THE METHOD

JOEY POLLARI IS A SUCKER FOR A DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY ON A MOVIE. BEYOND THE FINISHED FILM, HE IS EAGER TO LEARN FROM THE CHOICES, THE MISTAKES. IT’S A REVEALING WAY INTO HIS APPROACH TO ACTING. A SELF-DESCRIBED CULTURE VULTURE, POLLARI STUDIES THE PERFORMANCES AND ARTISTS HE ADMIRES WITH FASCINATION. OF COURSE, THE STUDY DOESN’T ALWAYS NEED TO BE MADE FROM A COUCH. IN SEASON 13 OF AMERICAN HORROR STORY, THE ACTOR HAD A FRONT-ROW SEAT TO ANALYSE SCENE PARTNERS LIKE JESSICA LANGE AND JOHN WATERS. BOTH AHS AND HIS OTHER PROJECT, MONSTER: THE LIZZIE BORDEN STORY, ARE ROOTED IN PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPLEXITY, THE KIND OF MATERIAL THAT DEMANDS AN ACTOR LOOK BEYOND THE SURFACE OF A CHARACTER. FOR POLLARI, THAT MEANS FINDING THE TENSION BETWEEN INSTINCT AND INTENTION. WE CATCH UP WITH THE ACTOR ON AN EARLY MORNING IN LA, JUST AFTER HE SPILLS HIS COFFEE – AN ACCIDENT HE TAKES AS A GOOD OMEN.

Left Pants and shoes **Dolce & Gabbana**, belt **Emporio Armani**
Right Full look **Prada**

Hey, how's your morning?

I went and got a coffee about 15 minutes away, and then I spilled it entirely.

Oh, isn’t that nice.

[Shows an iced coffee on camera that looks particularly diluted] I had this from a week ago that I saved, and I was about to throw it out yesterday, but I guess I knew what was to come.

It looks…

Watery, yeah, it tastes like it too. [Laughs]

T-shirt, sweater and shorts **Erl**, shoes **Emporio Armani**, socks stylist’s own

I heard somewhere that the more diluted coffee is, the stronger it is. I won’t reveal my sources because they might be TikTok.

[Laughs] Well, this conversation is going to go great. I’m choosing to believe you. I’ll take it as a good sign from now on. Do you believe in omens?

Left Sweater, pants and shoes **Celine Homme**, turtleneck **Hollywood Ranch Market**, glasses **Dolce & Gabbana**, socks **Comme Si**
Right Shirt, pants and belt **Versace**, suspenders stylist’s own

Not necessarily, but if my coffee spills all over me, it’s the lack of caffeine that ruins my day, not its impact on the spiritual realm. Speaking of the supernatural, a lot of your projects tend to be in the realm of the genre; do you feel a pull towards it?

It's mostly coincidence, but it's not without precedent. When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with watching the most horrific movies ever made. Probably a teenager's impulse for horror, for a thrill. But now that I’m in it, acting in these projects has changed my relationship with it. Something about the genre puts a spell on people. Horror and thriller are a strange nexus point for watching somebody else do what we’re scared to.

How do you prepare for roles that touch on that feeling?

I watched quite a few films in preparation for AHS: 13 and Monster. You can study writing or how somebody else interviews, but until you’re in front of me, you won’t know what it means. It’s the same for us. I was looking at great performances, taking notes; it allowed me to look at nuance. So often, in these horror scripts, you’re watching someone act in ways the audience never would. They wouldn’t go into the basement at night, but the audience has to believe that you would. Watching others perform showed me how they navigated that tension. How does Mia Farrow navigate it? How does Daniel Kaluuya justify it?

What roles most informed your performances?

Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs. Watching someone like Kaluuya in Get Out. He so deftly navigates this, wanting to believe that his paranoia is not justified. When Ben, my character in AHS, experiences this really terrible tragedy, it confirms his deepest fear. He has to return to work, and that ends up being working with Constance Langdon as a hospice worker for this mysterious elderly patient. The longer he works there, the darker his world gets. So, these two performances are similar to me; they’re like Little Red Riding Hood entering the dark woods.

Did you have a relationship with AHS before becoming a part of it?

I am a culture vulture, so I had seen every GIF, every meme… Balenciaga! Knotty pine! [Laughs] American Horror Story is the zeitgeist. So my relationship is retroactive. When I started watching the show, I realised I had, in a way, watched almost all of them through their diaspora across the internet.