Why Vanessa Williams Was Worried About Billie Lourd In American Horror Stories
The fifth episode of the new horror anthology series, "American Horror Stories," is a modern twist on "Rosemary's Baby" titled "BA'AL." It's about a young woman named Liv (Billie Lourd) who wants to have a baby but can't get pregnant. While she's leaving her fertility clinic, the receptionist, Bernadette (Virginia Gardner), gives her an ancient fertility totem that she puts under her bed while she and her husband Matt (Ronen Rubinstein) have sex. Sixteen months later, they have a baby, but Liv begins struggling with postpartum depression and seeing visions of the demon Ba'al haunting her son.
She goes back to Bernadette for more information about what's going on, and she gives Liv what she says is a banishment ritual that will send the demon away. However, the ritual does not go according to plan, which sets up the twisty final act of the episode.
"Candyman" actress Vanessa Estelle Williams has a supporting role in the episode as Dr. Eleanor Berger, a therapist Liv goes to see about her depression. She's the grounded character in the episode, and according to Williams, she was happy that she didn't have to do any of the Latin chanting her co-star did.
Vanessa Williams was worried about some of Billie Lourd's American Horror Stories dialogue
Vanessa Estelle Williams doesn't want to mess around with any dark, demonic stuff, and she advised Billie Lourd not to either. Speaking recently with Decider, the "American Horror Stories" actress revealed what it was about Lourd's role in the episode that made her genuinely nervous for her co-star. "I was very concerned for Billie," Williams admitted. "I said, 'Have you looked up what those chants may mean? Are you sure that this is just gobbledygoo? Do you know what you're saying?' And she was like, 'Well, no, I figured it may be better not to know.'"
Williams went on to say that she advised Lourd against reciting any of the episode's scripted chants without knowing what it was she was actually saying first. "I was like, 'Well, I don't want to tell you what to do, and I'm not sure. But I would want to know, for sure, that I'm not really calling up something. Definitely do some sort of ritual to remove that from you,'" said the actress. Williams added that she was "grateful not to have the deeply scary stuff" in the episode "like conjuring up demons," but also acknowledged that it "would be amazing to walk in that space. Do the thing that scares you, you know?"
In a recent interview with The Wrap, Lourd didn't mention needing to burn sage or anything like that, but she did reveal that the episode's ritual scene was filmed at 3 a.m. after she'd been up since 5 a.m. taking care of her own baby. "Reciting all that Latin after being awake for 22+ hours was no joke (reciting Latin on a normal amount of sleep is no joke)," said Lourd. As for whether or not Lourd actually took Williams' advice and did some research about the Latin parts of her dialogue, we may never know, but we wouldn't blame her if she did.