American Horror Stories Star Dylan McDermott Weighs In Ben Harmon's Fate - Exclusive

This year marks the 10-year anniversary of "American Horror Story," which began terrorizing television sets in 2011 with its debut season known as "Murder House." Dylan McDermott has been a part of creator Ryan Murphy's twisted universe since its fruition. He played the adulterous Dr. Ben Harmon in Season 1, followed by Bloody Face offspring Johnny Morgan in "AHS: Asylum," and the sadistic serial killer Bruce in 2019's "AHS: 1984." McDermott also stepped into the shoes of Dr. Harmon a second time for a mega-reunion crossover episode entitled "Return to Murder House" in 2018's "AHS: Apocalypse." When it comes to the Murphy-verse, McDermott is definitely royalty.

Just recently, McDermott made his third appearance as the weepy psychiatrist for the season finale of "American Horror Stories," the new anthology-style spinoff set in the same universe as the flagship series. In the final episode, entitled "Game Over," we witness the supposed destruction of the Murder House. However, since the meta episode reveals that most of the action of the episode takes place inside a video game, fans were left questioning if anything actually impacted the overall "American Horror Story" canon. McDermott seems just as in the dark as anyone else, and he told Looper as much during a recent exclusive interview.

"Yeah, that's certainly the question," he said. "Did the house burn down or did it just burn down in the video game?"

McDermott went on, "Does that mean that Ben Harmon is still with us or did he finally get transported to someplace else? So it's an interesting question. I guess it leaves it open really to interpretation. But yeah, I mean I certainly couldn't play him being in a video game. I had to play it real because I was just like, how do you even do that? So it was just a blast to be back and just to go back and have my office and have that one therapy scene with Mercedes, I thought it was really fun and interesting. I was a patient suddenly, so I just think it was just a blast."

Whether or not we've seen the last of the infamous Murder House remains to be seen, and McDermott isn't entirely convinced that the doctor's story is over, either. "It's been 10 years now. So I think something tells me we haven't seen the last of Ben," he told Looper. As he well knows, the possibilities are endless in the supernatural world of "American Horror Story."

"Oh, anytime I get to play Ben is always interesting. I mean, it's been 10 years. Can you believe it?" he went on. "When I walked back into that house again, I just couldn't believe that it was a decade. All the memories that just washed over me. And there I was again in the same house as the same character. So that was fun. And to step into Ben's shoes again, he was such a tortured guy, so I really wanted to heighten his torture, his smoking and his drinking, and he's just trying to find some kind of relief at the end of the day because it's always so torturous for him. So it was fun to go back and to revisit him because it's like an old friend."

So would he be willing to come back if Murphy gave the green light? 

"If Ryan asks me, I always say 'yes,' doesn't matter what it is. So if it's 'American Horror Story: Condo,' I'm in." Seems like a sound policy to us.

"American Horror Stories" is streaming exclusively on Hulu