Rise to Fame
Tate Langdon was a teen mass murderer, a ghost, and somehow the most sympathetic character on American Horror Story's first season. Peters arrived in 2011 playing him, and the internet lost its mind. Tumblr turned Tate into a dark romantic, and Peters into something neither he nor the show had fully planned for: a generational fandom anchor. He'd moved to LA at 15 with his mother, booked a role one week after landing, and spent years building credits nobody cared about. Tate was the inflection point.
In the Spotlight
Two Emmy cycles made him harder to dismiss. The first came for Mare of Easttown in 2021 - Outstanding Supporting Actor alongside Kate Winslet. The second came when he played Jeffrey Dahmer for Netflix in 2022; the show became one of the platform's most-watched ever, and Peters won the Golden Globe. He's since said the Dahmer role cost him psychologically and pushed him toward lighter material. The Beauty, a Ryan Murphy FX series that premiered January 2026, has him playing an FBI agent - a notable pivot from serial killers.
Side Notes
He originally got into acting because he wanted to meet the Olsen twins - which is a funnier origin story than most actors admit to. He played guitar seriously before committing to performance, and he has a 'thumbs up' tattoo on his right hand that seems intentionally goofy for someone who keeps getting cast in serial killers and psychopaths. The relationship with Emma Roberts lasted seven years, on and off, from the set of Adult World in 2012 through 2019. He keeps returning to Ryan Murphy, which is either loyalty or a very specific kind of creative dependency.