Netflix has released the first look images of Sarah Paulson as Nurse Ratched in the upcoming drama about the infamous nurse.
The eight-part series, from American Horror Story writers Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, ventures back to 1947, where a young Mildred Ratched arrives in Northern California to seek employment at a leading psychiatric hospital – which has recently started performing new and unsettling experiments on the mind in the name of psychological progress.
In her bid to infiltrate the hospital, Ratched presents herself as the perfect, dedicated nurse to her superiors – but her own ambitions to dig deep into the mental health care system belies a growing darkness, with the suspenseful drama aiming to show monsters are made, not born, by man.
The new series is closely inspired by the fearsome Nurse Ratched character made famous in Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and is Ryan Murphy's latest project for Netflix, following the success of The Politician and Hollywood.
Ratched will feature an all-star cast; as well as Paulson as the eponymous nurse, former Sex and The City star Cynthia Nixon will play Gwendolyn Briggs, Judy Davis stars as Nurse Betsy Bucket, while Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone appears as Lenore Osgood.
Writer Murphy has described the new show’s very unique take on an iconic character.
“Ratched is coming out in September, it’s a big fall show,” he previously explained to Deadline.
“It’s a feminist psychological horror show. We’ve been done with that for a while. It’s the performance of Sarah Paulson’s life.”
Ratched premieres Friday 18th September, only on Netflix
