Actor Dree Hemingway says she wrote a letter to Daryl Hannah before stepping into her shoes for Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, a new dramatization from Ryan Murphy that revisits the 1990s tabloid glare around John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. Hemingway told The Hollywood Reporter she reached out to Hannah to express “how much I appreciate her as a woman, as an actress” and called playing her “an honor of my life.”
The series, which debuted Feb. 12 on FX and streams on Hulu, centers on the Kennedy-Bessette romance while spending early episodes on Kennedy’s high-profile, on-and-off relationship with Hannah. Hollywood-watchers have treated that earlier chapter as essential context: TV Guide notes the pair drew crowds and constant photography during their years together, framing their visibility as part of the story’s engine.
Hemingway has described her preparation as research-heavy and personal in its discipline, studying Hannah’s interviews and building the performance around voice, physicality, and what she read as Hannah’s independence and sensitivity. She has also said she never met Hannah, a distance that mirrors the production’s stance on consulting real-life figures.
Producer Nina Jacobson said the team did not seek Hannah’s input, describing it as consistent with how these projects approach real people, while adding they aimed to be “mindful” and “respectful” of the relationship depicted. That choice lands inside a larger debate surrounding the show: E! notes criticism from Jack Schlossberg and renewed scrutiny over how a scripted drama fills gaps where private conversations were never recorded.
