‘American Sports Story’ Casts Jake Cannavale As Aaron Hernandez’s Love Interest

EXCLUSIVE: Jake Cannavale has been tapped to play Aaron Hernandez’s love interest in the first installment Ryan Murphy’s anthology series American Sports Story.

Cannavale will recur in the anthology that stems from the Boston Globe and Wondery podcast Gladiator: Hernandez and Football Inc. that explores Hernandez’s identity, family, career, suicide, and legacy in sports and American culture. Hernandez will be played by Josh Andrés Rivera.

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Previously announced cast members include Tony Yazbeck, Lindsay Mendez, and Patrick Schwarzenegger, who will play former NFL star Tim Tebow. American Sports Story, one of two new offshoots in Murphy’s “American Story” franchise alongside American Love Story, is a scripted anthological limited series focusing on a prominent event involving a sports figure and re-examines it through the prism of today’s world, telling that story from multiple perspectives.

Stu Zicherman is executive producing with Murphy, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Alexis Martin Woodall and Brad Falchuk. Hernan Lopez and Marshall Lewy of Wondery executive produce alongside Linda Pizutti Henry and Ira Napoliello of the Boston Globe.

Cannavale previously starred alongside Miles Teller and Giovanni Ribisi for the Paramount series The Offer.  He will next be seen in the independent feature Inside Man, opposite Emilie Hirsh.

Previously, Cannavale starred alongside Pedro Pascal in the Disney+ series The Mandalorian, and made his on-screen debut in the Emmy Award-winning series Nurse Jackie, opposite Edie Falco.

He is repped by Buchwald and Framework Entertainment.

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