List of ''American Horror Story: Coven'' characters

Main cast

• Sarah Paulson as Cordelia Foxx
• Taissa Farmiga as Zoe Benson
• Frances Conroy as Myrtle Snow
• Evan Peters as Kyle Spencer
• Lily Rabe as Misty Day
• Emma Roberts as Madison Montgomery
• Denis O'Hare as Spalding
• Kathy Bates as Delphine LaLaurie
• Jessica Lange as Fiona Goode

Supporting cast

Main characters

Supporting characters

• Marie Laveau (portrayed by Angela Bassett) is the mighty high priestess of voodoo magic. The voodoo practitioners are one of the main adversaries of the Salem witches. She is unforgiving to those who wish to hurt her people. Marie is centuries old and alive in the present, owning a hairdressing salon called Cornrow City in the 9th Ward. She claims that the American Salem witches and their descendants were given their powers as a gift from the slave woman, Tituba, before the Salem Witch Trials. She previously signed a truce with then-Supreme Anna-Lee Leighton in the 1970s, but considers Fiona Goode to be her sworn enemy. She later considers the truce to have been broken upon the killing of her lover, Bastien. She sends Bastien to attack the Academy and after his death, her undead army. It is revealed in the fifth episode that she had broken the truce many years ago, hiring the witch hunter Hank to rid the world of Salem descendants. Marie is a powerful voodoo queen, adept at performing rituals of fertility, creating potions granting eternal life and mind control, using the power of transmutation, levitation, and necromancy. Marie is also the only voodooienne to survive Hank's massacre and subsequently seeks sanctuary amongst the witches of the Coven. She later reveals her longevity is the result of selling her soul to Papa Legba, a spiritual entity who serves as gatekeeper of sorts between worlds. In exchange for her eternal life, she must offer him a yearly sacrifice: the soul of an innocent child. After forming an unlikely alliance with Fiona Goode, the two launch a devastating attack on the witch hunter organization, ridding themselves of the threat once and for all. Marie is later attacked and dismembered by Delphine LaLaurie and her body parts are scattered across New Orleans. Unable to fulfil her repayments to Papa Legba, their contract is rendered void and the centuries-old voodoo priestess finally dies. She comes to her senses in a hellish afterlife, where she is instructed to torment the recently deceased Madame LaLaurie for all of eternity. At first she relishes the position, but when forced to torture the innocent LaLaurie daughters while their mother looks on she finds herself no better than her cruel nemesis. For her performance, Bassett was nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special, and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.
• Queenie (portrayed by Gabourey Sidibe) is a young inner-city witch who grew up in the foster system in Detroit, where she worked at a fast food restaurant. She is a descendant of Tituba, one of the first witches accused of practicing witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. She is a student at the Academy and is described as a human voodoo doll thanks to her ability to transfer pain and injuries inflicted on herself onto anyone else without actual harm coming to herself. Queenie proves a special case as it is speculated that she has voodoo and Salem blood running through her, and she is as much a Salem witch as well as a voodoo priestess. In the third episode, she is attacked by Bastien, and later dies from her internal injuries. Luckily, Fiona revives her. After Fiona forces Madame LaLaurie to be her personal slave, they form an unlikely friendship despite Delphine's racist tendencies. Queenie puts in a large effort to help Delphine overcome her bigotry and atone for her crimes. However, after LaLaurie tells Queenie that the other witches do not truly see her as their friend, she turns on the Salem witches, and turns over LaLaurie to Marie Laveau. Then, having left the Academy, she works at Cornrow City as a receptionist and voodoo assistant, helping Marie with various rituals. She is shot by Hank during the voodoo massacre, however she survives and manages to kill Hank by shooting herself in the mouth. It is later revealed that Queenie survived her wounds, demonstrating a complete resilience to the witch hunter's silver bullets. Her powers have subsequently flourished, and she demonstrates the ability to descend spiritually into the afterlife and return again and deploys potent telekinetic abilities in saving Misty Day from her entombment and later again during the Axeman's assault on the Coven. In the season finale, Queenie, along with Zoe, is appointed the position of Council member by the new Supreme, Cordelia. Queenie makes a return appearance in Hotel, and checks into the Hotel Cortez while staying in Los Angeles to attend a taping of The Price Is Right. Queenie finds herself attacked by vampire Ramona Royale and overwhelms her before being mortally wounded by James Patrick March, whose incorporeal existence is unaffected by her voodoo powers. This allowed Ramona Royale to drink her blood. She returns again in Apocalypse, and, similar to the dead residents in the Hotel Cortez, she turns into a ghost residing in her room playing cards with March. Cordelia tries to extract Queenie's ghost from the doors of the hotel, but she was unable to leave. However, Michael Langdon travels into the Cortez and he was able to emerge with her. For her performance in Coven, Sidibe was nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special.
