If you have been a fan of "American Horror Story" ever since it was launched back in 2011, then you have probably noticed that the show's current fourth installment features the return of fan favorite character Pepper.
Pepper is a microcephalic woman being played by Naomi Grossman. She first appeared in the series' second installment subtitled "Asylum," in which she was committed to Briarcliff Manor after she was convicted of drowning her sister's baby and cutting off his ears. However, the character claimed in the tenth episode of the said season that she was falsely accused with murdering and mutilating her nephew.
Grossman is reprising the role on the current season of the series subtitled "Freak Show," and just like before, she has to wear prosthetic hands, nose and teeth in order to achieve Pepper's look. And even though it takes three hours for makeup artists to physically transform her into the character, the actress is very much grateful for the opportunity to play Pepper once again.
"Pepper is a gift that keeps on giving," Grossman said while filming the hit FX anthology series in New Orleans, according to Albuquerque Journal. "At the end of last season, it was all downhill from there. Then I got pulled back for the show and it's just been amazing."
"(Show's co-creator) Ryan Murphy has done it again and he made this amazing role better," she said. "It's been a pretty dreamy part. Pepper is any actor's dream. She's so complex and she's not black or white. She's many shades of grey."
"She can be so sweet, but is accused of a horrible crime," she said of her character. "I really have to dig deep to get her right."
Rumors that Pepper would appear in "Freak Show" broke after an unofficial call sheet from production in New Orleans leaked last July, Huffington Post reported.
And in an interview with Entertainment Weekly last month, Pepper's return to the series was finally confirmed by Murphy.
"What Elsa [Jessica Lange] has done for 20 years is she goes around to hospitals and jails and rescues these 'freak' circus performers who are going to be shipped away to asylums and she signs the waivers and she becomes their guardians," explained Murphy, noting that "Freak Show" takes place in 1952 - 12 years before the events in "Asylum," so the timing works out well.
"Freak Show" "is sort of like what happened to Pepper before she went to the asylum," added the 48-year-old Primetime Emmy-winning director.
Murphy reuses actors in the series, but this is the first time in four years where a character from a previous season has appeared in another installment, E! News noted.
Murphy admitted that he and the producers of the show did not move forward with the idea easily. "We thought about it long and hard and we decided that it was interesting to do," he said.