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Practically a decade after Aaron Hernandez was convicted of killing semi-professional soccer participant Odin Lloyd, the boyfriend of his fiancée’s sister, in a extremely publicized trial, the previous New England Patriot is getting the limited-series remedy in a brand new installment of Ryan Murphy’s buzzy “American Story” franchise.
Primarily based on the Boston Globe and Wondery podcast “Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc.” and tailored by Stuart Zicherman, “American Sports activities Story,” which premieres Tuesday on FX, chronicles Hernandez’s meteoric rise to NFL superstardom and his beautiful fall from grace after his arrest and eventual conviction of first-degree homicide in 2015. Days after being acquitted in a second trial on prices of capturing two males in a automotive close to a Boston nightclub, Hernandez died by suicide inside a Massachusetts most safety jail in 2017.
“We are likely to, in our tradition, label folks as one factor. Aaron Hernandez was a monster, a killer — and that’s simply the best way folks talked about him. However nobody’s born a monster or a killer,” Zicherman instructed NBC Information.
“American Sports activities Story” makes an attempt to contextualize the occasions main as much as Hernandez’s violent crime, Zicherman added, whereas elevating bigger questions concerning the complicity of a “sports-devouring” tradition that permits dangerous conduct by defending high athletes from being held accountable for his or her actions.
“If it weren’t for our want to see those that we like win, they wouldn’t really feel so brazen of their actions,” stated Josh Andrés Rivera, who performs Hernandez from age 16 till his demise at 27. “I believe it’s essential to observe the present with the lens that there’s some societal culpability in how this stuff occur and the way folks contribute to the making and breaking and the rise and fall of various outstanding figures.”
Murphy and his co-producers Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson first approached Zicherman about adapting Hernandez’s life story for an upcoming season of “American Crime Story.” However whereas previous seasons of “Crime Story” — which have examined the homicide trial of O.J. Simpson, the assassination of Gianni Versace and the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal — have explored the cultural affect of these historic occasions on American society at massive, Hernandez’s case represented a means into a particular dialog about sports activities tradition, prompting Zicherman to create a brand new extension of Murphy’s franchise.
As a sports activities fan, Zicherman thought he knew Hernandez’s story. However early in his analysis course of, Zicherman listened to tapes of Hernandez’s jailhouse cellphone calls, which the Boston Globe’s Highlight crew had acquired throughout its investigation, and realized that he spoke and acted in a different way with every member of his internal circle.
Hernandez’s inherently — and, at occasions, contradictory — “chameleonic” nature then served as a jumping-off level for Zicherman, who was eager to make clear the elements of Hernandez that most individuals are nonetheless unaware of. Over the course of 10 episodes, “Sports activities Story” explores Hernandez’s struggles with sexuality; how his upbringing in a violent family formed his disposition on and off the sector; and the way his mind accidents had been exacerbated by his drug use, leading to a posthumous prognosis of the degenerate mind illness persistent traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.
Zicherman stated he and his writers explored the disparate strands of Hernandez’s private {and professional} identities, however he stated all of them boil all the way down to a seek for authenticity.
“It is a story about somebody who may by no means actually be his genuine self due to the physique he was born into, due to the world he was born into, due to how good of an athlete he was,” he stated. “All of us, at completely different occasions of our lives, try to determine who we’re, and for him, sadly, there was no room for that. So you find yourself with numerous secrets and techniques, and I believe these secrets and techniques turn into punishing over time.”
Rivera, who’s greatest identified for his starring roles in Steven Spielberg’s remake of “West Facet Story” and final yr’s “Starvation Video games” prequel, stated he explored how these secrets and techniques would possibly manifest for Hernandez.
“One thing that I thought of loads was how demanding it could be to have any aspect of your self that you simply really feel like you must run away from or repress, and what that may do to an individual’s psyche normally,” he stated. “An enormous a part of how the present explores it’s simply feeling like this character belongs nowhere, or seems like he belongs nowhere.”