• Nan (portrayed by Jamie Brewer) is a young witch who is a student at the Academy and is sometimes underestimated and dismissed by her peers as she is perceived to be less socially sophisticated and quick-thinking than they are – though in fact, she often picks up on things quicker than the other students, and people sometimes warm to her more quickly than the others. She has the ability of clairvoyance. She has a crush on the Academy's new next door neighbor, Luke. She found, or "heard" Delphine's thoughts from underneath her old estate. She assists in Zoe's interrogation with Spalding, since she is the only one who can actually hear him since his tongue has been cut off. Nan is a telepathic witch. She can read the minds of others and also see various details of their lives, and is hinted to possess precognitive and retrocognitive abilities. She refers to her mindreading as "hearing", as when the undead army invaded she couldn't "hear them". She gives details that she is quite promiscuous and has had a lot of sexual relations with many boys. Nan falls for the neighbor, Luke Ramsey, but her chances of happiness are routinely dashed by the interferences of her fellow witches and Luke's unstable mother, Joan – though Luke himself is quite charmed by her, clearly preferring her to Madison. When Luke is near-fatally shot in an attack by Hank, Nan uses her telepathic abilities to allow Luke and his mother to communicate, but at the same time uncovers Joan's murderous past. Joan later smothers a comatose Luke to keep her secrets buried and cremates his remains. When Nan finds out that Luke is dead and there is no chance of a resurrection, she demonstrates previously unseen telekinetic and mind control abilities, forcing Joan to consume a fatal quantity of bleach and leaves her dead on her own kitchen floor. Nan later approaches Marie Laveau after finding a planned child sacrifice crying in a cupboard and exchanges heated words with both the voodoo priestess and Fiona Goode. Later that evening, Nan is drowned by Marie and Fiona in a bathtub as an offering for Papa Legba. The sacrifice is grudgingly accepted and Nan's spirit happily goes into the afterlife with Legba, having had enough of the mortal coil.
• Joan Ramsey (portrayed by Patti LuPone) is a fundamentalist Christian, who moves next door to the Academy with her son, Luke. In "The Replacements", Madison and Nan visit her home in an attempt to seduce Luke. Joan then forces them to leave after Madison uses her telekinesis to send a knife flying at her, after which Madison sets her curtains on fire. Later that night, Joan confronts Fiona and warns Fiona of the consequences if the girls ever set foot on her property again. She is shot multiple times by witch hunters, but is revived by necromancer Misty Day. It is later revealed that she murdered her husband after he cheated on her. Joan is later killed by Nan, who uses the power of concilium to make Joan drink bleach.
• Luke Ramsey (portrayed by Alexander Dreymon) is the son of Joan, who moves next door to the Academy. He quickly attracts the young witches and is conflicted due to his religious background. In "Burn, Witch. Burn!", he comes to the Academy to gift Nan with some cookies in return for the cake, but is later locked in when Marie Laveau's undead attack. He thinks it as a prank so he goes out to coerce them to leave, but one manages to stab him in the back with a pickaxe and Nan comes outside to help him. The next day, it is mentioned that he is in Nan's room recovering. He is shot in the head by witch hunters, but survives and is hospitalized in a coma. During his coma, he is able to talk to both God and Nan. Joan later suffocates him with a pillow after he discovers she murdered his father.
