Josh Rivera bulked up and brought Aaron Hernandez to life for American Sports Story.
Rivera, 29, plays the late NFL player in Ryan Murphy’s forthcoming miniseries, which is set to premiere via FX on September 17. Nearly a month before the show’s first episode is scheduled to air, fans got a first look at what to expect — and things are going to be intense.
“You don’t know the kind of thoughts I have. It’s like a demon,” Rivera as Hernandez said in the American Sports Story trailer released on Wednesday, August 14. “What if God made me this way?”
The show is set to follow Hernandez’s football career as a tight end with the University of Florida Gators to his stint in the NFL with the New England Patriots from 2010 to 2013. His personal life, prison stint and eventual death will be covered in the series as well.
Rivera hit the gym before shooting on the football field for the show and was completely tatted (with presumably fake ink) making his transition into Hernandez complete.
Along with Rivera, American Sports Story will star Patrick Schwarzenegger (Tim Tebow), Lindsay Mendez (Tanya Singleton), Tony Yazbeck (Urban Meyer), Thomas Sadoski (Brian Murphy) and Norbert Leo Butz (Bill Belichick), among others.
“Nobody’s questioning your athletic ability Aaron, they’re questioning your character,” Sadoski as Murphy said in the trailer.
The limited series, which was announced late last year, was based on the 2018 Boston Globe and Wondery podcast titled “Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc.”
Hernandez was arrested for the murder of Odin Lloyd in June 2013, amid his NFL career, and was convicted two years later. In April 2015, he was found guilty of first-degree murder. Subsequently, Hernandez was charged for the 2012 double homicide of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado but was acquitted in April 2017. Days after his acquittal, Hernandez was found dead in his prison cell by his bedsheets. He was 27 at the time of his death, which has since been ruled a suicide.
Rivera’s casting as Hernandez was announced in November 2023.
“It’s a story with a lot of factors, as I’m sure everybody with familiarity towards it knows. There’s the mental health factor, the crime factor, the money, the fame, all of these things,” the West Side Story alum told Deadline following the casting news. “As an actor, it’s kind of like it’s a dream to have something so, so juicy to dive into it.”
