SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from the first three episodes of “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette,” now streaming on FX and Hulu.
Born in Sun Valley, Idaho, Dree Hemingway spent most of the ’90s living between her home state and her mother’s film sets. Her memories of the decade consist of piles of Old Navy clothing, long, unbrushed hair, sitting outside in the backyard with her family and listening to the Beatles.
“That time period, the ‘90s, everything about it is so iconic to me,” says Hemingway in an interview earlier this week. Now 38, she’s made her first major television appearance, co-starring in Ryan Murphy’s “Love Story” anthology series, set in the decade that Hemingway considers to be “kind of perfect.”
Chronicling the romance of John F. Kennedy Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly) and Carolyn Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon), “Love Story” spotlights the couple’s whirlwind courtship and ultimate tragic demise. While the focus remains on the central couple, both characters have relationship side-plots of their own, Bessette with a doorman turned Calvin Klein model (Noah Fearnley) and Kennedy with movie star Daryl Hannah, played by Hemingway.
Kennedy and Hannah had a highly publicized, on-again, off-again relationship for more than five years, until they split for good in 1994, shortly before he began dating Bessette, his future wife. Hemingway makes it clear that “Love Story” is not supposed to be a biography, but rather an imaginative interpretation of what happened behind closed doors in the lives of what was, at the time, America’s most famous family. And her version of Daryl is a tribute to an actress she considers an “icon.”
Hemingway is no stranger to show business. Her mother, Mariel Hemingway, began acting at 14, receiving a Golden Globe nomination for her breakout role in “Lipstick,” (1976), and then an Oscar nomination for Woody Allen’s 1979 film, “Manhattan.” (While Mariel Hemingway and Hannah never acted together, the two are connected through the “First Daughter” TV movie franchise, in which Hannah replaced Hemingway in the 2000 sequel, “First Target,” due to scheduling conflicts.) There’s also the most famous Hemingway — Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning writer, Ernest — whose life is the subject of Dree Hemingway’s upcoming project, “The Hemingway Files,” where she is set to executive produce her great-grandfather’s story.
Before entering the entertainment industry, Hemingway spent several years working as a model, walking in runway shows for prominent fashion houses such as Gucci, Valentino and Chanel, among others. She made her film debut in 2011 with Sean Baker’s “Starlet,” going on to appear predominantly in independent films, including “While We’re Young” and “It Happened in L.A.”
Her “Love Story” character is a somewhat meta role for Hemingway, playing a beautiful, blonde actress who sees those close to her heavily monitored and criticized in the media. Here, Hemingway speaks with Variety about John and Daryl’s relationship, how she transformed into the beloved actress —and paying respect to their real lives.
Paul Anthony Kelly as John F. Kennedy Jr. and Dree Hemingway as Daryl Hannah.
Courtesy of Eric Liebowitz/FX.
When did you first hear about the show? What drew you to it?
I read that Ryan Murphy was signing on to do a Carolyn Bessette and JFK Jr. project. And I was like, “That is something I want in on.” That time period, the ’90s, everything about it is so iconic to me.
What was the process of auditioning for the role of Daryl like?
Once I got the audition for Daryl, the process was, “How do I transform into being her in a matter of four days before having to turn this audition in?” I have an incredible dialect coach who I share with Alessandro Nivola [Calvin Klein], who is a genius and very helpful. Her voice is a lot lower, she’s a little bit more whisper-y, and she comes from Chicago. I was watching interviews, studying her mannerisms and how she held herself and how she spoke. Then they said, “You got it,” and I was like, “Hey, now we’re gonna really deep dive into this.”
Daryl Hannah was a huge movie star in the ’80s and ’90s. Did you watch any of her movies growing up?
I have so many memories of Daryl Hannah. It’s also funny, because growing up, people would stop my mother in the airport and say, “Daryl!” So there’s that intertwining. “Splash” is so iconic, and “Steel Magnolias” and “Wall Street” to name a few. “Summer Lovers!” She’s an icon.
Was there any hesitation or intimidation on your part to step into the role of someone so well-known?
I wouldn’t say I was intimidated — I just really know how sensitive is to play somebody who is so famous and still alive. It was more so wanting to show what made me love her the most, which is how much heart she has, and how kind she is as a person.
Have you heard anything from the real Daryl? Have you reached out to her?
I sent a note [saying] how much I loved her, and what an honor it was to play her, but I haven’t heard from her, which is totally, totally fine and I have no expectations from that. I just hope that if at some point she wants to watch, she’s happy. This whole project was made with so much love, and it is a love story that isn’t supposed to be factual. [That’s] just a very hard point that we all want to come across, is that this is based on real people, and it’s dramatized because we don’t know exactly what happened behind closed doors.