• Hank Foxx (né Henry Renard) (portrayed by Josh Hamilton) is Cordelia's supporting husband. He is a contractor and has opposing beliefs to Fiona on his wife's best interests. In reality, he is a witch hunter hired by Marie Laveau, who has killed over nine Salem descendants in the last 3 years, including the pyrokinetic witch, Kaylee. Marie later threatens to kill Hank as he hasn't managed to clear the Academy of all its students and staff. He works under a witch hunting company known as the Delphi Trust, with his father being the CEO, though he has a constrained relationship with his father and is only delegated the task of gathering intelligence. He turns on the voodoo witches and conducts a shooting at Cornrow City. However, he is killed when Queenie shoots herself in the mouth, transferring her injuries onto him.
• The Axeman (Joe) (portrayed by Danny Huston) is a serial killer. He was given the moniker due to his weapon of choice. In 1919, he was lured into Miss Robichaux's Academy and killed by the Coven to stop his reign of terror. His spirit is discovered and brought between worlds by Zoe in the present day when she uses a ouija board to locate Madison. After threatening Cordelia, his spirit is released from the Academy by Zoe, and he locates Fiona in a bar. Fiona conspires to fake her own death with the Axeman by implanting him with a vision that he killed her. The Axeman is later killed by Zoe, Queenie, Madison and Misty who stab him to death in the same manner that he died in 1919. He appears in Fiona's personal Hell for all eternity. For his performance, Huston was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Guest Star in a Television Series.
• Papa Legba (portrayed by Lance Reddick) is a god of lore from the Haitian and New Orleans voodoo traditions. He is the gatekeeper of the spirit world as well as the god of travel, opportunity and luck. In "The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks", Marie Laveau reveals the source of her immortality to Fiona Goode: "To sell the soul to Papa Legba, an ancient voodoo spirit, and obey his commands no matter what once a year." In Marie's case, this is to present to him the life of an innocent, which started with her own baby centuries ago. He is later summoned by Fiona, who offers her soul in exchange for eternal youth, willing to do anything for it. Papa Legba turns down the offer as he claims she has "no soul to give." Afterwards, Marie and Fiona decide to get rid of Nan and offer her as sacrifice to Papa Legba, after drowning her in the bathtub. He reluctantly accepts the substitute for the newborn baby and warns Marie and Fiona of being "trouble" together. In "Go to Hell", Delphine LaLaurie hacks up Marie's body so that Marie can no longer honor her agreement with Legba. Queenie, after returning from her personal Hell, convinces Papa Legba to take away Marie Laveau and, as a result, LaLaurie's immortality.
• Cecily Pembroke (portrayed by Robin Bartlett) is the secretary of the Witches' Council. She is seen as very reserved and old fashioned, using a typewriter. Quentin mentions she has no charisma. It is unknown what Salem abilities she possesses as a witch. She and Quentin agree on burning Myrtle at the stake for the alleged blinding of Cordelia. After being resurrected, Myrtle murders her as revenge, claiming Pembroke had merely used the blinding as an excuse and had always wanted her gone in order to take control of the Council, and uses her eyes to give Cordelia her sight back.
• Quentin Fleming (portrayed by Leslie Jordan) is a member of the Witches' Council, Fiona helped make him a best-selling author. He is very flamboyant and sassy, making him a polar opposite of his fellow Council member Cecily Pembroke. He is also revealed to be an alcoholic with a penchant for rent boys. Myrtle murders him, along with Cecily, as revenge. One of his eyes is then used to give Cordelia her sight back.
• Chantal (portrayed by Dana Gourrier) is a young salon stylist for Marie at Cornrow City and a voodoo practitioner, assisting Marie in her various voodoo rituals and spells. She attempts to stop Marie from reigniting the conflict between the voodoo witches and Salem witches, but ultimately agrees on helping her. Marie mentions that she's quite young, saying that she wasn't even born when the voodoo practitioners and Salem witches were at war. She is shown working as a receptionist and hair stylist for the salon. Chantal's voodoo capability is unknown, but she is shown overseeing and helping in the rituals such as the voodoo fertility spell and assisting in Marie's necromancy spell to raise her undead army. She is the second member of Marie's tribe to be shot in Hank's massacre, presumably to death.

