The Making of American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez with Stuart Zicherman, Nina Jacobson, and Brad Simpson | 11
Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc.
The Boston Globe | Wondery
4.8 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 12 November 2024
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Patty Wen goes behind the scenes with the creators of FX’s American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez. Showrunner Stuart Zicherman shares his process of translating the Gladiator podcast for television, including the exhilaration of bringing the Patriots’ locker room to life. And Executive Producers Brad Simpson and Nina Jacobson join Patty to discuss working with Ryan Murphy on the American Story franchise and how these series are really a way of looking at ourselves through the lens of shared obsessions and the role we, as a culture, play in how these stories unfold.
All episodes of FX’s American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez are now streaming on Hulu.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wonderly Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of Gladiator ad-free. |
| 0:04.4 | Join Wonderly Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:13.3 | I'm Patty Wann from the Boston Globe, and this is a special episode of Gladiator, Aaron Hernandez, and Football, Inc. |
| 0:21.9 | I'm talking today with the creators behind FX's American Sports Story, Aaron Hernandez. |
| 0:27.3 | It's a 10-episode TV series based on our 2018 print and podcast series from the Boston Globe and Wondery. |
| 0:34.4 | As the editor who oversaw the Globe's coverage of the Hernandez case, it was |
| 0:38.6 | fascinating to get a peek behind the scenes into how our investigative story was dramatized for TV. |
| 0:45.7 | I mean, obviously, yes, we have to imagine conversations, and we have to make a decision about |
| 0:49.4 | what happened, and we had to figure out, what do we think happened in that terrible, terrible moment? |
| 0:55.9 | We want to try to get it right from a place of, like, emotional intention, |
| 1:01.2 | but we also don't want to take liberties and tell the audience what to think. |
| 1:05.7 | We want them to have enough room to come to their own conclusion to say, |
| 1:09.6 | this is what I think happened, or |
| 1:11.0 | this is how I see it. That's Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson, the executive producers behind the |
| 1:16.4 | series. You'll hear more from them later. But first, I got a chance to speak with Stu Zickerman. |
| 1:22.8 | He's the executive producer and showrunner of the first installment of FX's American Sports Story, |
| 1:29.4 | Aaron Hernandez. Stu's writing credits also include FX's The Americans, Apple TVs, The Shrink |
| 1:36.1 | Next Door, Showtimes The Affair, and Star Sweet Bitter, which he co-created for TV, and that's |
| 1:42.8 | just to name a few. |
| 1:50.2 | He joined me to talk about the pressure of dramatizing a true story, the big themes, the show explores, and his love of American football. |
| 1:54.1 | You know, doing this show has changed my relationship a little bit to the game. I still love it. |
| 1:57.8 | I watch it religiously. I love it. But, you know, the violence in the game |
... |
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