At the beginning of Aaron Hernandez’s season “History of American Sport” Another installment of “American Crime Story” was planned. That changed when the team behind it began talking about launching a sports spin-off of the FX franchise. Showrunner and executive producer Stu Zicherman knew immediately that the Hernandez case would be the perfect story for this new tale.
“Some people think of this story as a sports story. I think it’s an American story because it speaks to big themes about violence, toxic masculinity, sexuality, how we praise our athletes and put them on a pedestal, and then when they do something terrible, we throw them in the trash,” Zicherman told The Wrap.
Whether it’s American Horror Story, American Crime Story, American Sports Story or the upcoming American Love Story, the series’ themes and ideas transcend its central story to reflect “the American story is” the broader fabric of American culture, Zicherman said.
“From the beginning, when we started making American Crime Story, we wanted to create a show that reflected American audiences and American culture. That’s why we started with ‘The People vs. OJ Simpson,’” executive producer Brad Simpson told TheWrap. “We wanted to take what they knew from the tabloid headlines, go behind the scenes and show them firsthand what it’s like to leave very flawed individuals when they connect with complex systems of power.”
But as the series evolved, the team wanted to move away from stories that focused solely on crime.
“I think with Aaron Hernandez being the first season of sports stories, he’s really going to accomplish that,” Simpson said. “If you’ve heard of this story, you’ve probably only heard of the sensational elements. But really, when you break it down, this is a guy who wasn’t born a killer. He had a lot of people along the way who aided and abetted him in what turned out to be the disastrous end to his life.”
In the mid-2000s and early 2010s, Aaron Hernandez was a football enthusiast. While at the University of Florida, Hernandez was part of a team that earned All-American honors and was considered one of the best tight ends in the country. Despite concerns about his past and size, Hernandez was selected as a fourth-round pick by the New England Patriots in 2010. Three years later, Hernandez’s life and legacy were shattered when he was arrested for the murder of Odin Lloyd. Hernandez was then cut by the Patriots, who went through a lengthy legal battle as two other murders and a shooting involving Hernandez came to light. In 2017, Hernandez was found dead in his jail cell, a suicide.
In telling this story, the “American Sports History” team had to walk a tightrope. On one hand, child abuse, homophobia, racism, a lot of media attention, exploitative people in his life and brain injuries from the sport that made him famous all contributed to this sad story. On the other hand, the series was careful never to empathize with Hernandez.
“There were a lot of ramps where people could see the direction he was going. But his performance on the field was so incredible that there was no interference off the field,” executive producer Nina Jacobson told TheWrap. “This is a tragedy. After all, his actions are his. He is responsible for his actions.”
“We concluded that Aaron is a murderer. We will not forgive him for this,” Zicherman said. “But by the same token, no one is born a murderer… This is one of those unique cases where you can trace what went wrong and it wasn’t all his fault.”
The first season of “American Sports Story” is based on it. “Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football, Inc.” — a podcast and feature series created in 2018 by the award-winning Boston Globe Spotlight Team. Even as journalists investigated the story, they found it difficult to decide how much sympathy they should have for Hernandez.
Patty Wen, who served as the publication’s editor, said: “When we dealt with this, we always struggled with the sympathy and empathy we had for him, considering all the harm and deaths he caused.” Team Spotlight is investigating, TheWrap said.
This balancing act was also something actor Josh Rivera kept in mind when portraying the soccer star. To prepare for the role, Rivera studied Boston Globe reports and Hernandez’s public interviews.
“I was trying not to completely copy or imitate (Hernandez) because at the end of the day it’s not a documentary. It’s inspired by real events,” Rivera told TheWrap. “I wanted to make sure that if there’s a right way to do it, we’re doing it right. Because what the show does well is not letting Aaron get away with anything… That’s my job as an actor: to look at the research, to look at this role and to empathize with this character.”
