Lily Rabe is busy. Not only has she appeared on almost every season of American Horror Story, but in the span of just four months, she’ll see the release of two major new series, HBO’s The Undoing and the upcoming Amazon series, Tell Me Your Secrets. But the truth of the matter is, Rabe has been doing a lot for a long time now. While her television star power skyrocketed courtesy of AHS, her list of accomplishments on stage that preceded the debut of that show are just down to the floor.

With Tell Me Your Secrets being released in full on Amazon on February 19th, Rabe took the time to join us for an episode of Collider Ladies Night to cover a little of everything including her early dream of becoming a ballet dancer, her experience getting her first on-screen credits, balancing stage and screen work throughout her career and so much more. We’ll have the full conversation for you closer to Tell Me Your Secrets’ big debut, but how about we share the American Horror Story portion of the conversation with you right now?

Yes, we did touch on Season 10, but our AHS chat began with a look back at the lengths Ryan Murphy was willing to go to to get Rabe to play Nora Montgomery in American Horror Story: Murder House:

“At the time, I was doing a play at Williamstown. I was doing A Doll’s House with Sam Gold, and Ryan called me and said, ‘I’ve written this arc on my new show, American Horror Story. She’s called Nora.’ And it was wild because I was playing Nora [in A Doll’s House]. I don’t think he knew that at the time so it was just like he’s some kind of seer, which he is. I was going straight from Doll’s House into Seminar, which was a play I did on Broadway with Hamish Linklater - he’s in the other room [laughs] - and Alan Rickman, Hettienne Park and Jerry O’Connell, and it was also with Sam Gold directing. I was like, ‘Ryan, of course I want to do this but I’m about to go into rehearsals for this play.’ And he said, ‘Well, when is your day off?’ I said, ‘Well, once we start performances, we only have Mondays.’ And he said, ‘Oh, that’s fine.’ And I was like, ‘But it’s in New York and you’re in LA.’ He said, ‘Yeah, that’s fine. We’ll figure it out.’”

Sure enough, Murphy figured it out and Rabe’s mighty challenging balancing act began! Here’s how she explained it:

“So playing Nora on American Horror Story, I would do my matinee in Seminar, they would have a car outside the theater, The Golden, I’d get in the car, go to the airport, fly to LA, sleep for a few hours, go to set, shoot all of my Nora stuff that they could in one day,’ and then on Monday go take the redeye back to New York and be back on stage Tuesday. It was originally going to be three episodes and then I think Nora ended up, this is gonna be wrong, but in nine episodes or something, and they just kept doing it and no one else on the planet could figure something out like that, but Ryan did. So that was my first experience of being a part of the show and then for Season 2 he said, ‘Now for this one I need you to stay in LA. Is that OK?’ And I said, ‘Yes, of course. Absolutely.’”

While that whole process does sound especially exhausting, Rabe did find good in the non-stop schedule:

“The roles that I was playing, because I loved both of them so much, were so energizing. They really felt like nourishment. So even though I was probably very depleted in terms of sleep, I actually felt very well nourished because I loved my work so much. And so I really mean that. I could feel it sort of in my veins that I was getting vitamin infusions from the roles that I was playing. And I also think there is something to when you are wildly busy and probably a bit exhausted, creatively I find that wonderful things can come out of that. I’m not recommending that people don’t take care of themselves and don’t sleep, by any stretch. [Laughs] Especially now as a mother, I’m like sleep and eat and all those things! But, there is something about when you don’t have time to - and I am someone who worries about things, but there was no time for that so I had no choice but to be incredibly present in everything I was doing, and I think that was of great value and there is something to that. Even if it’s not sustainable.”

So now for that AHS Season 10 comment. While Sarah Paulson did recently tease her character’s hair color and “great name,” Rabe chose to emphasize what the new season might mean to longtime fans of American Horror Story:

“I can say that the person I’m playing on this season is nothing like anyone I’ve played on the show before, and I am having such a wonderful time with her and with my fellow actors. I love this season. I love this season. I think new fans of the show will love this season, but the longtime fans of the show, I just can’t wait to share this season with them. There’s something about it - I wish I could say more.”

As someone who’s been playing the AHS theory game for about 10 years now, I’m well aware that anything I come up with pre-release isn’t nearly as creative as what Murphy and co. wind up delivering, but the emphasis on Rabe’s excitement for longtime fans does make me wonder if Season 10 might have a heavy link to past seasons. There are season-to-season connections in every installment of AHS, but to varying degrees, so it’ll be interesting to see how far Murphy pushes things in that respect this time around. Especially after Season 9, American Horror Story: Apolcaypse, tied things together more than any other season.

If you’re looking for more from Rabe we will have you well covered in that department in the next week. We’ll share some more clips from the conversation soon but do keep an eye out for her full episode of Collider Ladies Night dropping next weekend, just in time for the release of Tell Me Your Secrets!