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American Horror Story: Coven Shocker: Gabourey Sidibe Talks Queenie's Fate, and Which Co-Star Brings a Baby Hand to Set

The latest AHS: Coven twist is deadly!

By Chris Harnick Dec 12, 2013 4:02 AMTags
Gabourey Sidibe Michele K. Short/FX

It wouldn't be American Horror Story: Coven without some crazy deaths. In tonight's episode, "Head," we practically lost count of all the deaths … from Myrtle Snow's (Frances Conroy) Dexter meets Breaking Bad murders to Hank's (Josh Hamilton) rampage, the body count was high. The episode ended with Queenie, that's Gabourey Sidibe's living voodoo doll character, getting shot and then, well, shooting herself.

We've seen her cut herself, stab herself and even stick her hand in a deep fryer, but when you shoot yourself in the head … is that it?

That's a question we took straight the Oscar nominee! And she gave us so much more, including scoop from the set, and a story about Denis O'Hare's porcelain baby hand you will have to read to believe.Yes, you heard us. Baby hand.

What a crazy episode! When did you find out you'd be shot?
As I read it. [Laughs.] Although, somebody accidentally told me about a month before we shot it and I was so excited. Like, I was really, really, very excited that I got to be the one to kill Hank. I ran over to our on-set writer and producer, and I was like, "Is this true? Is this true!?" and he said, "Who told you that!? No one should have told you that!" He got all Papa Smurf about it. He got all weird, but I was really, really excited.

So, are you dead? Nobody stays dead on this show, though. There are ghosts and what not.
Yeah, I mean at the very least I can confirm that I definitely got shot in two different places. [Laughs.] The way they treat death on this show, it's so odd. I could be dead, I could not be dead. It's one of those things.

Right, it's like "Wow, a big death! … Or was it?"
Or was it? And then there's a huge dun, dun DUNNNNNNN at the end of every episode.

We have loved your scenes with Kathy Bates this season. How has that been?
[Screams.] I love Kathy! I love Kathy so much. She's my favorite. And all of our scenes are so adorable. It's such an interesting sort of situation. It's like Queenie and this 180-year-old racist sociopath. Actually, there's a lot of room there for hilarity to ensue – and it does!

Like the drive-thru scene, which may be one of the best scenes of the season.
I could not wait to do that scene. It was so cute to see her have her first hamburger and then she gets obsessed with hamburgers. It's really, really funny.

Was it hard to switch from being her best friend to torturing her?
Not really. I think that Queenie's always aware of who LaLaurie is. She is a homicidal maniac who killed her slaves. Queenie happens to be black and it doesn't ever sit well with Queenie, although there are times where she can forget it and not really pay much attention to it, but she doesn't ever really forget. She's very aware.

Aside from working with Kathy, what's been the most fun?
I really love doing all the scenes with the girls, where it feels like we're in class and we're all learning magic together and we did spells and stuff like that, those were really fun. I have to say my favorite scenes are stunt scenes. I really love my voodoo power. I really, really love it! I just love stabbing myself and I loved shooting myself in the head—possibly too much. I just loved it, I felt so badass. I felt like a legit soldier. I felt like Rambo, crawling across the floor, grabbing the gun and sacrificing my own head by shooting myself through my brain. I thought that that was awesome.

What's been your favorite injury your character has given herself—aside from shooting yourself—during the show?
Yeah, definitely shooting myself in the head. That and I really liked putting the spatula on my face for it to burn Spalding. God, that was so fun because most of us were in it. Well, Madison was in it, but dead.

We hope there will be bloopers when the DVD comes out because some of the lines you guys say are so great, and it must be hard to keep a straight face sometimes.
We did a scene the other night that we're all way too immature to be doing. I can't say what it is yet because I don't think it comes up until episode 11, but it's such a stupid scene and it was so funny that we couldn't even look at each other during the making of it. We're all just way too immature for it; we're just way too immature.

Did you get to meet Stevie Nicks? Is she still there?
I did get to meet Stevie Nicks! She is not still here, but god, she was here for about two or three days. She was awesome. You can tell she really likes the show too. She was like, "Who's going to be the next Supreme!?" She was all in it and gets really, really excited. It was fun  having her.

Do people routinely ask you about things, like who the next Supreme is?
Yeah, everyone wants to know. Little do they know, we have no idea. I have zero idea who is going to be the next Supreme. I just asked our on-set writer and he said Diana Ross.

Has Ryan talked to you about season four at all?
He hasn't. I get really weird about spoilers. I don't want to know anything because I'm a huge fan of the show. I sort of like to know with the same pace of the audience because otherwise I get way too excited and tell everyone.

Would you do season four if he said he had a part for you?
I would love to do season four. I absolutely would, but I also understand the show is much bigger than me. So if it doesn't need me, that's OK too. But, I'd love to be a part of it. More than anything I can't wait to see it.

Do you think the infamous Minotaur scene will be your most famous one this season? Are you OK if it is?
[Laughs.] I'm OK with it. There's worse.

The scene where you shoot yourself may trump that one.
I think so too! I'm not worried about it. We got that done very early in the season. I think that was only episode three. There's definitely at least two more scenes that will trump minotaur rape that you'll have to see, I think.

Other than your own, who is your favorite character this year?
Oh my god. It's got to be a mix between Myrtle and Spalding. Spalding is such a creep. And he just won't die. He's just like a creep skulking around the Robichaux Academy and he's been a creep skulking around the Robichaux Academy ever since Fiona was a classmate. It's insane how old he is. And he just really is a creep. Now he's talking and it doesn't do anything to lessen his creepiness. You know what he does? He has a porcelain baby doll hand in his pocket of his costume. It doesn't really have anything to do with the show, but for the first few months he would move the hair out of our faces using the hand of the porcelain baby doll. He won't explain where it's from or why he has it.

Do you think it's Denis' or it came from the show?
I'm pretty sure he brought that from home …You know what I love about this show? Every time an episode runs, I get a lot of tweets. At first it was about how dare I turn on LaLaurie and how they think I should go back to the good side. It's like; there are no good sides here. The Robichaux Academy vs. the voodoo house – neither one of them are the good guys. Everybody's a bad guy and I think that's really, really interesting. You don't know who to turn to to be the hero in this situation.

Right, it's just what kind of character you prefer.
Right, exactly.

Like when we started feeling bad for LaLaurie and then it's like, "Wait, she's an awful woman, why do I feel bad?"
Exactly! You can have empathy for everyone because they're all human, but no one is good. I don't think there's one of us who's really, really good.

Maybe Sarah Paulson's Cordelia?
But then remember that time when she was like, "Hey guys, let's kill my mom!" Remember when that happened? There's no clear good guy here.

American Horror Story: Coven airs Wednesdays, 10 p.m. on FX.