Sarah Paulson is recalling an “outrageous” interaction she had with a fellow actor who watched her performance in a play.
During a Monday appearance on the Smartless podcast, with hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett, the American Horror Story star was asked if she would accept feedback from celebrities who come backstage to meet the cast after a theater show.
“I did do a play once. The last time I was on stage, I did a play called Talley’s Folly at the Roundabout, and the actress — and I’m going to say this, and I’m not going to ask you to cut this out, because I don’t fucking care — this actress came to the play. Her name is Trish Hawkins. ‘Hi, Trish! Hi, Trisha!’” Paulson said. “Trish Hawkins came to the play … am I going to get sued? I don’t care, because I think this is outrageous.”
The Emmy winner explained that her own mother brought Hawkins along with her to watch the performance as they were in “some kind of writing group together.” Hawkins was the original star of Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly, playing Sally Talley during its 1979 off-Broadway run and its Broadway debut the following year. Paulson then starred as Sally Talley in the off-Broadway revival of the play in 2013.
“She came to the play, proceeded to say — she looked at me up and down and then she went, ‘Your dress is yellow. Mine was pink.’ And I thought, ‘What?’” Paulson recalled of her conversation with Hawkins.
She continued, “Cut to two days later, I got an email that was six pages long of notes and a communication to me about what she had done when she had done the play, what she recommended I do. It was outrageous. It was really outrageous. Trish Hawkins, I have not forgotten it, and I hope to see you never.”
The Run actress added that she kept the notes, but never told her mother about the incident: “I just put it back in the file of things my mother has done.”