Bare To Scare

The sexy maid outfit is a Halloween staple, and it’s practically Halloween every day for “American Horror Story’s” Alex Breckenridge. The 29-year-old actress plays the mysterious younger incarnation/dark side of the Harmon family’s milky-eyed housekeeper Moira (Frances Conroy), who appears only to patriarch Ben (Dylan McDermott) when he’s alone and aggressively attempts to seduce him, ready to roll down those thigh-high stockings at a moment’s notice. “Even when I got the audition, which was only a page, it was just a character that I've never played before,” Breckenridge tells PopcornBiz. “It's this overt sexuality that I've never had the opportunity to explore as an actor, so that was what I was really excited about. And then I read the script and I about shit myself.”


Breckenridge, who’s a voice regular of “Family Guy” and recently appeared on “True Blood” as the seemingly dowdy Wiccan Katarina Pelham, says she and Conroy actually haven’t made a plan to provide much behavioral continuity between the two faces of Moira. “We are playing two completely different sides of the same character, so it was never really something that we felt we needed to discuss,” she explains. “My character's intentions are completely different from her intentions, so, really, when we do a scene together, sometimes we have to basically go in and play the same scene, so she'll go in and read the scene and then I'll go in and read the scene. And it's mainly just a physicality – where we're standing and the position we're in. and that's it.”

She’s also made peace with the more revealing aspects of her role, which on cable channel FX can go pretty far. “I've done nudity and it doesn't bother me, doing it or seeing it,” she says, admitting that the discipline she planned to apply to her workout regimen has waxed and waned. “I started doing Pilates for a little bit. And got sick of it. And started again. I'm not a big workout fan. But I try. I potentially could be showing my ass several times. You can show back, you can show side – you just can't show the bits. You just can't show nipple and hoo-ha, basically.”



This isn't Alexandra's first time appearing on a genre show- she bared boobs her boobs as vampire spy Katerina last season on True Blood- but she tells HitFix.com that this is one of the most daring things she's ever done- and it's not just the hair: "I'm always looking for a chance to play somebody who's completely opposite of me, just because I find it more interesting. I've played a lot of bubbly girls. This is an extremely different role. I've never played someone so sexual before."

Not ever her character on True Blood? "She was for a second, but then she's undercover in the witches' coven and she's sorta this country bumpkin," she insists. "That was really great, because I got to play complete polar opposite people in that, as well. I've been having a lot of fun with this. It's hard to describe in words. When I read something, I get a physical feeling, I get a rhythm of the character. Every person has their own rhythm in terms of how they walk and talk and express themselves. I just felt that this was very specific. She's sorta like a snake to me. She's very animalistic. She's sexually driven, but I don't know how else to describe it."

And about that deliriously different new look, Breckenridge laughs that she can't wear a lot of things because it'll clash with her hair. "It looks almost 'cherry' to me," she says, "I feel like I have a cherry on my head. I've grown to really like it now. I get hit on so much it's not normal. I didn't realize so many men liked redheads. I got hit on before but in comparison... People I've known for years have been texting me, all of a sudden out of nowhere, just randomly paying more attention to me than normal. And men seem more aggressive. It seems to be working well for me!"