"American Horror Story: Hotel" is really her acting debut. But it is her big acting arrival, since she has the lead role -- and it's quite a role. She plays Elizabeth, aka The Countess, the wealthy bisexual doyenne who owns the Hotel Cortez, has a diet of sex and blood (!) and reveals her dark plan right in the first episode.

Speaking of the first episode, that airs next Wednesday, October 7 on FX. Ryan Murphy talked to E! News about the strong reaction fans are going to have to Gaga right away. "She'll give you nightmares," Murphy said. "When you see her you will say 'Holy s—t.'" He later expanded on that same idea, saying, "When you see that first episode when she comes on the screen, you're like, 'Holy s--t.' She has this incredible, magnetic thing that you can't create. You either have it or you don't. And she has it." Apparently what she has is worthy of cursing! (The costumes and makeup and sex/death/horror probably contribute to the holy sh-t effect too.)

Executive producer Brad Falchuk added, "She will terrify you and you will also be in love with her at the same. She's Gaga." And yet she went out of her way to show that she's more than Gaga, Murphy said, praising her work ethic:

I think when people see her in Horror Story they are going to be so blown away by her acting and by her presence and what she brings to it and how beautiful she looks. She's everything that you'd want. That's the thing about Lady Gaga that I have found is that she's never disappointed on any level even one time, and that's work. You don't just roll out of bed and be that. She delivers. Her work ethic is incredible and I've been so blown away by how prepared she is, and how much she loves the casts. She wants it to be a family of performers who are coming together to make something incredible and that's been a very wonderful, reinvigorating thing for our show and this season."

Sounds like it was a successful collaboration, and potentially the first of many. Gaga's Countess is a centerpiece of the fifth AHS season, with many lovers and ex-lovers plotting around her. Here are more details on the characters of "Hotel." Will you be checking in?

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