Lena Dunham to guest on ‘American Horror Story' episode
AMERICAN actress and author Lena Dunham will play Valerie Solanas, the person who shot pop art icon Andy Warhol, in the seventh season of ‘American Horror Story’, according to showrunner Ryan Murphy. Appearing opposite ‘American Horror Story’ regular Evan Peters, who will play Warhol himself, Lena Dunham will guest on episode 7 of ‘American Horror Story: Cult’, titled ‘Valerie Solanas Died for Your Sins: Scumbag’.
American writer Valerie Solanas authored the SCUM Manifesto, a pamphlet calling for the complete reversal of male-dominated society riddled with inefficiency, irrationality, irrelevancy and crime, and advocating the use of direct action in order to achieve the manifesto’s aims.
Growing up in extremely difficult circumstances, Solanas moved to New York City in the 1960s where she shared a script with art world sensation Andy Warhol, who she wanted to become the play’s producer.
Instead, Warhol invited Solanas to appear in his own film, the poorly received ‘I, a Man’, paying her US$25 in return.
She later shot and wounded him and an associate at his studio, The Factory, in June 1968. Solanas was suffering from the effects of a chronic psychosis and, turning herself in the very same day, was later sentenced to a three-year prison term.
The seventh season of a celebrated ‘American Horror Story’ series begins its weekly 11-episode run on Sept 5 via the FX network.
In a significant departure from franchise formula, ‘AHS: Cult’ is to abandon supernatural horror.
Evan Peters will play a different character in each episode, with the season as a whole examining a “cult of personality” theme. Lead characters include real 20thcentury cult leaders Charles Manson, David Koresh and Jim Jones, as well as fictional creation Kai Anderson.
Actors Sarah Paulson, Cheyenne Jackson, Allison Pill, Billy Eichner, Billie Lourd, Leslie Grossman and John Carroll Lynch are also confirmed for Season 7. A first trailer was released on Aug 22 (youtu.be/27J0sR9268.)
Solanas was previously the subject of 1996’s awardwinning film ‘I Shot Andy Warhol’, directed by Mary Harron (‘American Psycho’) and starring Lili Taylor (‘Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials’, ‘The Conjuring’), Jared Harris (‘Mad Men, ‘The Crown’) and Stephen Dorff (‘Public Enemies’, ‘Blade’.)