Rise to Fame
A decade of WB ensemble casts and procedural bit parts came before anyone noticed. The real break was Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story, where she spent nine seasons playing everyone from psychic mediums to conjoined twins. The role that cracked awards season open was Marcia Clark in The People v. O.J. Simpson (2016), the prosecutor who got publicly humiliated while trying to convict O.J. Simpson. She took the Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG Award, and Critics' Choice for that one role in the same year.
In the Spotlight
The Tony Award for Appropriate (2024) was the argument she'd been making for years: she's a stage actor who also does television, not the other way around. Nine Emmy nominations, each for a separate project, keep her in the prestige conversation, but the breadth is what's notable. Hold Your Breath (Hulu, 2024), All's Fair (2025) alongside Glenn Close and Kim Kardashian, and a guest turn on Mr. & Mrs. Smith that earned another Emmy nomination. Ryan Murphy still gets most of her time, which either tells you something about loyalty or about where her best material keeps coming from.
Side Notes
Before any flight, she reportedly insists on meeting the pilots personally. Add trypophobia (a fear of clustered holes) and you have someone whose anxiety comes with very specific shapes. The personal life runs similarly unconventional: she was engaged to playwright Tracy Letts, dated actress Cherry Jones for five years, and has been with actress Holland Taylor since around 2015, a 33-year age gap she's discussed openly. She's described her sexuality as 'a fluid situation,' which is about as precise as she's chosen to get.