Here’s What We Know About Lady Gaga’s Character on American Horror Story

The hotel is now open! Well, close to opening. On the verge of opening. Okay, it’s still closed until October, but new details have emerged about the characters who will be inhabiting American Horror Story: Hotel when it opens this October (13 episodes premiere on FX on Oct. 7).

The cast of the upcoming fifth season of American Horror Story took the stage in Beverly Hills during FX’s day on the Television Critics’ Association press tour, and they each teased what their roles will be on the upcoming season.

Lady Gaga, as told by Ryan Murphy: “Her character’s name is Elizabeth. She owns the hotel, and she is sort of a very wealthy social doyenne who is consumed with art and fashion and people and she has a nefarious plan that is revealed in the first episode and plays out over the course of the season. She starts shooting on Monday.”

Kathy Bates: “I play Iris. I run the hotel. I have relationships with Matt Bomer and with Wes, and I can’t stand [Sarah Paulson], I hate you. And I don’t know yet if I get to work with Angela, I hope I do. And Liz Taylor and I have a very close relationship, and I do crossword puzzles in my spare time.”

Sarah Paulson: “My character this year is quite dark. I think she’s sexy. She’s a drug addict, and not that drug addicts are sexy, but this girl happens to be quite sexy. She’s got a thing. I don’t think it’s like anything I’ve done on this show … I play Sally, I live at the hotel. I hate Iris in a rather ancient way for reasons that are revealed quickly. I have kind of budding something with Wes’s character. It’s sort of dark and, sorry, you don’t know this yet.”

Finn Wittrock: “I’m playing a male model named Tristan Duffy who’s always looking for the next high. And I think he sort of finds his biggest high in Lady Gaga, and they have a lot to do together. She sees all of me.”

Cheyenne Jackson: “Will Drake, fashion icon. He’s trying to creatively reestablish himself, so he moves from New York to Los Angeles. A father, and a little desperate.”

Denis O’Hare: “I’m playing Liz Taylor, movie icon. I’m not actually playing Elizabeth Taylor, but I’m playing a person who is inspired by the awesomeness of things like Butterfield 8 and Cleopatra and eye makeup like that. And I shaved my head for the part and other body parts. I work in the hotel, I work with Kathy, and I work in the bar.”

Chloe Sevigny: “I play Alex, and I’m the wife of Wes Bentley, and a mother and a doctor and dealing with a great loss that we had in our family and coming to grips with that, among other things.”

Murphy confirmed that “people that you have known from other seasons” will check into the hotel this year. He also revealed that the hotel in question is set in downtown Los Angeles, and the show will deal with “a lot of American horrors.” Murphy recalled the anecdote that inspired the season: “There was a surveillance video that went around two years ago that showed a girl getting into an elevator in a hotel that was said to be haunted … and she was never seen again.”

The 13-episode season premieres on October 7 (see more FX premiere dates here).