[This story contains spoilers from the eighth episode of American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez, “Odin.”]
Filming Odin Lloyd’s homicide in episode eight of the FX sequence American Sports activities Story: Aaron Hernandez was significantly difficult for Josh Rivera who performs Aaron Hernandez, the one-time New England Patriots NFL star who was later convicted for the homicide of Lloyd, and who died of an obvious suicide in jail. Taking the lifetime of Lloyd, the boyfriend of Shaneah Jenkins, the sister of Hernandez’s fiancée Shayana, was personally devastating to the actor. Not solely had Hernandez and Lloyd frolicked just a few instances and, by most definitions, have been pals, they have been additionally potential in-laws.
“To have your life taken, one thing about that settled with me differently,” says Rivera of reenacting the heinous homicide. “Once you’re speaking about true crime, there’s this barrier we put up that sort of separates ourselves from the truth of that, and one thing about taking pictures that scene actually settled in me the gravity of what that was.”
J. Alex Brinson, who performs Lloyd, labored exhausting to make sure that the gravity of Lloyd shedding his life hit exhausting. “The principle thrust that I held onto in constructing, creating this character and this position, was the essential human want and have to reside and to need to reside a full life to succeed in your full potential.”
Although born in Saint Croix within the U.S. Virgin Islands, Lloyd grew up principally in a tough space of Dorchester in Boston. To assist seize who Lloyd was, Brinson says, “I watched interviews along with his sister, with [Shaneah] his mother and I attempted to permit these issues to infuse [my portrayal of] how he moved.”
Like Hernandez, Lloyd performed soccer, however not for the NFL. As an alternative, he was with the Boston Bandits in a semi-pro league with goals of in the future being within the NFL. So it’s solely pure he would look as much as Hernandez who had achieved that dream. However the “Odin” episode doesn’t start with soccer. Earlier than Lloyd hits the display, his Caribbean heritage is honored with a meals shot earlier than a girl emerges as she prepares a household meal. As a result of “Hey, Ma” are Lloyd’s first phrases, it’s clear from the very starting that he’s beloved and means one thing to somebody.
Affirming Lloyd’s humanity was of paramount significance to director Steven Canals, who’s finest identified for Pose, which he conceived and later developed with American Sports activities Story boss Ryan Murphy, particularly as a person of colour himself. “Aaron, as , was half Latin, and the oldsters that he murdered have been all males of colour. And so I believe there’s this added ingredient to it as nicely, once we take into consideration race and sophistication and the way that impacts this,” says Canals.
Previous to working with American Sports activities Story, Canals had already listened to the Gladiator podcast, the sequence’ supply materials from The Boston Globe and Wondery. He additionally learn the 2018 guide The Fact About Aaron: My Journey To Perceive My Brother by Jonathan Hernandez, higher often called D.J. Hernandez. In some ways, Pose, which handled a large spectrum of points, together with HIV and loss of life, helped Canals clearly talk that to Brinson and, in flip, the viewers. “The conversations we have been having on set whereas we have been producing [Pose] was all the time in an effort to ensure [the actors] have been okay, as a result of we have been asking them to go to very scary, emotional locations. So in that means, [Pose] ready me to work on American Sports activities Story in that, once more, I used to be having to have actually essential, actually intense conversations with the solid.
“From the very starting, from the very first day that we met, I pulled him apart earlier than we ever shot a single scene, and I stated, ‘what’s actually essential to me is that you just and I discover a strategy to honor Odin’s life. I don’t need this story, and definitely I don’t need this specific episode, to really feel exploitative. I need to ensure that we acknowledge that this was an actual man, an actual Black man who existed, who was murdered.’
“And so any scene that I filmed with J. Alexander [sic] in it, we all the time took a second to only step apart, one-on-one, simply to have a fast dialog, and I all the time made positive to test in with him [and ask] ‘how are you feeling? How’s your coronary heart?’ and create house for him to articulate how he was feeling. As a result of what we have been asking him to do was actually intense and, in some ways, was actually triggering and actually scary.”
The identical was true for Rivera. “I bear in mind having conversations with Josh [saying], ‘It’s going to be actually powerful to guide as much as these moments the place Aaron kills Odin.’”
Brinson, who’s married to Lindsay Mendez who performs Aaron’s trusted older cousin Tanya Singleton, labored exhausting to make sure his realizing Odin’s destiny as an actor wouldn’t disrupt what was on display. As an alternative, he stored Odin’s mindset of he and Aaron being pals, So, in his thoughts, says Brinson as Odin, “This was the start of one thing nice for me, and we have been going to construct from a household standpoint, from being brothers and in legal guidelines, after which Aaron simply went loopy. I felt that there was one thing not proper with him, however I didn’t assume he was going to take my life.” He additionally performed thoughts tips on himself and he believes going by means of an emotionally darkish interval personally additionally helped him seize Odin’s humanity.
