Wes Bentley on Keeping the Secret of That Big Reveal, What’s Next for John

[Fernster7 7,923]

This week’s “American Horror Story: Hotel” answered one of the season’s biggest questions: Just who is the Ten Commandments Killer, the one who has been committing gruesome murders across Los Angeles to “punish” the victims for their sins?

As it turns out, the killer is the very cop who has been obsessed with him all this time: John Lowe, played by Wes Bentley. John was consumed by his desire to bring the serial killer to justice, but when Sally reveals to John that it was him all along and he had simply been suppressing the horrible acts, a switch clearly flips in him, setting the stage to continue to push John down his rapid downward spiral.

Before the episode, aptly titled “The Ten Commandments Killer,” aired, Bentley spoke to Variety about how he found out that he was playing the murderer, what it’s like on set during those dark scenes and what path John could take next.

Some highlights:

When did you find out that John’s the killer? Did you always know?
Yeah. The first time I sat down with [show creator Ryan Murphy], obviously he described the season, the idea of the hotel and who John was. We talked about the family stuff. And then when we saw the first two scripts and we were preparing to shoot, I asked him a bunch of questions. He immediately answered me and said, “Stop for a day.” So I wondered what was up. And then he called me the next day and said, “Look, I don’t want anybody to know – nobody can know this – but you’re the guy. And I don’t want you to play it, but I want you to sort of let it be in your subconscious and when we shoot the first episode, we’ll pick moments where we can do stuff.”

March made a comment about this killer being who John really is. Do you think it would have been if March hadn’t pushed him in that direction?
He has a bit of vigilantism in him and his good intentions can lead him astray. The fact that he wanted so firmly real justice, what a lot of people call real justice, like the “eye for an eye” thing, I think it was such a big part of him and then what had happened to him, losing his son, other things that may have happened to him, he kind of justified this instinctive violent reaction that I think he had. So I think it was there and I think March tipped it in that way, yeah. It’s hard to say whether or not he would’ve gone down that exact path he went, good and bad, but March was able to do that and it wasn’t too hard when John was at the point where he was at. So it must be that it’s a strong part of John.

After all this, do you think there’s any shred of good left in John?
I mean, it’s complicated, which is what I was really hoping for. He’s a complicated person, as we all are… He’s obviously not a good person. He does bad things, but the complicated part now is to see, we know there’s a good part of him, the part with a loving family and the part that wants justice and wants to protect. That’s kind of an interesting thing to explore now.

I know you can’t tell me much, but what’s next for John?
I’m glad that you’re asking that, because it means you’re really interested now. It means that it’s done its job, because there’s so many places to go now. We do have so far to go and there’s a lot of interesting elements brought up by this and they left themselves a lot of room to do stuff. And what we have done is, I think, incredibly interesting and fun.

I’m interested to see how everyone reacts, because you started out as the one sane character. And now…
Nobody’s left. [laughs] It wouldn’t be “American Horror Story” if anybody was left.

Source: http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/wes-bentley-american-horror-story-hotel-john-lowe-1201652496/

There are really good questions about how it is like on the set, keeping the secret to he other cats members and how is his relationship with Evan Peters.

[Evan Peters 10,759]

secret, lmao.

edit: keep praising my dad, evan, though 

[Red 98,371]

Huge secret

[PrinceGaga 7,585]

Where were all guessing it was him by the second episode  

good questions though 

[Redstreak 6,653]

In the grand scheme of things, is the TCK really even that important?

[Red 98,371]

lol he did not answer that "what's next for John?" question at all :lmao: 

[monketsharona 85,410]

I think shouldn't have told him, because it was quite obvious he played a killer 

Not sure I want him back next year...

[Red 98,371]

2 minutes ago, Redstreak said:

In the grand scheme of things, is the TCK really even that important?

No, because he didn't kill anyone important :sharon: 

[Fernster7 7,923]

Just now, monketsharona said:

I think shouldn't have told him, because it was quite obvious he played a killer 

Not sure I want him back next year...

I think we should give him some more time, the en of the last episode almost showed us a new John, one that could be really interesting imo.

[Aura Veil 2,395]

I'd be more surprised if I believed his performance 

[Fernster7 7,923]

I think this part is important too to some people complaining:

"But I think in the end, I can’t speak for the writers, but I don’t think it was ever intended to fully be a super surprising reveal. I think there always was sort of a slow sort of terrible feeling, that, “Oh god, it could be John.” Kind of like “The Shining,” like it does where you know Jack Nicholson’s character is falling apart and you’re sort of terrified of seeing it happen. I think that was closer to the idea of what we were doing, rather than, a “Usual Suspects”-type of ending."

[monketsharona 85,410]

5 minutes ago, FernandL7 said:

I think we should give him some more time, the en of the last episode almost showed us a new John, one that could be really interesting imo.

I know ^^ But honestly I'm not really crazy about him... Even if I liked him better on Freakshow, he wouldn't be my first choice for someone to return.

 

[Alien Tulip 12,428]

Horrible actor. 

[Auro 1,829]

12 minutes ago, Redstreak said:

In the grand scheme of things, is the TCK really even that important?

He has two commandments left so maybe he'll kill a main character

[Red 98,371]

Why do you guys shade Wes so much when the problem is obviously the weak character and not his acting? He is delivering just what the character demands, it's not his fault.