Sarah Paulson Learns to Withhold Judgment LOS ANGELES - Accepting the award for best drama at the Golden Globes, the "12 Years a Slave" director Steve McQueen called Sarah Paulson "the Bette Davis of America." Ms. Paulson is a theater, film and television veteran, most recently seen in the FX series "American Horror Story." In "12 Years," she plays the wife of Michael Fassbender's sadistic plantation owner; her character, Mistress Epps, has some sadistic streaks of her own, which perhaps seem even crueler judged against her gender. The role, Ms. Paulson said in a recent interview, wasn't what you would call enjoyable. "Sometimes you play a part, and you can't wait to figure out a way inside their thought process, their physical life - you get very excited about that process," she said. But with Mistress Epps, "I wasn't excited to get into her, the inner workings of her brain," she said. This wasn't a great deal of fun. Still, she added, it was "very educational for me as a human being," chiefly because she had to approach the role without judgment. "I think I'm a very judgmental person, and I had to confront that within myself," she said, and be careful to avoid "that place, which can be very tempting, to remind the audience that you, the actress, do not endorse this, to kind of comment on it and make it, the character, easier to take." She could have had a moment where she bit her lip and cried and seemed to regret her behavior. "But that wasn't on the page," Ms. Paulson said. Mistress Epps was constrained by her era, too. "She had a miserable marriage and zero power, and her only way to make herself seen and noticed by her husband was just to behave in this atrocious fashion," Ms. Paulson said. When she auditioned for Mr. McQueen, she did get into character a little bit: she wore her hair in a tight bun, put on an old-timey dress that she owned - "which is sort of terrifying, because it means I dress that way in real life, like an antebellum Southern lady" - and went without makeup on the tape. She was cast soon after. Still, "I'll never understand fully why he saw me as a woman capable of such despicable behavior," she said of Mr. McQueen. Ms. Paulson admitted to some trepidation that she wouldn't do justice to the weight of the story. But Mr. McQueen gave her confidence. On set in Louisiana, "I remember him saying to me, "There is no choice you can make in this scene that is incorrect - you are her, you know her, so just let it fly." And that is very empowering thing to hear from a director. Ms. Paulson also appeared in another film that was well-received by audiences and critics in 2013, "Mud." "This is one of those years as an actor where can I actually put my nose in the air and say I did all right," she said, "in terms of being in things that I'm so proud of." As for the Oscar talk for "12 Years," "I got to be 39 years old before I was ever in a movie that was on a road like this," she said. That goes to show you that that doesn't come around that often. "The most important thing," she added, "is that your work is being seen." Then again, "12 Years" is not, she knows, an easy thing to watch. When people tell her they've seen the movie, she's not sure how to react: "You never want to say, did you love it?"