Minor characters

• Alicia Spencer (portrayed by Mare Winningham) is Kyle's "9th ward white-trash" mother. Raising Kyle as single mom, the flaky and abased Alicia became unhealthily dependent upon her young son for support by needing him to assume all of the adult "man of the house" responsibilities and take care of her, as well as sexually abusing him. She is suicidal and clingy after the death of her son, and Kyle kills her after his resurrection.
• Anna-Lee Leighton (portrayed by Christine Ebersole) is the previous generation's Supreme witch. She is portrayed as a competent, strong, and fair Supreme. As a Supreme, she was vital in forging the truce with Marie Laveau, ending a decades-long war between Voodoos and Witches. Anna-Lee felt Fiona would be a selfish and disastrous Supreme, and vowed not to allow Fiona to assume the mantle of Supreme. She is killed by Fiona in 1971 for her position, her body is never found, and her death is blamed on the Voodoos. It is unknown what specific abilities Anna-Lee had, but it is mentioned that she could perform all Seven Wonders, so it is speculated she was a very powerful witch.
• Archibald "Archie" Brener (portrayed by Grey Damon) is one of Kyle's frat brothers. He, along with some of his other friends, drug and gang rape Madison at a party after Madison rebuffs them. He is then later heavily injured when she flips their bus. Zoe comes to the hospital to see if Kyle is still alive, but sees it is Brener who survived and not Kyle. In turn, Zoe begins to fondle him and rapes him, killing him with her abilities to inflict a brain aneurysm.
• Bastien/Minotaur (portrayed by Ameer Baraka) is one of Madame LaLaurie's slaves. He was tortured in 1834 for allegedly attempting to seduce LaLaurie's daughter, Pauline, and had a bull's head put onto his body. He was also Marie Laveau's lover. He survived to the present day using her magic and was sent by Laveau to attack the Academy, injuring Queenie. He was stopped by Fiona, who sent his head back to Laveau in a box. As a Minotaur, Bastien possessed enhanced strength.
• Dr. Morrison (portrayed by James DuMont) is Cordelia's general physician, he tells Cordelia that the fertility drugs he has prescribed her have not worked. In "The Replacements", he reveals that Cordelia is completely infertile.
• Dr. David Zhong (portrayed by Ian Anthony Dale) is a top of the line biochemist who has developed a youth serum over the years. In "Bitchcraft", after he refuses to give Fiona an unlimited supply of the serum, she sucks the life out of him and kills him.
• Harrison Renard (portrayed by Michael Cristofer) is Hank's father and head of the Delphi Trust, a brotherhood organization created centuries ago to rid the world of witchcraft and voodoo. He is fond of his son, but finds and treats him as incompetent. Harrison bears the scars of Hank's first hunt; when the boy flinched with completing his duty, Harrison was forced to step in and complete the hunt for his son, his arm horribly burned in the process. Harrison is a greedy man, willing to ally with the witches to save his lucrative business and to use his son as a pawn for information. He is killed by Fiona, who slices his neck with an axe.
• Helen (portrayed by Lyndsay Kimball) was a student at the Academy, a few years older than Fiona. She bullied many of the younger witches, particularly Fiona. In a flashback, it shows the Axeman collapsed a bookcase on her after she forced Fiona to spill milk on herself. She is shown to display basic telekinetic abilities.
• Cora (portrayed by Tonea Stewart) is a salon hairdresser who works at Cornrow City. Although she was optimistic about the civil rights movement, her son was unfortunately lynched for being registered to an integrated white school in 1961. In the present time, she is seen again being pampered by Marie Laveau for the Mayor's Annual Halloween Ball. It is unknown if she was killed or present at the voodoo massacre.
