Sarah Paulson calls out ‘weird’ criticism of her portrayal of Aileen Wuornos in The Lizzie Borden Story

Sarah Paulson has defended her portrayal of killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story on Netflix. Ever since the show was released, people have had a lot to say about Aileen being part of the show.

Aileen Wuornos was a sex worker, who killed seven of the men she picked up as clients. She claimed the men had r*ped or attempted to r*pe her, and she was acting in self defence. Despite this, she was convicted and sentenced to death.

The two timelines were completely unconnected, but Aileen’s story was briefly sprinkled into The Lizzie Borden Story on Netflix, with it being suggested the killer was “inspired” by what Lizzie had done. This is despite Lizzie having actually been found not guilty. People have called this “lazy” and said it felt “random” to insert Aileen into episodes, and argued her story would have made a good season of Monster on its own.

Sarah Paulson called it ‘weird’ that people are comparing her to Charlize Theron

via Prime Video

Lots of people have compared Sarah Paulson playing Aileen Wuornos in The Lizzie Borden Story to Charlize Theron, who played the killer in 2003 film Monster. This won Charlize Theron an Oscar.

“It’s just the sort of weird thing where it’s like, I didn’t set out to do something better than Charlize Theron,” Sarah Paulson told Netflix’s Shut Up Evan podcast. “I didn’t set out to blast hers off the screen or something – as if anyone could do that. It’s the most glorious performance in the world.”

She added: “People get to reinterpret great plays all the time. No one goes, ‘Oh I don’t want to see Glenn Close’s version of this play because I saw so-and-so’s version or this director’s.’”

Sarah said that when she was offered the part of Aileen, she did immediately think people would compare her to Charlize. “It flashed in front of me like, ‘People are going to compare it to Charlize, and that’s going to be so – why would I do that?’” she explained. “Why would I want to go out in the world and give a performance when someone has won an Oscar for that? Like, that’s some kind of psycho behaviour on your part, Sarah Paulson.”

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She then defended her portrayal 

Paulson then went on to defend her portrayal more generally. “This is my interpretation of Aileen Wuornos based on the research I did and based on my personhood and how it comes out through me,” she said. “It’s not an attempt to do something like anybody ever did.”

via Netflix

‘It was one of the most scary things I ever did’ 

Speaking further about what playing Aileen Wuornos in The Lizzie Borden Story was like for her, Sarah Paulson described it as an incredible, but very scary, experience.  

“It was one of the greatest experiences of my life getting to do that and hard and scary,” the actress told PEOPLE. “I feel very, very honoured and touched that people have been responding positively to it. It was a really scary thing to do.

“Obviously, many people have played that role, and brilliantly. So, to throw my hat in the ring of one of the many interpretations of the character felt like a real honour and a total parachute jump out of a plane.”

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. Featured image via Lev Radin/Shutterstock and Netflix.