When asked if she could speak to why she wanted to portray Lenore on Ratched, Stone answered simply, "It's a series of things. A lot of things happen." She then elaborated, "When I heard that Ryan wanted to meet with me and that he had a part for me, [it was really exciting] because he's so brilliant — and because I thought that other women that I had admired, like Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates, had done these incredibly interesting [kinds] of guest pieces in these other shows that were so interesting to me."
Being primarily a movie actress, Stone wasn't used to taking on TV guest spots, but of course, she nailed the role anyway. Her performance as Lenore certainly lives up to the quality of the Murphy staples Stone mentioned; Lange and Bates have offered astounding turns on several seasons of American Horror Story, and Stone is just as captivating on Ratched. Part of what makes Lenore so intriguing — to viewers and to Stone herself — is her complexity and eccentricity.
"As I started to look at the character, I liked that there were so many vagaries about her and that we had to figure out. First of all, why is she this kind of person? How the hell did she get there, to begin with? And what kind of backstory leads a person to be this thing?" Stone questioned. "And so [in] building this character, [it's really] interesting because you have to find out what it is [Lenore's] covering up, and then what she's covered it with, and then what were those failures that made the character so insecure?"
