Revisiting AHS Hotel

[EGOT2027 10,807]

now that gaga is booked for her third and biggest role yet, i’ve been thinking a lot about AHS Hotel. at the time, i personally couldn’t take her acting seriously at all (and also thought the writing was so all over the place). because of that, i never thought the acting pivot would work for her. and then she proved me wrong with ASIB and then blew me away with her performance in gucci. despite the accent, you cannot take your eyes off her, even when al pacino is on the screen. she truly is a Movie Star now. 

what’re your thoughts on AHS Hotel now? i personally feel like her growth with each role as an actor only makes me love, adore, and respect her more as an artist. her work ethic is off the charts to keep topping herself like this. 

do you ever revisit AHS Hotel? what were your thoughts on it at the time? i sometimes revisit Gaga’s Intro Scene but that’s about it. i do wonder if anything would be different if her first performance was ASIB. maybe she would’ve won the globe for that ahahaha. it is interesting to me how in the media AHS almost always gets completely erased from her acting narrative. she’s the only one who ever really brings it up and even that’s rare. it might be for the best though idk

[Papergangstuh 2,622]

Gaga was fine. She was playing a glorified version of herself and it was entertaining. 
 

that season would have been great if they just focused on the hotel and scrapped the whole cop/zodiac killer and white children thing. Typical Ryan Murphy stuff. 

[Meat 18,962]

AHS Hotel is one of the best seasons and Gaga was the high point of that show. In my opinion it’s still her best character. I hope Joker 2 can change that.

[badfaith 5,673]

What a coincidence, I just saw Gamespot's compilation of her best moments as the countess!

[Monsterclaw 389]

Although I find Hotel to be one of the weaker AHS seasons I think she was great in it. I never got people who said she was too ,,stiff” or ,,wooden” - like that was literally the point of this particular character. She really was the most interesting part of that season.

[Guillaume Hamon 6,027]

I'm grateful for it tbh...

Nearly each singers trying to act fails after small cameos, expected and/or weak roles etc but this lengthy, diverse role shown again and again that she was talented enough for this career.

It was the perfect opportunity and I do believe the globe made her be taken seriously leading to all the rest... Even if it was gagaesque like ASIB was a singer's role yet a blessing.

People will say her acting career was launched with ASIB but to me it was AHS.

And yeah I like to rewatch scenes even if I found the season disappointing with the writing.

[Schwerk 7,002]

I think the season and possibly even her acting suffered from Ryan Murphy wanting too many storyline in one season and changing them on the fly. 

I don't think the role resembles her that much, mostly the scenes where she helps Dennis O'Hares character be their true selve, but most scenes she's way too cold and camp for Gaga. Gaga herself is way more goofy, dramatic and sweet. 

I do feel because the character is so camp, it was a nice role for Gaga to debut with cause she could really sink into a different character.

I noticed Ally is way more close to her personality in many ways and it was interesting to see her try to 'fight' her natural movements, as a performer on stage and pretent to be someone else, down to the way she holds her mic. It made me giggle the first time I saw it cause it was like watching a alternate version of Gaga with less stage presence. Even as a teenager Gaga exhuded more star quality than Ally. 

Drifting off, I definitely wanna see AHS Hotel again, cause I really enjoyed how extra it was. Will prob revised it around Halloween.

[Bling 31,198]

I've come to really appreciate the good parts of AHS Hotel, and accept the...less desirable parts 

I originally watched every episode live, and over the years I've probably watched the season as a whole again 2-3 times. It's much too disjointed really to enjoy even binge watching. As others have said, Ryan Murphy tends to be too big for his britches and puts 1,000 storylines and plots in a 10-12 episode season, and it just doesn't work. But overall, I can appreciate the fashion, music, setting, symbolism for addiction, etc. If they had just stuck with the plot and story arc of the first like 4-5 episodes...

As far as Gaga is concerned, her acting has come a long way. Her character is almost a blueprint of old Hollywood actresses (if you watch older movies, you get it) but unfortunately, I don't think it translated the way she wanted so it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. I really didn't like it at first but this is HER vision for this character and besides that it's HER first big starring role. So as a fan, I've come to support her in that, even though it's not something I can watch all the time. Regardless I'm still so so proud of her. 

The Countess, her return at TCB 

[Guillaume Hamon 6,027]

4 minutes ago, Monsterclaw said:

Although I find Hotel to be one of the weaker AHS seasons I think she was great in it. I never got people who said she was too ,,stiff” or ,,wooden” - like that was literally the point of this particular character. She really was the most interesting part of that season.

Right?

She's a super old blasé succubus who saw it all and always calculate evil plans while luring her victims being fake af...

Of course she's not spontaneous and comes across as stiff for having a Poker face  and remaining mysterious about her intentions.

[djBuffoon 12,025]

As with most other seasons, I loved the aesthetic and thought the story threads began as very intriguing and provocative. But, also like with most seasons (except the first two), story goes out the window halfway through and it starts to seem made up on the spot. Occasionally fun, but not great.

Gaga was very good. The role was tailor-made with her penchant of old Hollywood glamour and her icy persona in mind. Within that, she had some very chilling and effective moments. At times, she gave away her lack of formal training with some wooden line readings, or instances where she emphasized the wrong word in a sentence, etc. These are habits that she has since (mostly) broken now that she's working with coaches and teachers more consistently.

 

tl;dr The season started well but ended up crappy. Gaga was very good, despite indication that she had some work to do before being given another major screen role.

[KORG 4,756]

Flicker remains the best bit of acting she has ever done and I will die on that hill.