Sarah Paulson: Filming with Samuel L Jackson left me acting like a ‘goon’

Actress Sarah Paulson might have a handful of Golden Globes and Emmys to her name – but she was still starstruck when she met Bruce Willis, Samuel L Jackson and James McAvoy on the set of Glass.

The actress, 44, plays Dr Ellie Staple, a psychiatrist who treats the superhuman trio in the final instalment of M Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable trilogy.

She said she was “intimidated” on set and struggled to contain her shock at working alongside acting royalty, saying she can’t believe people want to cast her in Hollywood blockbusters.

She told A list: “I was so busy running around being like ‘do you know that’s Sam Jackson over there?’ and ‘Did you know that James McAvoy is over there?’ and ‘That’s Bruce Willis’. I was that goon.

“There is that one scene in the movie where I’m sitting there and all three of them are across from me and I remember walking into the room that day and there was probably an audible gulp on my part because it was not lost on me the iconic nature of the picture I was seeing. It was intimidating. It totally was.”

She continued: “Every time I show up on set I can’t believe they’ve asked me to join them. It’s one thing when you have a dream as a child and to have it actualised in some degree, and then to have it in another degree in which you could never imagine would happen.”

The actress said she was shocked at the amount of dialogue she had, despite having a handful of Golden Globes, Emmys and SAG awards to her name for roles including American Horror Story and American Crime Story.

She said: “I said ‘yes’ to doing the movie without having read the script so what I really felt was ‘I have another line?’ ‘I’m in this scene too?’ The first time I read the script I was just excited I was going to have lines and particularly excited I was going to have scenes with James playing all the different characters.”

Glass is in cinemas now