“Love Story” mother-son Naomi Watts and Paul Anthony Kelly reflect on filming Jackie Kennedy Onassis and JFK Jr.'s death scenes

Gerrad HallMon, June 22, 2026 at 12:32 AM UTC

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'Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette' stars Naomi Watts and Paul Anthony KellyCredit: Eric Liebowitz/FX

Paul Anthony Kelly was used to being told he looked like John F. Kennedy Jr., thanks to his days as a model for Brooks Brothers.

"Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would be portraying him as a character in a Ryan Murphy show," he admits on Entertainment Weekly's The Awardist podcast. "But here we are."

Kelly plays the son of assassinated President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis on Murphy's Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, centering on the young couple's rollercoaster relationship, when Kennedy met the Calvin Klein publicist (played by Sarah Pidgeon). When they first meet, he's in an on-again, off-again relationship with actress Daryl Hannah, who his mother doesn't like. Adding to family tension, he has failed the bar exam for a second time, getting in the way of her hopes for him to pursue law and eventually run for office — which he has no desire to do.

As Kennedy and Bessette spend more time together and grow closer, her intimidation of the spotlight and fear of invasive paparazzi often create tension in their relationship, despite his attempts to calm the situation.

Kelly — a Canadian who's been living in the States a while — admits to not knowing much about the American icon. And he had just three weeks between landing the job and the start of production to learn everything he needed about him, including his accent.

"I really just dove right in. The great thing about Ryan and his producing team — Brad [Simpson] and Nina [Jacobson] and Monica [Levinson], they took all the outside thinking away for me," Kelly, whose acting debut is in this series, says. "They got me an acting coach, a dialect coach. I had a physical trainer because I had to get a little bit bigger. I was a model before, so I was athletic but slim, so I had to beef up a little bit, and I really just got to work. I read everything I could. I watched everything I could on YouTube, Instagram — the algorithm knew what I was after. He narrates his father's book, Profiles in Courage, so I listened to that religiously every day before work, during work, after work, in the shower, in the gym — sometimes I'd go for a run and just listen to it. John was a very active guy, so when I wasn't filming, I was trying to be as active as him, riding a bike around and just kind of getting into the swing of things as it were."

Paul Anthony Kelly as John F. Kennedy Jr. and Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette in 'Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette'Credit: FX

Naomi Watts follows in the footsteps of actresses, including Natalie Portman in her Oscar-nominated turn in Jackie, to play the former first lady. She has said she was incredibly resistant to Murphy's suggestion that she could play Onassis,

"I sort of tried to talk him out of it. I was like, 'Are you sure? I don't look like her. I don't sound like her,'" she recalls of their conversation. "Jackie belongs to everyone in America. We're not just talking one generation; we're talking historically. She has been the most arguably memorable first lady we've had in our lifetime, and she's a national treasure forever. How could somebody who's quite literally removed from her take that on? So I was freaking out."

But Murphy made the case —"He was like, 'Oh, don't be ridiculous. You can do it,'" she says — and won.

"It's never one thing," Watts says about how he convinced her. "Although his complete faith is very seductive. It's very tempting when he comes at you with such a challenge, and I'm someone who tends to like risk. I like challenges, and the very fact that he presented it to me — as absurd as it sounded to me — instantly made me feel like he thought I could do it. Not just do it but hopefully crush it."

Watts, of course, had some help to obtain some of Onassis' physical appearance, wig and contact lenses included. (They also considered facial prosthetics about one. point, "because she's got a very different nose than me, and her brows were quite wide apart, and so we tried to create sort of a wider bridge on my nose," Watts explains, but they ultimately decided it would be distracting.) But her main goal was not to do an impression.

"Her voice was so unique and not like any other in that time... She spoke multiple European languages, she had little affectations as well, and a lot of breath in her voice," Watts says. "Also, at the end of her life, she sounded different, probably. There wasn't a lot of footage available at the end of her life because she become as private as possible in the latter part of her life. So I tried to imagine [she had] a slowness and a real lower register, but she still had that friendly warmth in her sounds as well."

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Paul Anthony Kelly as John F. Kennedy Jr. and Naomi Watts as Jackie Kennedy Onassis in 'Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette'Credit: Eric Liebowitz/FX

The series features Onassis' death, with son John lying by her side in bed.

"Slowly dying is more palatable than suddenly dying, I suppose. It's weird. It's definitely spooky, and there's no question, when you walk down that line of imagining what it would be like to leave behind the people you love, obviously you wanna make the moment as truthful as possible," Watts, whose character Babe Paley died from lung cancer in Murphy's Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, says, before addressing Kelly. "We were both in that scene. You had a lot of grieving to do. I did in my way too, and so we were sort of listening to music or using our tools in whatever way we needed to create the process. It's not easy. I don't love doing it."

Kelly had the unenviable task of filming Kennedy's final moments, in an ill-fated flight he was piloting, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, on July 16, 1999.

"Spooky" is the same word Kelly uses to describe filming the scene.

"You know, as the actor, how the story ends. As the character, you don't. So you have to have this disconnect in it, when things start to go wrong within the plane," he says. "You're in this room with everybody else in this plane on a rig — which was pretty neat to do outside of what it actually was — and the energy of the room that day, the whole stage was really just like, Oh, okay, everybody knows. But you have to forget that when you're filming it.... It's a very interesting day at work, very interesting set of emotions that come in and go when the camera's on and when the camera's off. Very odd."

For all of the praise of the show, though, it was also on the receiving end of criticism, especially by those who knew Kennedy and Bessette. Kelly and Watts say the intent was never to rewrite the narrative or portray anyone in an unfair light.

"The whole point or what we tried to achieve — and I think we did achieve — was [to] imply the humanity of these two individuals or family aspect and really break it down to bare bones, something we can all understand and relate to," Kelly says in defense of the series. "At the base of the story, it's a love story. We all understand it or want it — the whole point of living is to love and be loved. So I think going into that and taking away the thought that they're Kennedys and they're on this pedestal —rightfully so — and just boiling it down to them being two humans falling in love and dealing with their family issues, friend issues, relationships, everything like that."

Paul Anthony Kelly as John F. Kennedy Jr. and Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette in 'Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette'Credit: Eric Liebowitz/FX

Watts cites the "continued fascination with this family because of their important legacy" as a justifiable basis for the show, as well as the focus on the love story.

"Tragic love stories are going to be compelling," she says. "Romeo and Juliet is. We are always wanting to understand love in its deepest form, and this story was cut short, so we are going to be continually fascinated by it. But in terms of respect for the Kennedys, I think that was top of mind for Ryan, right through how he wanted to approach the story until post-production. It was always top of mind."

Check out more from EW's The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best in TV, movies, and more.

You can listen to Watts and Kellys' full interview on The Awardist, below, where they both talk about their work with Pidgeon, and Kelly teases American Horror Story season 13.

on Entertainment Weekly

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