead to him taking a step back from the series.

Murphy has now said that it's taken Evan almost 2 years to fully recover from making that particular season.

Evan Peters as Kai Anderson in AHS: Cult. Picture: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images, FX

In case you were wondering, Murphy's fave season of AHS is Cult (a bold choice!) and his favourite episode of that season was the finale, titled 'Great Again.' His reasoning behind that was because of Evan's performance and the incredible antagonist/protagonist dynamic between him and Sarah Paulson.

"I really loved Evan’s performance so much, and so did Sarah. We still talk about it. Like once a week about how good he is? Evan is CRIMINALLY underrated in this role."

Truer words have never been spoken. While Evan has had some iconic roles over the seasons, his performance as Kai was nothing short of spectacular and, quite frankly, it was his best performance ever. However, as Evan has explained before, it was also his hardest to date.

"He really suffered while making it, it took him I don’t know…two years to recover?" Murphy revealed.

via GIPHY

"Evan and I and Emma and Sarah and Holland Taylor had Thanksgiving together that year right after filming, and I remember Sarah and I kept feeding Evan food, trying to nourish him and make him feel better. He was still feeling it, the darkness, while we were making Pose season one, it got under his skin in a really hard long way."

Murphy also touched on how Evan expressed his desire to play more lighter and comedic roles after such a dark season. That's why he ended up playing Mr Gallant and Jeff, the guy with the worst wig I've ever seen. He also confirmed that Evan's return has been discussed.

"He and I talked after it, and we decided maybe it was time to do some comedy," Murphy said. "But we spoke in the past month about him coming back to the show some year and I hope we will."

While he hasn't confirmed anything yet, Evan has also said that he's open to returning to the series.

Fingers crossed that he makes his grand return in time for the milestone 10th season. But more importantly, let's hope that he's feeling much much better in himself first.