American Horror Story: 1984 premieres on Wednesday, but when the FX horror anthology series returns, it will be without some of its most familiar faces. Evan Peters will not be returning to the series and Sarah Paulson isn’t currently expected to return, though she has teased that she may “pop up” sometime during the season. Series favorite Jessica Lange is also not on the cast list for 1984, and it seems like her appearance in last season’s Apocalypse really will be her last. The actress has no plans to return to the series.
In an interview with The Wrap earlier this year, Lange explained that she doesn’t think she’ll be back for future seasons and admitted that she only came back for Apocalypse because she was getting to play Constance Langdon, her character from Murder House.
“I don’t think so,” Lange said. “I did this because it was recreating Constance, which was – for me, it was a very important time when I did that first season, Murder House. But I don’t think I would want to start from scratch and create a character. And also, I think a lot of the actors that I was working with, people that I really love working with, like Sarah [Paulson] or Frances [Conroy] or Kathy [Bates] – I don’t know who’s in this new season, but I don’t think it would be the same.”
Lange was a major player during the first four seasons of American Horror Story. Beyond her role as Constance in Murder House, she also played Sister Jude Martin in Asylum, the Supreme witch Fiona Goode in Coven, and Elsa Mars in Freak Show. When it came to returning for Apocalypse, though, Lange said in a previous interview that what won her over was an offer from Murphy that she simply couldn’t refuse — Constance’s death scene.
“To play a part like that, to play a scene like that, I find deliriously fun because it’s total abandon,” Lange said. “There’s no reason, there’s no logic. It’s just about the physical and emotional. So the idea that she is basically OD’ing and having these — are they visions, her children come to see her? It was my favorite scene to shoot, because there is a physical abandon to it that I always like to investigate.”
American Horror Story: 1984 debuts Wednesday, September 18th on FX.