Lady Gaga takes role on American Horror Story

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/feb/25/lady-gaga-american-horror-story

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She calls her fans little monsters, and now Lady Gaga is going to be the biggest monster of them all on the next season of FX’s horror anthology show American Horror Story. There are no details other than the fact that Gaga will be a series regular for the show’s fifth season when it returns in the fall (AHS usually premieres around Halloween).

We don’t know the theme of the season – though a series of top hats series co-creator Ryan Murphy planted in season four serve as clues that it might have something to do with infamous alien site Area 51 – but we do know that it will be set in the present day and it will be the first without Jessica Lange concocting some accent and chewing the scenery. The rest of the ensemble is in flux, too, with recurring star Emma Roberts attached to star in Scream Queens, Murphy’s upcoming horror comedy on Fox.

Casting Lady Gaga in her first acting role sure is a great way to get a lot of early attention for a show after a season that was both critically and popularly loathed. While the Freak Show season premiered with about 10 million viewers, an all-time high for FX, the season finale only attracted 3.2 million diehards that weathered a season plagued with plot inconsistencies, poor performances and storylines that went absolutely nowhere. Some later episodes of Freak Show were the lowest-rated since the show premiered.

Related: Lady Gaga performs impressive Sound of Music tribute at the Oscars

The move makes sense for Gaga, whose career is also flagging. Her Artpop album famously underperformed and a collaboration with Tony Bennett, while netting a Grammy, didn’t leave her on the cutting edge of fashion and fame like her previous work had.

While Gaga has always had a strong performance bent to her concerts, her work with Marina Abramovic points to her wanting to get more into an acting space, and this would be a move that would position her nicely for more future roles. After a much-lauded appearance at the Oscars singing songs from The Sound of Music, it seems like Gaga is on a tour to reinvent herself and remind the public that she is a qualified and varied performer.

If this is another quality season of Murphy’s scream-fest and lures back everyone who abandoned Freak Show, then it could work out well for everyone. However, if the show has indeed lost its steam both with critics and viewers, this could prove disastrous for the both of them.