Dylan McDermott has been cast in Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s FX drama pilot American Horror Story.
The thriller centers on husband and wife pairing Ben (McDermott) and Vivien Harmon (Friday Night Lights’ Connie Britton) who move from Boston to a haunted San Francisco home in an attempt to rebuild the family after a miscariage and affair.
Living next door is Constance (Jessica Lange) and her daughter with down syndrome who knows more about the Harmon house than everyone realizes. Denis O’Hare joins them as Larry the Burn Guy, a former resident of the home, while the part of teen Tate Langdon has yet to be cast.
Though details for the hotly-anticipated project remain tightly guarded, FX chief John Landgraf was enthusiastic about it’s prospects in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter last month, calling the “really complicated, interesting psychological horror show” an “incredibly ambitious” series that “could define or redefine the genre that [it’s] in.”
When asked how it would differ from Harper’s Island, CBS’ poorly-rated attempt at the horror genre in 2009, Landgraf argued American Horror Story will be nothing like that show. “I can’t explain why,” he told THR, “but I’d just ask the question: Was [Murphy’s] Nip/Tuck like any medical show you’d ever seen?
McDermott was last seen on television in TNT’s Dark Blue, which ended after two 10-episode seasons in 2010. Other TV credits include Big Shots, miniseries The Grid and long-running legal drama The Practice.
The actor is repped by CAA and the Schiff Company.
