Kathy Bates Joins AMERICAN HORROR STORY Season Three

With potential for greatness to spare, Oscar winner Kathy Bates has just joined the cast of Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk's boundary-breaking horror anthology series AMERICAN HORROR STORY for Season Three.

This is especially exciting casting since Bates previously won an Oscar for another horror role, her memorable turn as the ultimate psychotic fan in Rob Reiner's 1990 hit film adaptation of Stephen King's novel MISERY (a property itself seeming to be soon headed to the Broadway stage as my recent interview with screenwriter William Goldman indicated).

Bates joins previously confirmed star Jessica Lange as well as returning players Sarah Paulson, Lily Rabe, Evan Peters, Taissa Farmiga and Frances Conroy.

No confirmation has been given insofar as what the new season will center upon, though many fans assume witches may be involved. Murphy has only stated it will have copious amounts of "glamour" in his discussion of the new season, set to premiere in October.

Bates previously appeared onstage in a number of significant productions throughout New York in the 1980s, most notably her Tony-nominated work in Marsha Norman's Pulitzer Prize-winning 'NIGHT MOTHER, Robert Altman's COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN and Lanford Wilson's FIFTH OF JULY, as well as her work Off-Broadway in Terrence McNally's FRANKIE AND JOHNNY IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE.