One-On-One With 'Conviction' Star Sarah Paulson

Walking down 42nd Street as a young girl, Sarah Paulson would look up at the theater marquees and film posters with a dream, wondering if she’d ever have her shot.

The actor is living it now.

In the two decades since, 38-year-old Ms. Paulson has racked up more than 50 television and film credits, including roles in the Academy Award-winning film “12 Years a Slave” and FX’s television series “American Horror Story.”

She has been on Broadway—twice. And, most recently, she is starring opposite actor Garret Dillahunt in the world premiere of “Conviction,” opening Tuesday, May 27, at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor.

“Garret and I were just in the same movie, ‘12 Years a Slave,’ and even the same TV show, ‘Deadwood,’ but we didn’t have any scenes together,” Ms. Paulson said last week during a telephone interview. “I was always jealous everyone got to work with him and I never got to.”

Not anymore. The pair portrays married couple Tom and Leigh Hodges in the new drama from playwright Carey Crim. He is a charismatic, confident, caring English teacher whom students adore and parents admire. She is a sensible, pragmatic emergency room nurse whose family always comes first.

So when a student accuses her husband of crossing a line, she is forced to face the near impossible, Ms. Paulson said.

“She is a person who sees horrible things on a daily basis,” she said. “When it lands on her front doorstep, she handles it in a different way. She’s still a very strong woman. I’m a much more hysterical person. I can’t imagine moving through the world the way Leigh does.”

On its surface, the story has been told many times before: a man accused of sexually assaulting a minor. This production—which also stars Elizabeth Reaser, Brian Hutchison and Daniel Burns—is really about the aftermath, according to the theater’s new artistic director, Scott Schwartz, who is directing the play, and how any relationship is based on a certain amount of suspension of disbelief.

“Whether Tom is guilty or innocent, when it’s put in your face, it’s impossible to ignore the things about people we cannot know,” Mr. Schwartz said during a recent interview. “How do we navigate that? How do we have those relationships? How do we move forward? These are the questions at the core of ‘Conviction.’”

This is Leigh’s predicament. And Ms. Paulson said she can relate.

“I’ve loved someone so much you refuse to see anything that can be negative,” she mused. “I don’t have any children, but my sister’s a mother, and I’m a terrifying dog lover. I can understand the ferocity in which Leigh mothers on some level.”

In just 15 days of rehearsal, Ms. Paulson said she has tapped into Leigh’s character—similar to both her television and film work. She broke onto the big screen in 2003 with “Down With Love”—starring Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor—after auditioning, in character, with a prop cigarette in her mouth and a wig on her head.

“I just wanted to be an actress,” she said. “I would have done it in a dinner theater. I just wanted to do it desperately. It’s what I love more than anything in the world.”

After “Conviction” wraps on June 15, Ms. Paulson will be awaiting the fourth season premiere of “American Horror Story” this fall, which she credits as “the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.”

“This play is not dissimilar, in the sense that you are shot out of a cannon in both worlds,” she said. “In doing a new play, it’s something that’s never been done, and you’re creating a new world. It all has a great sense of fire.”

Walking through Times Square again last week while taking a coffee break from rehearsal, Ms. Paulson caught herself gazing up at all the lit marquees—just as she would as a child. “My throat got a little tight,” she said, “because I got a little emotional about how lucky I am.”

She paused, and continued, “I pinch myself on a daily basis.”

“Conviction” will make its world premiere on Tuesday, May 27, at 7 p.m. at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. Performances will continue Wednesdays to Sundays, through June 15, at 8 p.m., each night, with additional stagings on Sundays and Wednesdays at 2 p.m., and Tuesdays at 7 p.m. No show Mondays. Tickets start at $53.75. For more information, call 725-9500 or visit baystreet.org.