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Sarah Paulson Is Unrecognizable as Serial Killer Aileen Wuornos in Ryan Murphy’s ‘Monster’ Season 4 Teaser
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Sarah Paulson transforms into real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos in a new look at Ryan Murphy’s ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story.’ Wuornos was previously played onscreen by Oscar-winner Charlize Theron in the 2003 movie ‘Monster.’
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Sarah Paulson transforms into Aileen Wuornos in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story
The fourth installment of Ryan Murphy’s saga dropped a new trailer on Thursday, Aug. 20, with a special appearance by Paulson at the end
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, starring Ella Beatty in the titular role, debuts on Netflix Sept. 17
Sarah Paulson transforms into Aileen Wuornos for Ryan Murphy’s newest Monster installment.
On Thursday, Aug. 20, the actress, 51, made her debut in character at the end of the trailer for Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, appearing as the real-life woman who was convicted of six murders committed between 1989 and 1990 along a central Florida highway.
The latest iteration of the anthology series follows Lizzie Borden and marks the first tale to center on a woman. Ella Beatty plays the accused ax murderer, who was widely suspected of killing her parents in 1892 but was never convicted.
Meanwhile, Paulson’s Wuornos will appear in scenes that take place decades later, as she’s depicted as being inspired by Borden’s story.
“No one really knows what happened that day,” a voice says at the end of the trailer, as Paulson interjects: “Oh, I f----ing know what happened.”
“The show is exploring a legacy of female rage and reaction to the set of circumstances that they are presented with,” Beatty, 26, told Netflix’s Tudum. “I think there’s a connection [between Borden and Wuornos] that Ryan and Ian [Brennan] were interested in mapping and exploring.”
According to Netflix, Paulson’s character plays a “crucial part in the thematic focus” of the latest Monster chapter. “Every season of Monster has been an exercise in understanding the person’s psychology,” Beatty said. “Are they born or are they made? I knew from the beginning that Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan were really interested in exploring what brings a woman to the point of violence. ... I think the story of Aileen Wuornos also served that question and that exploration of why women kill.”
Beatty and Paulson already “became very close” working on the Broadway play Appropriate together in 2024, with Beatty telling Netflix that “she was such a part of the creative process for me from the very beginning.”
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Paulson was photographed for the first time portraying the late serial killer back in December. The woman she’s portraying, who was suspected of a seventh killing, died by lethal injection on Oct. 9, 2002, and was dubbed the “Damsel of Death.” Wuornos was also the subject of the 2025 Netflix documentary Aileen: Queen of Serial Killers, as well as the Oscar-winning 2003 Charlize Theron film, also titled Monster. Lily Rabe also played Wuornos in Murphy’s American Horror Story: Hotel in 2015.
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Series co-creator Brennan, in an Aug. 4 interview with Vanity Fair, called it “an unexpected breath of fresh air when Aileen shows up” in the new iteration of Netflix’s Monster.
“Sarah Paulson’s good in a production of reading the phone book,” he said. “But she really is something else in this show.”
The new installment also stars Vicky Krieps as the maid, Bridget Sullivan; Charlie Hunnam as Lizzie’s father, Andrew Borden; Rebecca Hall as her stepmother, Abby Borden; Billie Lourd as her older sister, Emma; and Jessica Barden as her friend, Nance O’Neil. Joey Pollari also stars.
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“When the repressed daughter of a wealthy New England family and her rebellious maid find themselves trapped in a house built on humiliation and cruelty, they escape into a fantasy of sex, power and revenge,” the series’ logline reads.
It continues, “The gruesome unsolved murders that follow don’t just shock the world — they give birth to an icon who refuses to live imprisoned in a cage, choosing instead to forge her own legend: shocking, monstrous and gloriously free.”
Previous seasons of Monster explored the lives of Jeffrey Dahmer, brothers Lyle and Erik Menéndez, and Ed Gein.
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, which will have eight episodes, debuts on Netflix Sept. 17.
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