Embracing the 'Horror'

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As rumor-starved fans of the hit FX series American Horror Story eagerly scour the web for any remaining morsel of information left to feast on regarding the upcoming third season, now titled American Horror Story: Coven, the cast of the second season, on hand at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills for The Paley Center for Media's annual PaleyFest Event, spoke to ET of what initially attracted them to the often horrifying characters they portray on the show.

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Lily Rabe, who played demonically possessed Sister Mary Eunice on the show, tells ET, "I was so attracted to her in the beginning because I remember [creator Ryan Murphy] saying she's the innocent soul, she's the clean soul in this group of people at the beginning. And getting to play someone so unsophisticated and sort of stunted, someone who's had no experience, I've never had the opportunity to do that, and I love that. Playing someone who was so youthful and hopeful and then having all of that destroyed."

"I think what kind of happens with these possessions is a person's ID takes over," Rabe continues. "[She] kind of becomes a woman through being possessed, before it all goes terribly, terribly badly. She gets to drink wine and she gets to have sex and she gets to feel like a woman, and all these things I don't think she ever would have experienced if it hadn't been for this possession."

"It's such a beautiful part," actress Frances Conroy, who played the creepy, kiss-happy Angel of Death on the show, shares with ET. "It's such a mysterious figure and such a benign figure, helping someone to make that profound transition. Taking the fear away and giving them love, and making them not be alone. Giving them a presence to make it easier to go, to die."

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Naomi Grossman, who played the aesthetically challenged yet unquestionably likable Pepper, was initially taken aback after being offered the role, revealing, "I didn't even know what I'd gotten when I got it. I was cast, and then they told me, 'Oh and by the way, she looks like this. You're about to be the ugliest person on television.' So it's not even so much that I was attracted to Pepper, Pepper was attracted to me apparently."

For more on American Horror Story, including actress Jessica Lange's thoughts on her now-classic "Name Game" musical number, and the special surprise appearance of a former Oscar winner scheduled to join the cast of the show's upcoming third season, watch the video!