The actress says of the TV producer, 'Ryan was the first person who made me feel truly seen as a performer.'

• Jun 5, 2018

AceShowbiz - Sarah Paulson has credited Ryan Murphy for saving her acting career, confessing no one was interested in her before he cast her in American Horror Story.

Paulson has since become somewhat of a muse for the TV mogul, appearing on his shows American Crime Story: The People Vs. O.J. Simpson and subsequent American Horror Story sequels, and she believes his interest in her landed her a starring role in Sandra Bullock's new Ocean's 8 heist movie.

But more importantly, Ryan has given Sarah a confidence boost.

"The only way to have opportunity is to be seen by a person who can do something about what they're seeing and put their money where their mouth is," the actress tells S Magazine. "Ryan was the first person who made me feel truly seen as a performer. And because of what he believed I was capable of, I started to think that I was capable of it too.

"I'm just so grateful to him because it's not like people were beating down my door prior to him deciding that I was going to be his partner, in a way."

Murphy gave Paulson the gift of being able to choose roles - and she admits she has been doing so very carefully.

"I try to look for the things that are immediately communicative to me of real human behaviour," she tells the publication. "I'm not always so interested in playing someone who is a hero on paper, or who is evil just to be evil. I want to know that the character is motivated by things that I recognise, things that actually go on in the psyche, spiritually and soulfully- all things that people struggle with and think about".