‘American Horror Story’ Season 13 Creators and Cast Tease Voodoo, Odd Pairings … and Lady Gaga?

If you want to know what’s to come for “American Horror Story” Season 13, look to the first few seasons of the series. “We really relied heavily on the first six seasons to do that greatest hits idea,” series co-creator and executive producer Ryan Murphy told TheWrap on Wednesday night during the red carpet for Season 13. Murphy directs the first episode of this season, something he hasn’t done since Season 5. “It feels, to me, like a cross between ‘Murder House,’ ‘Coven’ and ‘Hotel.’ It has all of those tones.” Murphy described this season as an ode to the fans. That’s not just talk. To create this season, the “AHS” team heavily researched everything from old episodes to fan theories on TikTok and lore breakdowns on YouTube. “I directed five of the 13 episodes of this installment, and preparing is an understatement. Watching all of the seasons of ‘American Horror Story,’ listening to the fans — the list goes on,” Crystle Roberson Dorsey said, noting that she and the team combed through social media to read what fans loved about “American Horror Story.” That included researching granular details like the way characters pronounced certain words. “We made sure that we paid attention to those things to let the fans know we’re listening,” Dorsey said. Here’s what TheWrap learned is ahead for this big “American Horror Story” reunion. Lady Gaga will not be returning Though this season is heavily inspired by “Hotel,” The Countess won’t be around. “She just had a baby, so we’ll see. She’s not in this season, but I love her,” Murphy said. However, the prolific showrunner is open to collaborating with Lady Gaga again. “She and I are always talking about something,” he said. Queenie will embrace her voodoo side The “Coven” witches are back. But Gabourey Sidibe’s Queenie will be exploring a new side to her powers. “This season we see that she is much more interested in the voodoo side of her dollness, if that makes sense,” Sidibe said, referring to Queenie’s power, which lets her transfer self-inflicted wounds onto other people like a living voodoo doll. In “Coven,” Queenie revealed that she was a direct descendant of Tituba, a slave woman in the late 17th century who practiced voodoo and was connected to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. “We get to see how her taste and magic have grown,” Sidibe said. Queenie also has a scene with “American Horror Story” newcomer John Waters this season that Sidibe described as “definitely unforgettable.” “It does feel like he’s been there all along. He’s such a specific kind of person and character that he fits right in this world with all of Ryan’s other characters,” she said. Angela Bassett in “American Horror Story” Season 13 (FX) Marie Laveau is going to swap barbs with Constance and whip some witches into shape One of the all-time greatest pairings in “AHS” history is returning: Angela Bassett’s Marie Laveau and Jessica Lange’s Constance Langdon. “We got to pick at each other just a little bit, have some fun,” Bassett said. But barbed insults aside, Marie Laveau is really returning to this season to help the witches prepare for the impending threat that’s ahead. “Marie’s coming in to help shore up what’s going on around here, so I got to whip these girls in line,” Bassett teased. Jessica Lange and Billie Lourd will have more screentime The only time Jessica Lange and Billie Lourd — two leading ladies from different eras of “American Horror Story” — have interacted was in “Apocalypse.” That season ended with Lourd’s Mallory going back in time to repeatedly run over the antichrist (Cody Fern’s Michael Langdon) as Constance watched in shock. “I got to have real scenes with her this season. It’s such like a ‘pinch me’ vibe,” Lourd said. “She is the Supreme.” Speaking of Constance, Murphy revealed that Lange’s “Murder House” character is his favorite character to write. “It’s my chance to write Blanche,” he said, referring to Lange’s character Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” “I always would act out [Constance] for her, and, even when I directed this, I always act her out. [Lange] thinks that’s hilarious,” Murphy said. “Even [Lange] said she was shocked because she kept saying ‘It’s like we never stop shooting.’” The Black Dahlia is returning One of the most beloved characters from “Murder House” is returning — Mena Suvari as Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia. Though Short only appeared for a relatively brief amount of time in “Murder House” and “Apocalypse,” Suvari’s portrayal of the tragic murder victim has been a fan favorite. “I got to be in about four hours of prosthetics every day, and our costumer with the wardrobe had everything being specifically handmade for me,” Suvari said. “It’s been an honor to play Elizabeth Short. Ironically enough, I’ve had this thing in my career where I’ve played a lot of real-life people. It’s a tragedy what Elizabeth experienced in her real life. I’m really grateful for the way that they thought of her and included her story, so it’s really been a privilege and an honor.” A famous unsolved murder case in the 1940s, it’s believed that the real Short was an aspiring actress. Her severed body was found drained of blood in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Her killer also cut her mouth, giving her corpse a gruesome smile. Leslie Grossman in “American Horror Story” Season 13 (FX) Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt is going to be vital to this season Leslie Grossman’s Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt was a joke throughout “Apocalypse,” a witch with the power to detect gluten and know calorie counts. But the underlying utility of that power will be further explored in “13.” “Coco makes her triumphant return. The thing I enjoy about Coco this season is, we know Coco had a power that was being a gluten detector. You could say that also is someone who can sense danger,” Grossman said, referring to an “Apocalypse” storyline that involves Coco saving her brother with an unknown gluten allergy. “It does come into play this season in a way that ups Coco’s game, which I was very pleased with. I love playing this character. I think she’s so sweet and funny and lovely and adorable.” Paul Anthony Kelly in “American Horror Story” Season 13 (FX) Paul Anthony Kelly is playing dark and mysterious “American Love Story” breakout Paul Anthony Kelly is going to be playing a much different role than John F. Kennedy Jr. “My previous role as John, I got to play within the box, and this was very much a outside of the box experience. I feel like it’s ‘take a kid to work day’ every day, and I’m figuring it out as I go along and having an absolute banger of a time doing it,” Kelly said. “[Nas] is dark and mysterious.” As for the other “AHS” newcomer, Joey Pollari is playing Ben DeSoto, a man who’s haunted by the number 13. “He ends up working with Constance Langdon,” Pollari teased. The hardest character for Sarah Paulson to play is her kindest By now the trailers and teasers have shown that Sarah Paulson will be reprising several of her “AHS” roles — Cordelia Goode from “Coven,” Sally McKenna from “Hotel,” Ms. Wilhemina Venable from “Apocalypse” and both tuberculosis Karen and Mamie Eisenhower from “Double Feature.” But the character Paulson found the most challenging to play was the Supreme herself. “I love being Cordelia. I feel like, of all the stuff I’ve gotten to do on the show, it is oddly the hardest because she really just moves from a place of fundamental goodness and wanting to be a support system to the young women in her life,” Paulson said. “It’s always a little wilder to play the crazier characters, so it’s kind of harder to play someone who’s arguably somewhat more normal.” “American Horror Story” Season 13 releases new episodes Thursdays on FX and Hulu.