‘American Horror Story’ Star Evan Peters Sitting out Season 9

When it comes to American Horror Story, Evan Peters is one of the constants of the anthology series’ ever-shifting roster of characters and dark, bizarre settings. The actor has appeared in every one of the series’ eight seasons to date and, in the case of the most recent Apocalypse, even took on multiple characters. However, when the acclaimed series returns for Season 9, it will do so without the actor.

In a recent interview at WonderCon, Peters revealed that he will not be a part of American Horror Story Season 9, telling the reporter “I’m going to sit a season out” (via Entertainment Weekly).

It’s honestly not a huge surprise that Peters is taking a break from the Ryan Murphy series. The actor told GQ last year that the difficult and frequently sinister roles the plays on AHS take an emotional toll, sometimes breaking into moments of his real life.

“It’s just exhausting,” Peters said in that interview. “It’s really mentally draining, and you don’t want to go to those places ever in your life. And so you have to go there for the scenes, and it ends up integrating it somehow into your life. You’re in traffic and you find yourself screaming and you’re like, ‘What the hell? This isn’t who I am.’”

The actor followed that up with a more recent interview with GQ Style, explaining the “burnout” he felt when he spoke with GQ as well as his plans for a break.

“I think it was a full-on burnout,” he said. “I’m going to take a break, regroup, decompress, get back in touch with what I feel like I want to do. Not that I didn’t want to do any of those roles — they’re exactly what I wanted to do. It was just zero to 100 instantaneously. I want to play music.”

At the moment, not much is known about American Horror Story‘s upcoming Season 9. Back in January, Gus Kenworthy and Emma Roberts were officially cast for the season with the actors playing a couple. Thus far, they are the only two official cast members for Season 9. Most fans had assumed that Peters as well as Sarah Paulson — another regular actor on the series — would also be returning, but that is now clearly not the case when it comes to Peters. Murphy has hinted that three actors who have appeared on the series — Cody Fern, Finn Wittrock, and Darren Criss — may appear. It’s also been reported that the new season will start filming in June.

American Horror Story is expected to return to FX this fall.

Are you surprised by Peters sitting Season 9 out? Let us know in the comments below.