Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks. On the set of Ryan Murphy’s retelling of that story, however, his cast managed to get in lots of laughs.
“My favorite memories from set are giggling between takes with the cast and crew as we ventured through those long and glorifying days,” Ella Beatty, who plays Borden, told Vogue ahead of the New York City premiere of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story last night.
“The project was so special because of the way Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan wanted to explore female rage and repression…I also felt the way the writing blended humor with drama was so fresh and satisfying,” she continued. Getting to be Murphy’s first female “monster”—he’s previously tackled the grisly crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers, and Ed Gein—and to act alongside “legends” including Charlie Hunnam, Rebecca Hall, Vicky Krieps, and Sarah Paulson were added bonuses.
Beatty—the daughter, yes, of Warren and Annette—is only just beginning her onscreen career. After graduating from Juilliard in 2022, she booked a part in another Murphy series, Fued: Capote vs. The Swans, and appeared opposite Paulson in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Appropriate on Broadway. Most recently, she wrapped filming on The Bell Jar, Sarah Polley’s movie adaptation of the novel by Sylvia Plath, starring Billie Eilish.
With the help of stylist Erin Walsh, Beatty decided to wear a long, black, custom Harbison gown to the Monster premiere that she felt merged the dark mood of the show with playfulness and “a shade of camp.” Here, she invites Vogue along for the night.
