‘American Horror Stories’ Noah Cyrus Is an ‘AHS’ Superfan in Real Life

It’s hard to imagine a better introduction into American Horror Story‘s twisted universe than Noah Cyrus’ first episode. Within minutes of appearing in American Horror Stories‘ Season 1 finale, Cyrus’ Connie, an AHS obsessive fan who signs up for a Murder House experience, goes from ogling at the Murder House to being killed by some of the most beloved killers in this horror anthology series. And it was a dream come true for this self-proclaimed AHS superfan.

In an interview with Decider, Cyrus revealed exactly when she fell in love with Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s warped world. The singer and songwriter also revealed how this FX show connects to her music as well as why this role led to tears of joy. Cyrus also tried to break down the meta ending of “Game Over.”

Decider: Are you a fan of American Horror Story?

Noah Cyrus: Yes, I’m a huge fan of American Horror Story. I have to say that my mom is the only person that will probably ever truly understand how much I adore the entire franchise. It started with me watching Asylum as a 12-year-old kid. We were on tour, Miley [Cyrus] was on tour. It was before I was in music; I was really young. I was in the back of her bus all the time, and we’d lay in bed. She and her friends were watching this show, this creepy show about nuns. That’s all I really knew about it because they didn’t catch me up on it. It was just like, I loved hanging out with the big kids, and I loved staying up late and watching TV. Then I really got hooked.

I started with Asylum. And then when we got back and back to LA, I started watching Murder House and went through all of them. That really opened up this whole giant can of worms for me. I completely dove in and became obsessed with the show. I loved every aspect of the show from the plot and characters down to the way it was filmed and the colors and the angles.

It inspired my music. I mean, still it does. I’ve written so many songs almost about certain storylines that I’ve watched within the show. I don’t know, I had never really known what it was like to be a fan of someone or something, if that makes sense. There were really no musical artists or anything that I was a fan of because, maybe as a kid that grows up with such a famous family, I think that kind of like scares you a little bit. At first you don’t become a fan of something. For me, I never had a musical artist that I obsessed over or that I Googled and that I really went into like a superfan does. That’s how I was with the show. For me, it was going and looking up American Horror Story fan pages and following them. I’ve followed certain fan pages since like 2014 or 2013. I was the American Horror Story superfan.

Oh my gosh, this is such an awesome episode for you. What a day to have been stalked and killed by all of the big bads of American Horror Story. What was it like to act with Twisty and the Rubber Man?

It was so fun and so surreal for me. My manager was laughing on set because I would be getting so excited. Like, “I can’t believe I’m going to be killed by Twisty and Bloody Face!”

Working with Jamie [Brewer] was amazing. She’s such a sweetheart, and our scene was so fun. And getting to work on stunts and stuff, it definitely took me a second to get my steps figured out. I was like, “Bear with me, y’all. I’m new to this. I’m the newbiest newbie on set today.” Literally, I had not done any acting since Ponyo. I don’t remember really doing anything else like that. The closest thing that I had done doing this was doing Ponyo, which was ADRs. I had no experience with what we were doing. It was cool to be there. And it was cool to learn and work with the director, Liz [Friedlander]. Everybody was so kind and patient with me and just giving me a chance to learn every scene that we filmed… After we called cut and had moved on to the next scene, I kept asking them and I was like, “I’m sorry, if I’m annoying you, but did I improve from the notes that we ended up talking about? Was there improvement in my performance? Did I get what we needed?” And they would be like, “Yes, we wouldn’t move on if we didn’t have what we needed. Yes, you improved.” We would sit and talk about it, because I just wanted to really be able to learn and use the opportunity as much as I can to work with such amazing people.

What was so fun about my character, Connie, is that I felt that I could relate to her so much. I felt like, in a way, I was playing this different version of myself, being a superfan of the show and her excitement for the house. I didn’t even go look at the basement until we were filming my scene because I wanted to be so excited for the basement. I didn’t go look at the house until we were filming there. Like, it was just a lot of excitement for me that I wanted to keep. I was taking pictures the entire time and definitely there were tears on my drives home and just “what the fuck” moments. I can’t believe this is my life. It’s been, definitely, a rough year and a half for a lot of people. Also, the past few years before this past year have been definitely rough on me. So I think a lot of it was disbelief that something could make me feel this happy or something could make me realize, oh, good things can happen to me and can make me really happy. I get really excited still. It was good for me to experience that and see that and feel that happiness and just have fun with work and not have so much pressure on me with my work and my music.

You mentioned before that some of your songs have been inspired by American Horror Story. Is “Ghost” one of them? Because it was featured in the episode.

“Ghost” is vividly about the story that I’ve lived in my life so many times. But there was this aspect of Season 1, I really connected to Violet (Taissa Farmiga) in Season 1… Miley would always make the connection between us too and could always see why I love Violet so much. I feel like that song was a bit inspired by the story with them inside the Murder House with with all the broken love inside. I feel like that’s a big problem with the Murder House. All of their hearts are just so broken.

I wrote this one song that I actually had originally sent to everyone on the show that I wrote specifically about the Murder House and Ben Harmon [Dylan McDermott’s character]. They ended up using “Ghost”, and I was like, “Why didn’t I think of ‘Ghost’? I should have sent them that.”

I actually felt like everything fell into place with that song. With “Ghost” for my last EP, it was actually one that I fought for for a while. I always thought like, “Why does no one love this song as much as I do?” I adore this song. I think the song is brilliant. It spoke so much about how I feel inside and what it was like inside the relationship I was living whenever I wrote that song. There was just so much love that I had for that song, and I was so connected and attached to that song. Now I know why. I’m a real big believer and things happen for a reason and when they happen is when they were supposed to happen. I kind of felt like the song has lived its purpose now.

It’s incredible that this song has been used in a big franchise you’re so passionate about. 

I don’t think I’d be this excited over anything else ever. I was sobbing. I have a video of me sobbing whenever it comes on… I think the only time I’ve ever cried pure tears of joy in any other moment, it would have been whenever I got a call that I was nominated for a Grammy. I had those two things in my life that live up to the same standard: Getting a nomination for a Grammy and being in American Horror Story. So those are like my two highlighted moments in my entire life.

Obviously, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk love to use the same people again and again. Have you all talked about you possibly coming back for future seasons?

No, but just even you and I talking about it makes my heart rate go up. So hopefully that would be an even bigger dream come true.

Your episode, “Game Over”, is so meta and has so many things going on. What do you think happened in its ending? Was it a simulation or was Murder House really burned down?

I don’t know. I’m excited to see what happens. I definitely listen to everything, so I caught on that Ruby [Kaia Gerber] was like a few of them didn’t want to leave, or something like that. Maybe the people and all the souls that wanted to go went, and maybe there were a few that ended up staying. They show that red ball at the end, so I don’t know.

I’m hoping for a haunted condo.

Right. That would be really funny. I would be totally down for that. Just some like terrorizing all the new tenants.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Watch American Horror Stories on FX on Hulu