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Filmmaker John Waters has been cast in the 13th season of “American Horror Story,” the horror-drama anthology series from Ryan Murphy Productions.
The filmmaker and actor announced his new role while onstage during his sold-out spoken-word performance in Baltimore on Valentine’s Day.
“I’m going to announce tonight something new: I can’t say what role, but I have a big new part in ‘American Horror Story,’” Waters told his hometown audience at Baltimore Soundstage.
Created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, American Horror Story (AHS) premiered on FX in 2011. Each season tells a self-contained story with different characters, settings and plots, the same way “The White Lotus” does but darker, with themes mixing gore with social commentary and often drawing inspiration from actual events. Some seasons share a fictional universe and characters. Since its debut, the series has been nominated for 101 Primetime Emmy Awards, with 16 wins, and nine Golden Globe awards, with two wins.
Many of the actors on AHS return for more than one season. This will be Waters’ first time as an AHS cast member.
For Season 13, Murphy and Falchuk are bringing back many of the actors who starred in the third season, “American Horror Story: Coven,” which first aired in 2013. Season 13 is expected to air on FX starting on Halloween of 2026.
Coven alums announced for the Season 13 cast include Sarah Paulson; Evan Peters; Angela Bassett; Kathy Bates; Emma Roberts; Gabourey Sidibe; and Jessica Lange, who previously said she wouldn’t come back to AHS.
AHS alums from other seasons include Billie Lourd and Leslie Grossman.
Also joining the Season 13 cast is Ariana Grande, one of the witches in “Wicked” and “Wicked: For Good.” Grande previously guest-starred in the first season of Murphy’s horror-comedy series “Scream Queens.”
The plot and filming details for Season 13 haven’t been made public. Waters declined after his show to say more about his participation. Filming is expected to begin in “early 2026.” Fans on websites such as @AHSZone on X say it’s shaping up to be a “greatest hits” reunion season, and AHS promotional materials reinforce that impression. “SURPRISE, BITCH,” reads the tagline in a graphic that appears online with images of returning cast members. “I BET YOU THOUGHT YOU’D SEEN THE LAST OF ME.”
‘The world of Coven’
The return of so many AHS alums has fueled fan speculation that this may be the final season. Because so many Coven alums are in the cast, some observers say they think the plot of Season 13 will be connected to the plot of Coven.
Set in New Orleans with 13 episodes, Season 3 focused on a coven of witches descended from Salem, Massachusetts. It features storylines about witchcraft, voodoo and historical figures such as Marie Laveau and Madame LaLaurie.
“Yes it appears all the witches are coming home as it has been confirmed that almost the entire cast of ‘American Horror Story: Coven’ are returning for American Horror Story Lucky Number 13,” podcaster Matthew Rogers observed in a “What You Need to Know Before Watching” video after returning cast members were announced.
“I am just assuming that we’re returning to the world of Coven, considering its cultural impact not to mention this cast announcement,” Rogers said in his video. “We have seen the witches return once before, in Season 8 [Apocalypse]. Ariana now has the role of Glinda under her belt – witch-ful thinking, perhaps…Surely this will be the big sendoff for the show as a whole. They haven’t confirmed a Season 14 as of yet, but how could they possibly have an act to follow Jessica Lange coming out of retirement” after vowing not to return.
Rogers predicted Season 13 will draw a big audience.
“With the news of this cast, including Ariana Grande mind you, and rumors this may be the final season, legacy fans are going to want to come back to see their favorites,” he said.
Peters, one of the recurring AHS actors, appeared with Paulson as a presenter at the Emmy Awards ceremony last year and teased the new season, with Murphy in the audience.
“I think it’ll be really fun,” Peters said in a subsequent interview with “Entertainment Tonight.” “He’s getting a lot of the alumni from all the years. It’ll be interesting to see what he does with everybody.”
Peters said he agreed to be in Season 13 without reading any scripts.
“Haven’t seen anything,” he said. “Just diving in.”
While this will be Waters’ first season on AHS, it’s not the first time he’s worked with Murphy. For the 2017 FX series “Feud: Bette and Joan,” which recounts the ongoing feud between movie star rivals Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, Waters portrayed one of his favorite directors, William Castle. Murphy was the creator, executive producer, writer and director for that series.
Some fans say Murphy considered casting Waters in “American Horror Story: Double Feature,” the 10th season, where he would have played Holden Vaughn, a Provincetown local who makes a grisly discovery on the beach. That role, part of the season’s “Red Tide” arc, went to recurring cast member Denis O’Hare.
