‘American Horror Story’: Everything We Know About Evan Peters’ ‘Cult’ Role

Evan Peters has been a mainstay in every season of American Horror Story since it debuted in 2011.

From his Murder House role as the psychopathic Tate Langdon or is smaller roles as Rory Monaha/Edward Philippe Mott in Roanoke, he’s always a fan favorite with scene-stealing performances.

He’s slated to return for season seven, subtitled Cult, and series creator Ryan Murphy has been dropping a steady stream of hints about Peters’ character in recent months.

While we don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle, we have a rough outline of what to expect from Peters’ return to the anthology series.

His Name

The name of Peters’ character is a bit odd: Kai.

Murphy dropped the name reveal along with some fan art and touched on his connection to Sarah Paulson’s character, Ally Mayfair-Richards (more on that later).

Kai has various interpretations in different languages. It can have a meaning pertaining to water (Japanese, Hawaiian), victory (Mandarin Chinese), strength (Burmese) or a variety of other odder translations.

While it doesn’t give us much, its uniqueness seems likely to be symbolic, especially since Murphy gave Peters’ past characters simple names like Jimmy and Kyle.

His Look

While Kai wasn’t the one of the characters revealed in that series of character posters, Murphy did share a tease of Peters’ look.

The actor has been sporting a blue shoulder-length look as of late, and it appears that characteristic will be a part of Kai’s look, as well.

Murphy shared the above photo back in May, and it shows off the back of Peters’ head with a caption “Red, white and blue clue.”

Unless that was just a general tease, Peters’ role could be tied into the political tones of Cult. Plus, the blue hair doesn’t seem that out of place when you place it some of the sinister clown imagery that’s been teased.

His Connection

When Murphy shared the names of Kai and Ally, he also dropped another massive hint about the characters’ significance in the story.

The showrunner described the pair as having “a love story for the ages.”

Many fans paired off the two then, but Paulson gave a puzzling contradiction when she described recently her character. The Television Critics Association was given a tour of a house set used in Cult, and then she revealed her and Alison Pill’s character (Ivy Mayfair-Richards) lived there together.

“There are two women married to each other in that house, but who are they?” she said at a press panel. “It’s me and Alison.”

With that relationship revealed, it appears that Peters will possibly causing some sort of wedge to form between the two women. If Kai and Ally truly have a “love story for the ages,” Peters could be a figure from Ally’s past that comes back into play.

His Importance

Kai’s role in Cult‘s plot seems to be one of the most pivotal.

First off, he and Paulson were locked down to star back in January. Pairing this announcement with Murphy’s tendency to write parts for particular actors, it seems Murphy had specific roles for the duo and was writing the script with a focus on them.

Furthermore, Murphy emphasized Peters’ role in Cult on Instagram on Aug. 17. Along with a collage of his past roles, he said, “I think — and (Evan) agrees — that his upcoming KAI is his greatest AHS role to date.”

A fan on Twitter asked Murphy for more of Peters in the new season, and he replied answering her prayers.

“And more Evan you will get,” he wrote. “This is his heaviest season yet. More questions?”

American Horror Story: Cult premieres Sept. 5 on FX at 10 p.m. ET.