The first season charts the rise and fall of NFL superstar Hernandez and explores the connections between different aspects of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide and their legacy in sports and American culture.
Rivera (bottom left photo) has been cast as Aaron Hernandez (large photo left), while Patrick Schwarzenegger (bottom right photo) appears as former NFL star Tim Tebow (large photo right). The season is based on the Boston Globe and Wondery podcast Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc.
The project reunites Schwarzenegger with Murphy. The actor's first television role was in Murphy's Scream Queens. Schwarzenegger has a recurring role on Prime Video's The Boys spinoff Gen V. He has also had roles on Prime Video's The Terminal List and starred in Max's limited series The Staircase. On the feature film side, Schwarzenegger was recently seen in Stowaway.
Rivera will soon star in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. He recently played Chino in Steven Spielberg's adaptation of West Side Story. He also played in the original company of Hamilton's first national tour.
Both castings are not new developments that occurred during the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. They were already done in early 2023 but never confirmed by FX. Deadline approached the network and producing studio 20th Television about both in January-early February. It is believed the deals were closed around that time or shortly afterwards.
“We have a fairly complete set of scripts for American Sports Story by Stu Zicherman,” FX chairman John Landgraf said at TCA on January 12, noting at the time that the series is “heading toward production.”
That has of course been delayed by the WGA strike, which started in May, and the SAG-AFTRA strike, which has been going on since July.
Tebow and Hernandez were longtime friends going back before their time in the NFL. They were onetime teammates at the University of Florida, where they won the 2008 SEC Championship and went on to beat Oklahoma for the BCS Championship title. Tebow was known for looking out for Hernandez while on the team, including protecting Hernandez from being kicked off over marijuana use and helping to diffuse a situation in a bar when Hernandez got into an altercation with the bar manager. The two first met when Tebow hosted Hernandez on a recruiting trip to UF before he graduated high school.
Zicherman coproduceert met Murphy, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Alexis Martin Woodall en Brad Falchuk. Hernan Lopez en Marshall Lewy van Wondery produceren samen met Linda Pizutti Henry en Ira Napoliello van de Boston Globe.