• Chinwe (portrayed by Philip Fornah) is one of Marie's cohorts. He is always seen close to Marie, possibly a bodyguard, as when Fiona sets her wigs on fire, he and another man put them out. He breaks into Hank's hotel room in the midseason finale to give Hank Marie's warning. Later on, he is the first person shot down by Hank in his massacre against Marie's voodoo tribe.
• Gummy (portrayed by Darcel Moreno) is one of Marie's cohorts and also salon stylists. She regularly takes over for Marie whilst she tends to other matters. In the midseason finale, after Hank shoots down Chinwe and Chantal, she attempts to attack Hank with a small machete but is shot down violently.
• Kaylee (portrayed by Alexandra Breckenridge) is a woman whom Hank Foxx seduces, targets, and kills after learning she is a witch. She previously rejected Cordelia's offer to stay at the Academy, opting to repress her abilities while desperate to live a normal life and gain a family. Kaylee was shown with the ability of pyrokinesis, as Cordelia mentions she was involved in two arson incidents, and is shown setting fire to her fiancé in "The Axeman Cometh".
• Marie-Louise Pauline "Pauline" LaLaurie (portrayed by Ashlynn Ross) is Delphine's youngest daughter. In "Bitchcraft", she had sexual relations with Bastien, which in turn caused her to be severely punished by her mother. She is lynched along with her sisters and father.
• Marie-Louise Jeanne "Jeanne" LaLaurie (portrayed by Raeden Greer) pleads to her mother after being locked up in the basement.
• Marie-Delphine Lopez "Borquita" LaLaurie (portrayed by Jennifer Lynn Warren) is Delphine's eldest and most favored daughter. She reluctantly assists her mother with collecting the ingredients for her mother's beauty treatments. After her mother causes one of her suitors to run away in fear of her "Chamber of Horrors", she rounds up her sisters and plots to kill their mother. Unfortunately, their mother overhears and locks them up in the attic with the other tortured slaves. It is mentioned that they would be locked down there for one year and that Borquita, for being the ringleader, would have her mouth stuffed with feces on Christmas Day.
• Louis LaLaurie (portrayed by Scott Jefferson) is Madame Delphine LaLaurie's husband. He is aware and complicit in his wife's torturing of their slaves and children. His constant affairs are a few of the reasons for Delphine's obsession with making beauty salves from human pancreases, and his wife's desire to end Louis' philandering once and for all is what lead her to drinking Marie Laveau's potion of immortality. Louis was lynched along with his daughters after Marie captured Delphine.
• Stevie Nicks plays herself and makes her first appearance on the show in the episode "The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks". She is Misty's idol, and when Misty first meets her, she faints. Nicks, who has been nicknamed the "White Witch", is an actual witch in the series, and an acquaintance of Fiona Goode. Nicks plays two songs on the piano during the episode: "Rhiannon" and "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You?". She also appears in the season finale "The Seven Wonders" and opens the episode with the Fleetwood Mac song "Seven Wonders", after which she wishes the girls good luck before they perform the Seven Wonders test. She is set to return as herself in Apocalypse.^[2]
• Millie (portrayed by Grace Gummer) is a witch who attended the Academy in 1919 and organized the attack on the Axeman. She is observed as the leader of the girls. She reads out an excerpt from a letter that was infamously written by him in real life. She gives her fellow fearful sisters a speech about being not only powerful Salem descendants, but also suffragettes and that they will not be afraid of him in their own home. Millie has the power of teleportation and, with the use of Tarot cards, stabs the Axeman with her fellow Coven sisters.
• Nora Benson (portrayed by Arabella Field) is Zoe's mother who knew of her family's genetic affliction to Salem, as her grandmother was also a witch.
• Winifred (portrayed by Molly Conarro) is a witch who attended the Academy in 1919. She wears glasses and is well spoken. She asks Millie in relation to the Axeman's future attack if playing the Victrola would suffice. She also mentions that a jazz band would be more precious than the Hope Diamond on the night of his threatened attack on Tuesday night. She helps in killing the Axeman after he enters the Academy.
• Charles "Charlie" Taylor (portrayed by Kurt Krause) is the boyfriend of Zoe. He dies of an apparent brain aneurysm after having sex with Zoe for the first time.