American Horror Stories' Cody Fern Finally Addresses The Accent Controversy
"American Horror Stories," like its parent show "American Horror Story," isn't just an anthology series. It's also a company of actors repeatedly working together while playing different characters across different tales. Already, we've seen past AHS performers like Matt Bomer and Billie Lourd take on one-off stories within the "American Horror Stories" universe which are different from anything they've previously done.
In the sixth episode, "Feral," we see troubled father Jay Gantz, played by Aaron Tveit, who already appeared earlier in the season in "Rubber (Wo)man: Part Two" as the sociopathic handy man Adam.
The biggest return in "Feral" isn't Tveit's but the actor who plays conspiracy theorist and forest ranger Stan Vogel — Cody Fern. Fern is a veteran of not only "American Horror Story" but also of "American Crime Story" as well. Fern plays everyone from a method actor to the Antichrist and even portrayed real-life murder victim David Madson.
However, in "American Horror Stories," Fern did something he's never done for Ryan Murphy's shows before: He used his native Australian accent. As it turns out, people are having a very surprising reaction to hearing Fern use his own voice for the first time. They seem to be annoyed by it, but maybe not in the way you might expect.
What happens when people think your real accent is fake
When an actor is well known for a certain kind of role, even though people understand there's a difference between a performer and the parts they play, people will start to make associations. For example, with an actor like Jason Isaacs who plays villains in "Star Trek: Discovery," "Harry Potter," and "The OA," and other movies and shows, audiences are now trained to expect future characters he takes on to also be villains.
A similar thing can happen with actor's real lives. While Cody Fern has played all different sorts of characters in his career, they all involved him utilizing an American accent, so people (even fans) just assumed he is American. In "Feral," he plays a park ranger who moved from Australia to the United States. However, people aren't buying the Australian accent — which is weird considering it is his real accent.
"I'm not fairly comfortable acting in my accent," Fern explained in an interview with TVLine. "So it was very strange for me to use my own accent."
It turns out Fern found out about accusations of his real accent being fake from his fellow actors. "I don't have Twitter, but I've seen feedback from people within the company who are sending me little tweets like, 'He should stick with his plain white-boy American accent' and, 'Who does this Harvard grad think he is trying to do an Australian accent? He's not Meryl Streep!'" Fern explained.
As for his reaction, Fern has a very simple response: "I'm like, 'You all need to calm down.'"
"American Horror Stories" is available to stream now on Hulu.