American Horror Story: Coven seeks to uncover the horrors within the Crescent city

By: Associated Press

The FX network anthology series is shooting its third season in New Orleans and few details, aside from the names of its large, glamorous cast, have been made public.

That changed, but just a little, at the TV Tour.

Unveiled were character names for four cast members -- Angela Bassett will portray Marie Laveau, Kathy Bates will play Delphine LaLaurie, and Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson will play a mother and daughter named Fiona and Cordelia, respectively – and that the season will be about witches who migrated to New Orleans after suffering Salem-era unpleasantness.

The story, Landgraf said, takes place in the present, with flashbacks.

“It posits that, essentially, after Salem, the witches relocated to New Orleans, where they’ve been for a couple of hundred years,” he said. “There are different factions, and Angela Bassett is part of one.
“The fun quotient is higher this year,” he said. “Last year wasn’t a lot of fun. Let’s put it that way. And maybe even year one wasn’t all that much fun. This year is a drama, but there is a lot of humor, and we are embracing a kind of velocity and fun with the series this year. So it’s not the same as it was the last two years, but I think that it might be a little more welcoming to an audience.”

In addition to themes of voodoo, witchcraft and New Orleans history, the season will embrace an overall theme of oppression toward disenfranchised subcultures, Minear said.

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“Some of the bigger themes this year are oppression of minorities of all kinds and, within that idea, the idea of minority groups going after each other and doing the work of the larger culture for the larger culture,” he said. “So while there is a very strong feminist theme that runs throughout ‘Coven’ this year, there’s also themes of race and themes of oppression. And there is a very strong theme of family and, specifically, mothers and daughters. Those are some of the things we’ll be exploring this year, along with laughs and scares and a few tears.

The inevitable embrace of New Orleans clichés in screen depictions is always a concern for local viewers. Minear said it’s a concern for the production as well.

“This year, it’s funny. I think the tone of New Orleans will affect the tone of the show. New Orleans has some darkness to it, but it’s not an earnest, serious city. I don’t think you’re going to get an earnest, serious show this year.”

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“We haven’t been going down those roads yet,” he said. “I mean, we are absolutely dipping into real things in New Orleans -- Marie Laveau and Madame LaLaurie and things like that. Just this week, we shot in a house that’s 150 years old. It was actually taken over by the Union Army during the Civil War. And the house still stands. You can’t beat that kind of verisimilitude when you are shooting.



“A little bit,” Landgraf said. “It’s pretty dark.

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“No, we are not going to be playing up those (New Orleans clichés), because we play up horror clichés instead. There’s only room for so many clichés in an hour of television.”

"I thought that it was a really interesting angle on the exploration of character."

Given the main cast, I asked, is there humor in the piece?
“A little bit,” Landgraf said. “It’s pretty dark.

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