There’s an air of anticipation building up to Daryl’s first appearance at the end of Episode 1. Jackie Kennedy is making it very obvious that she doesn’t approve of Daryl, and John has multiple conversations about her throughout the episode. How do you think viewers are going to react to her re-appearance in John’s life and her overall character?
You have the whole moment of, “Oh, John and Carolyn have fallen for each other,” and then it’s like, “Oh shit.” Daryl has shown up, and it’s an interjection of [John and Carolyn’s] love story, in a sense. But I guess you have to end a relationship to get into the other relationship.
John and Daryl have a pretty tumultuous romance in the show. Did you consult anyone about their dynamic or draw from any real-life examples?
Even though I’m playing Daryl, I’m playing a character. A lot of it is imagination, so for me, it was really important to show how much I think they did really love each other, but I just think [she] wasn’t the one. I can only draw from heartbreak in my own life and having relationships that didn’t work out or really loving somebody, and that feeling of wanting to connect.
In the second episode, arguably Daryl’s most prominent episode, there’s a lot of tension between her and John. There’s some friction at his PBS shoot, and later, there’s this big fight at home. How do you think she reads John’s behavior through all of this?
I think there’s a [sense of] wanting more. As women, we’re not dumb, I think that we know when there’s a disconnect. [She] wants to feel out what’s going on, without actually saying “What exactly is going on?” — until she finally does. At the end of a relationship, there’s a lot of turmoil, there’s push and pull, and you have so much history together that there’s resentments that are built up in a relationship.
At one point during the argument, Daryl tells John his “mind has been someplace else.” Do you think she was able to sense his attachment to Carolyn?
I don’t know if she sensed that there was something else going on; I think she just felt like he was disconnecting from her. I wanted to play Daryl’s character that way, where it was is like, “Where have you gone? What’s going on?” There was such a divide with his family not liking her, and maybe that was the reason that he was pulling away from her? Maybe John was thinking, “Oh, I’ve met this person. Oh, fuck, I’ve met the person.” And then my character is more like, “Why doesn’t your family like me?” and thinking that’s the reason he is pulling away from her and not settling down.
There’s this incredibly awkward family dinner that takes place in that episode, and Daryl is convinced that John’s family doesn’t like her.
It was very much wanting to go in like, “How do I please everybody here? If I’m just quiet and I’m wearing the right clothes, will you accept me? The devastation when Jackie doesn’t show up is just not feeling good enough. [That reference to Marilyn Monroe] was written in terms of I’m another “blonde threat” kind of thing. She’s really trying to figure out why they don’t like her, and why can’t she be accepted.
Did you wish that you got to have more happy scenes for Daryl and John, opposed to just scenes of them fighting or not getting along?
I would love to have happy scenes! But with [the fighting] you can see the turmoil that John has with wanting to be the good guy with Daryl, his mom, his family, and Carolyn. Would I like to have had these scenes? Sure, but I think it’s perfect as is. Ultimately, this is [John and Carolyn’s] story and and we know that this is gonna happen.
She leaves and goes back to California, and then her dog Hank dies running onto the streets of New York! Was that the nail in the coffin for their relationship?
I think she loved Hank. One of the things I really love about the real Daryl Hannah is her love of animals, and I think Hank was her first child. For the character, it was more so “How could this happen?” If you loved me, you wouldn’t let this happen.
Daryl’s last appearance on the show is in Episode 3, at Jackie’s wake. She joins John when he addresses the public from the balcony and tries to take his hand. Was that her looking to to get back together?
I think it was one last try. Are you gonna let me in? Can I be here for you?
We know what happened to the real Daryl Hannah after her breakup with JFK Jr. But for your character, what do you hope for her off-screen life?
I only hope that she finds somebody who just loves her as much as she loves them. I’m not taking away from John loving her, but I just want her to find her love story.
You also come from a pretty well-known family. Did you relate to the story at all in the aspects of being in the public eye a lot?
The only way I can relate is that people make up their own versions of things. We’re all really normal at the end of the day, we all have our own insecurities. We all have our own things that aren’t the smiling glamor shots and we’re all human. It’s such a sensitive thing, because Daryl is very much a character, but [also] I’m playing a real person. It’s very fine line, how do I play this person and this character with heart?
You’ve emphasized a couple of times that it’s a fictional retelling, based off real events. How do you feel about criticism of the show being based on real people?
We don’t know what happened behind closed doors. We don’t know — besides everything that everybody else has seen in pictures and books. Their lives have been very highly researched, and there’s the delicate balance of being very respectful to these real people.
This interview has been edited and condensed.