‘American Sports Story’ Star Josh Rivera’s Exquisite Performance Will Force You to Rethink Aaron Hernandez

FX ‘s American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez could very well be the most chilling Ryan Murphy show yet, because every horrific, tragic, and depraved detail is drawn from real life. The first installment of American Sports Story digs into the rise and fall of football star Aaron Hernandez . After a troubled childhood in Connecticut, that included domestic violence and molestation, Hernandez was scooped up by the college football machine. At the tender age of seventeen, he was playing alongside Tim Tebow and Cam Newton at the University of Florida. He would go on to play for the New England Patriots until he was ultimately arrested and convicted for the murder of Odin Lloyd. He would eventually be found dead in his jail cell.

Hernandez’s infamous life story naturally became fodder for tabloids and true crime obsessives, but American Sports Story wants to go deeper. The FX series shows in unflinching detail how Hernandez was set up to fail, by his family, by football, and by his own fears of being pushed out of the closet. Josh Rivera is the man tasked with juggling all of the disparate elements that define Aaron Hernandez in American Sports Story .

“I think it’s very easy in hindsight to take a look at this story — and it is a tragedy — and it seems very cut and dry until you learn a little bit more,” American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez star Josh Rivera told Decider during an interview at Summer 2024 TCA . His riveting performance is what hooks you from the jump and forces you to reappraise your preconceptions about Hernandez.

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez’ On FX, A Scripted Series About The Patriots Star, His Murder Conviction, And Mental Health Struggles

“It’s a real iceberg, because there’s so many factors that go into it on the individual level,” Rivera explained. “But then there’s also factors that go into it as far as our cultural relationship with professional athletes and the celebrity that we endow them with.”

“I don’t know, I think about what it would be like if I was 18 years old and I just naturally was very built and had a lot of athletic talent, and a lot of people could use me. What that would do? The kinds of lessons that I would learn, and the kinds of lessons that I wouldn’t have to learn, that other people would.”

American Sports Story executive producer Nina Jacobson explained to Decider that level of thoughtfulness and maturity is partly what earned Rivera the role of Aaron Hernandez. Jacobson had observed the young actor’s “work ethic” first hand on the set of another one of her projects, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. However, Jacobson also revealed that Rivera essentially “stole the role” from everyone else in contention in his final audition in front of Ryan Murphy.

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“You know, there was no question after those auditions. Ryan was like, ‘That’s the guy!'” Jacobson told Decider. “Josh was already on his way to his car, and [Murphy] was like, ‘Get him to come back!'”

“He just has this dimension,” she continued, “he has the skill and he has the maturity to play all of these parts of this character who is a fractured person and has so many different parts that don’t always sit comfortably with each other of who he is.”

Throughout American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez , we see how Aaron struggles to reconcile all of his different urges, be they to lose himself in a haze of marijuana and violence or to join Tim Tebow (Patrick Schwarzenegger) at Bible study. Will his life be complete with childhood sweetheart Shayanna Jenkins (Jaylen Barron) or does he need the release of being with another man?

“There’s a big kind of motif in this show of him not being able to be himself around the team and around a lot of his coaches…he feels like he’s being used by a lot of different people,” Rivera said. “In his same sex relationship in the show, it’s the person that he feels like he can be himself around.”

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“There’s a real relief in that, but then on the other side of it, the stakes are very high that nobody knows. As far as he sees it, it could blow up his life. It’s the power of perception, too, from his point of view, because who knows how bad it would have been if that secret got out? But as far as he knew, it was absolute worst case scenario.”

Complicating matters even more, as American Sports Story explores, is Aaron’s relationship with Shayana Jenkins.

“I feel like he did have a connection with Shayana, you know, in his own way,” Jaylen Barron said. “It was a real connection. It was real love. And I hope that people are able to witness that, the kind of love he had for her and the kind of love she had for him.”

“Yeah, I agree with you there,” Rivera said. “I think there was a real love there.”

But then Rivera added, “I think it probably got really complicated in his inner life.” And if there’s one place where American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez — and Rivera’s spectacular performance — shines, it’s in forcing us to consider Hernandez’s inner life.

American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez premieres tonight on FX at 10 PM ET/PT and will be streaming on Hulu tomorrow morning.

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