In FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, a whirlwind romance begins between one of the most famous men in the world, John F. Kennedy Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly), and Carolyn Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon), which means introducing her to many members of his family, including his aunt Ethel (Jessica Harper), widow of Robert F. Kennedy.
Awards Buzz spoke with Harper about how much she knew of this historical figure before playing her:
“Well, I didn’t know much. I feel I learned that much of the world didn’t know much about Ethel actually, because, as we know, she lived in Jackie’s shadow once Jackie came on the scene, and there’s a lot written about Jackie of course and not as much about Ethel. So I did a little dig to find out more. Now the good news is that her daughter Rory made a beautiful documentary called Ethel which is obviously about her mother, and there’s lots and lots of footage of Ethel just sitting there talking and talking about her life. She’s rather circumspect. She doesn’t tell you everything. Every so often she’ll say, no, I don’t want to go there. So there was that. I learned about her physical presence, about how she spoke and how she just comported herself, and also about the things that she really cared about. And I learned some things about her that I didn’t learn when reading some literature about her. There are a few books that mostly they’re about the Kennedy wives. So there’s a fair amount about Joan and Jackie and then Ethel and what their relationships were.”
“So there was some work to do and I found it very interesting because even I, who was a Kennedy fanatic because I was a baby boomer and the Kennedys meant so much to our generation, thought I knew things but then I discovered I didn’t. And I also felt that because she was an historical figure I had to know as much as I possibly could because I wanted to be true to her and also because there was so little information for upcoming generations, they didn’t quite know who she was. It was a great honor actually to be to be able to introduce this character to so many people who really didn’t know much about her and so finding as much information as I could was very important to me.”
Watch the video above to hear her thoughts on working with this show’s stars and whether this part makes her want to play real people in the future.
Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette is streaming on Hulu.