Feelings apart, manufacturing challenges loomed massive. “As a filmmaker, that was arguably the toughest day of filming I’ve ever had. It was actually powerful,” says Canals. “I consider we shot that in February, like the start of February, in New Jersey. So it’s freezing and the episode is meant to be going down in Massachusetts, in the summertime.”
Taking pictures within the freezing chilly wasn’t the primary impediment, nonetheless. “The evening earlier than we have been imagined to movie, there was an enormous rainstorm,” he shares. “We get in and the whole lot is simply soup. It’s muddy as a result of it rained, and we needed to maintain shifting. There was lots of work that needed to be finished. We needed to take about three hours out of our shoot time to create one thing that the actors might stroll on that wasn’t mud, in order that they wouldn’t simply drop into the bottom.”
However then there have been different challenges. “I believe we have been filming that at most likely, like eight, 9 o’clock at evening, however at this level, the automobile acquired caught within the mud. On three separate events, we needed to have a tow truck come out to drag the automobile [out] as a result of it stored getting caught. The actors solely had a restricted variety of costume adjustments, however there was mud in every single place, which clearly impacted how I shot a few of these moments. At a sure level, it was like, I’m simply going to must shoot from the waist up, as a result of their sneakers and the underside of their pants have been simply utterly muddy. So, it was powerful.”
Via all of it, Canals says each Brinson and Rivera, who share a real affection for one another, stayed utterly current. “It was painful,” says Brinson. “Josh needed to do the ending of life, and I needed to need to reside.”
For Canals, “Soiled Ache,” episode seven, was key to creating “Odin,” episode eight, really feel so actual. And that begins with the script, he insists. “They have been actually sturdy and did an incredible job of capturing and highlighting Aaron’s paranoia. It isn’t by probability that, within the top of his drug use changing into extra frequent and extra intense, that you then see this paranoia get actually heightened. It’s lots of Sherrod [Hernandez’s one-time street friend and arguably earlier enabler whom he shot at close range but found out later didn’t kill]. You could have Sherrod making threats [via text]. And also you simply had this confluence of lots of completely different pressures all stacking up for Aaron on the identical time, along with attempting to be a great accomplice to Shayana and to be a father to his daughter. And he’s additionally nonetheless an enormous NFL star. Now he’s acquired this man who’s saying, ‘I’m going to show you for who you actually are.’ And what does one particular person do when all these pressures exist? Within the seventh episode, he, in his thoughts, will get to flee to California as a result of he has to have this surgical procedure, and, finally, all he does is use himself persevering with to spiral.”
In step with that, the final shot of episode seven is of Hernandez standing in entrance of his private arsenal in a secret house his fiancée has no information of, presumably ready for battle.
“The reality is that Aaron’s by no means actually talking for himself as a result of he’s now not alive. And so for me, I used to be actually attempting to get deeper into his psyche, but in addition to grasp how the individuals who knew him finest associated to him, who was the person who they knew. As a result of I believe who we’re behind closed doorways goes to be completely different from who we’re front-facing and publicly,” says Canals. “I understood him to be actually sophisticated and to be somebody who was tortured. However is that correct? I don’t know. I don’t have the power to speak to him, and so for me, I simply was attempting to get an understanding of all of the variations of Aaron that I understood to exist.”
Episode eight actually units the stage for the sequence, not simply its remaining two episodes. “That is the second that adjustments the whole lot,” says Canals. “And it’s attention-grabbing as a result of it’s not that Aaron hadn’t already dedicated crimes and hadn’t finished issues. Except for the truth that it’s Odin’s loss of life that finally precipitated his getting arrested and being incarcerated, I believe the distinction in Odin’s loss of life versus any of the opposite crimes he had dedicated earlier than was that connection, proper? I believe that, for Aaron and for the viewers, it was simpler to dismiss maybe a few of what occurred, as a result of he didn’t have as deep a connection.
“As a result of J. Alexander [sic] is such an exceptional actor, such an exquisite human being, you fall in love with Odin,” says Canals. “So it’s heartbreaking, as a result of it’s like, ‘Why? Why would [Aaron] do that?’”
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American Sports activities Story: Aaron Hernandez releases new episodes Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on FX and Hulu.
