JFK Jr.’s Wife Carolyn Bessette Unexpectedly Inspired This Character in an Oscar-Nominated Movie

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Carolyn Bessette Kennedy was the surprising inspiration behind Amy Dunne in the film adaptation of Gone Girl.

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The late wife of John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a 1999 plane crash that also killed her husband and sister but she has been immortalized in pop culture for her memorable look and fashion sense. However, she’s not exactly what comes to mind when you think of the cunning and manipulative Amy Dunne from Gillian Flynn’s best-selling book.

However, for the director of the 2014 movie, David Fincher, the famous socialite was a logical point of reference for Rosamund Pike’s portrayal of Amy. Amy is the antagonist in the movie which follows her husband as he is implicated in her murder following her unexplained disappearance. The movie also stars Ben Affleck, Emily Ratajkowski and Neil Patrick Harris.

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“In my head I saw her as Carolyn Bessette,” Fincher explained in a Vanity Fair profile of Pike. “I had these images of before and after—of Carolyn as an 18-year-old and as a 20-year-old, the notion of someone self-made. She crafted herself, she re-invented herself, and invented that persona. That’s where I began.”

Pike recalled digging into Bessette’s history, the countless photos of her at parties and those infamous photos of her arguing with Kennedy in Central Park. It clicked with her that Fincher had told her to study Bessette because, despite her prolific media appearances, little was ever known about her real personality.

“I could find nothing of her in her own words,” Pike, who received a Best Actress nomination at the 2015 Academy Awards for her role in the film, recalled. “And I thought, Well, maybe that’s fine. Amy, as she wants to be seen, should be created from outside in.”

Carole Radziwill, the wife of Kennedy’s cousin, did give a rare insight into Bessette’s personality behind the camera in a 2019 interview with Vanity Fair. “She was kind of fierce. She was very confident. He liked that. She was very much her own person. She was this great combination of kind of seriousness and wild child,” Radziwill.

Some of the descriptors here replicate the famous “cool girl” monologue that appears in Flynn’s book and, in part, in Fincher’s movie. Amy describes making herself into the ultimate object of male desire, playing the role of the “cool girl.”

“Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman,” Amy says in Flynn’s novel. “Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want.”

Pike’s Amy is often stoic and picturesque, she’s seen mimicking whatever emotion best suits her current situation but we rarely know who she really is. It is only when the movie reaches it’s shocking climax and twist that Amy lets us in but, even then, she maintains the ultimate level of control over her persona.

Before you go, click here to see the best presidential love stories in US history.

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