‘Great residuals’
Waters’ announcement, during the Q&A portion of his “A Date with John Waters” show, drew cheers and applause from the audience. Although he’s best known as a filmmaker and writer, Waters told his fans that he enjoys acting in movies and TV shows that he doesn’t direct. He has appeared on everything from “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip” in 2015, where he played an airline passenger interacting with Alvin, to episodes of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.” In the recent “Chucky” TV series, he played Wendell Wilkins, creator of the Good Guy-brand dolls, which made him the “father” of the murderous Chucky doll.
Waters has given himself roles in some of his own movies, such as a flasher in “Hairspray.” In the finale of Season 5 of “The Blacklist” starring James Spader, Waters played himself, visiting a tailor’s shop in New York City. If his novel Liarmouth had been filmed, he wanted to play a talking penis.
“I love those TV shows,” he told the audience. “I’ve been on ‘Law and Order’ lots of times and I love being on it. I get such great residuals. They show ‘Law and Order’ over and over and over. There are whole channels that just play that.”
Waters confessed that he did have one failure on a TV show. He said he appeared with the late Joan Rivers when she had a show on one of the TV shopping channels and he was promoting copies of his movie “Desperate Living” when it came out on video. “She told me,” he said, “that I was the only person that ever did it that didn’t sell one thing.”
Stealing Vincent Price’s career
In the course of answering questions from the audience, Waters talked about other times he’s appeared in movies and TV shows. He admitted that he seems to play the same sort of role again and again – characters who are on the wrong side of the law or somehow on the outskirts of society. He was a bartender on NBC’s “Homicide: Life on the Street;” a “porn monger man” on “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”; the Groom Reaper in “Til Death Do Us Part” on Court TV, and the announcer in the 2011 Lonely Island video, “The Creep.” He was in an episode of “Tales from the Crypt” and is part of the cast for a film called “Baltigore: Maryland Horror Anthology,” playing a pawn shop broker. A release date for “Baltigore” has not been disclosed.
“I’m typecast,” he said. “I’m always either the devil or Chucky’s father…I’ve always been trying to steal Vincent Price’s career.”
Price (1911 to 1993) was the legendary horrormeister who appeared on a range of media platforms the way Waters does today. His horror films included “House of Wax;” “The Fly;” “House on Haunted Hill;” “The Tingler;” and “Theatre of Blood.” He collaborated with director Roger Corman on a series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, including “House of Usher;” “The Pit and the Pendulum;” “The Haunted Palace;” and “The Masque of the Red Death.”
A multi-tasker like Waters, Price appeared in the “Batman” TV series as a bald villain named Egghead and provided the narration in Michael Jackson’s song, “Thriller,” for a flat fee of $20,000 rather than a percentage of the album’s profits, a decision he later regretted. His last film was Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands.” He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures and one for television.
Waters has admitted to being Price’s ultimate fan. “I actually prayed I would wake up and be Vincent Price,” he has been quoted as saying.
Waters is also a friend of Price’s daughter, Victoria, who lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina. In 2024, at her request he took part in a fund drive that she helped lead to support local recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene flooded parts of the state, including the county where she lives. “Come on, monster kids. From beyond the grave, Vincent Price commands you to donate,” Waters said in a video. “Do it or die!!!”
Busy schedule
Waters didn’t say how he plans to fit this new role into his already-busy schedule, which includes close to a dozen performances around his 80th birthday on April 22. He told the audience he has 50 shows lined up this year. He had a similar dilemma in 2023 when he filmed his role for the third season of the “Chucky” series. The schedule required him to travel to Canada between dates of his “A John Waters Christmas” tour, but he worked it out.
Waters will be the keynote speaker at the 2026 Conference & Bookfair that the Association of Writers & Writing Programs is holding in Baltimore next month, an appearance sponsored by Johns Hopkins University. He also has agreed to officiate the wedding of one couple who submitted the top bid during a recent fundraising auction to benefit the Provincetown Film Society. The winning couple bid $20,000 for Waters to serve as the minister. Ordained by the Universal Life Church in 1989, Waters also offered to provide premarital counseling if they want it.
According to board president Gabby Hanna, it was the largest single bid the film society has ever received but not the largest amount Waters has raised for the organization in one year.
“This is the largest one time bid, but John has raised more money than that with his dinners,” Hanna said in an email message, referring to a series of dinners he’s hosted in Provincetown starting in 2021, some at unlikely spots such as the town dump. “I believe the largest was the tour of sex spots in Provincetown,” she said. “We raised over $25,000.”