Within the years since his demise, Hernandez’s sexuality has been the topic of a lot hypothesis, with a few of his family members claiming he had come out as homosexual. His highschool teammate Dennis SanSoucie alleged he and Hernandez had a secret sexual relationship as youngsters. The prosecution in Hernandez’s second homicide trial even thought of elevating the problem of his sexual orientation in open court docket. However regardless of reportedly feeling attraction to different males, Hernandez reportedly had a historical past of happening anti-gay tirades.
“An individual struggling together with his sexuality within the NFL when Aaron performed in 2010, 2011, wouldn’t have been tolerated, not one bit,” Zicherman stated. “It wasn’t tolerated within the Florida locker room. It wasn’t tolerated within the NFL. Perhaps that’s completely different now, I hope. I don’t know. However I do know that for him, there was no room for him to discover his id in any respect.”
Within the collection, Hernandez falls for a person named Chris (Jake Cannavale) whereas publicly relationship his future fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins (Jaylen Barron).
Zicherman, who nonetheless doesn’t “essentially consider” the soccer star would select to volunteer such an intimate secret to these round him, identified that Hernandez by no means publicly declared his sexuality, however the showrunner additionally didn’t need to painting the specter of being outed as justification for Hernandez’s violent actions.
“He had a very sturdy love for Shayanna, and he constructed a household together with her,” Zicherman stated. “Perhaps he felt extra genuine in sure relationships with males, however I believe he was figuring it out. I don’t suppose folks know what number of secrets and techniques he had, and to dwell with the strain of that should’ve been insufferable whereas attempting to place up a public persona.”
In every of the intimate scenes, Rivera felt it was essential for his model of Hernandez “to have this undercurrent of discomfort, whatever the gender of the person who he’s pursuing or exploring with.” The actor deliberately selected to make Hernandez’s intimate scenes with SanSoucie within the first episode, when their exploration of sexuality continues to be tinged with a youthful innocence, as playful as doable. However as Hernandez’s profile rises and he begins to have extra to lose, “I wished there to be this bizarre, virtually ominous, uncomfortable veil over it. There’s a piece of him that’s simply not ever actually absolutely keen to simply be,” he defined.
Rivera famous that “Sports activities Story” is just not supposed to justify or defend Hernandez’s actions, however quite reveals the confluence of things that would have conceivably led him to commit homicide.
Zicherman speculated that the normalization of violence, paired with the toxically masculine beliefs that his father instilled in him, finally, wreaked havoc on Hernandez’s life, and his drug use solely contributed to his mania and paranoia. After dropping his father at an early age, “I believe he was at all times on the lookout for a father determine,” Zicherman stated. “In soccer, since you’re surrounded by coaches, brokers and those that put their arms round you and handle you, I believe it was a world the place folks had been promising him a fatherly function they weren’t able to ship.”
The forged and artistic crew of “Sports activities Story” selected to not attain out to any of the real-life folks concerned in Hernandez’s case, as a substitute counting on the in depth analysis from Boston Globe journalists. However they acknowledge that there’s an inherent danger in retelling a narrative that’s nonetheless comparatively contemporary within the cultural dialog and will power the households of the victims to reopen a painful chapter that they’d quite hold closed.
Rivera admitted he’s feeling “a bit of bit nervous” however “cautiously optimistic” concerning the reception of the collection.
“My ultimate dream state of affairs is that everyone feels comparatively honored, and the core concept of what we’re attempting to get throughout with our present is obtained. I’m hoping that it’s obtained in a constructive means, nevertheless it doesn’t at all times work out that means,” he stated.
Whereas “Sports activities Story” is a fictionalized model of a real story, the writers endeavored to “seize the essence of every character,” Zicherman stated. “We tried to jot down some scenes and a few moments for the victims and the victims’ households and attempt to signify them. However you do your very, best possible to remain as near what you consider is the essence of the story and hope it doesn’t offend or harm anybody.”
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