In FX’s anthology series Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, Grace Gummer takes on the role of Caroline Kennedy, sister to JFK Jr. In the show, Gummer has some zinger scenes, from a particularly arresting mother-daughter tête-à-tête with Naomi Watts as Jackie Kennedy, to a devastating set piece opposite Constance Zimmer as Ann Freeman, in the aftermath of the plane crash that took the lives of Anne’s two daughters Carolyn and Lauren and JFK Jr. Here, Gummer recalls how she approached the character of Kennedy, from deep research to managing the pressures that come with playing a member of a real-life iconic family.
DEADLINE: Going into this, what did you remember about Carolyn and JFK Jr. You were pretty young when they passed away.
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GRACE GUMMER: Yeah, I was 11 or 12 when they died. I really remember the day that Diana died, but for some reason, they were not on my radar. I don’t have a lot of memories of them. I’m just more familiar with Carolyn and her iconic style from later in my life.
DEADLINE: Yes, you studied fashion, so that would make such sense regarding Carolyn’s style. People are obsessed even now with that. And now the show is such a cultural phenomenon. Tell me about Ryan coming to you with this role, because obviously you knew Ryan and had worked with him multiple times.
GUMMER: There was another job that I was thinking about doing, and it was a competing job with this, so I wouldn’t have been able to do both of them. And when he found out about that, he called me, and he was like, “What is this other job you’re thinking about doing? Here’s why this show is going to be so great. Here’s why I want you to do it. Here’s who’s going to be in it. We have yet to find our JFK Jr., but I think we might’ve found him.” So it was around the time that they were narrowing in on Paul. And I was told that I was the only choice that they had for Caroline, which was really cool. But yeah, this is my fifth show I’ve done with Ryan. I love working with him. I love the characters that he allows, especially older women. I’m approaching 40.
What’s so beautiful about that scene is that it starts with us on opposite ends of a huge table. So, there’s this ocean between us essentially, and by the end, we’re literally holding hands.
I feel like Ryan has always believed in me. I’m so grateful to him. I saw him on the street the other day. We ran into each other and I said to him, “I’ve been meaning to call you after the last episode aired to tell you…” And I was brought to tears. I was like, “Never in my life from all corners of my life have people showered me with flowers about my work and told me how much it meant to them.” And I feel like if it’s my job as an artist, if I’m igniting a feeling collectively within a lot of different kinds of people, then I’m doing my job right. So I owe a lot of that to him and his trust in me and his belief in me and his knowing that I have it in me to bring this character to life.
DEADLINE: That Episode 9, where you and Constance Zimmer sit across from each other, just both devastated… Tell me about that buildup to sitting with Constance. How much had you talked about it beforehand?
GUMMER: What’s so beautiful about that scene is that it starts with us on opposite ends of a huge table. So, there’s this ocean between us essentially, and by the end, we’re literally holding hands. There was no rehearsal. There was talking about it, but not much between me and Constance. [Creator] Connor [Hines] had said, “I’ve written you maybe the saddest scene in the history of television.” And he was right. As soon as I read it, I was crying. I was honestly just really curious to see what would organically arrive between the two of us when we shot it in the moment. And that’s really what happened.
We probably did it about seven or eight times, and we had the freedom and the space and the peace and serenity to breathe in each other as two women sitting across from each other, having gone through the unimaginable. To me, that scene for Caroline is waves that just keep coming and that won’t tear her down, that won’t break her, one after the other after the other. And the wisdom she’s garnered through this unthinkable tragedy in her life was not lost on me. And it was deeply in me the whole time. And I don’t know, I feel like we really just sat there and listened to each other and looked at each other. Caroline as a woman who’s also a mother, who’s essentially the only person left in her family, Anne-Marie who’s lost two of her three children.
The words I felt like were so beautifully written, because it was like putting words to an unimaginable feeling. It’s so hard to express a feeling through words. And I feel like he really got us there to those moments where we could look at each other and just connect and say, “Here we are, and I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.” The line that really stays with me from that scene is where she says, “I’ve heard the words ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ so many times in my life that it’s beginning to feel like white noise when people say, ‘God bless you,’ but I’m sitting here across from you today and all I can think of to say is, ‘I’m sorry.’” And that’s it. It still makes me makes me really emotional thinking about it. But Constance and I had worked together, we worked together in 2014, 12 years ago, on The Newsroom…
DEADLINE: God, I love that show. I still go back and watch it again now.
GUMMER: I know. I watched it the other night because I was watching something really dark before I fell asleep and I was like, “This is not good for my brain.” And right under it was ‘recommended for you’ and it was The Newsroom. And I was like, “You know what? I’m just going to look at it because I’ve been seen it in so many years.” It’s so hopeful. It’s so of a time that just doesn’t exist anymore in the world, but also in TV. So there was already this foundation of love and trust between Constance and I. We were really there for each other.
DEADLINE: Another one of my favorite scenes in the whole show is the scene with you and Naomi Watts, where it becomes clear why Caroline is so no-nonsense and reserved in some ways. To me, it’s such a classic dynamic where the girl is expected to just pull it together and not really need things and just quietly figure stuff out, and the mom is like, “Oh, let me take care of my son.” It’s so well done between you and Naomi where she’s just harder on Caroline, but not out of meanness. It’s just ingrained.
I cannot imagine what it’s like to see your life portrayed on screen. I can’t imagine how hard that is. All I know is that we approached it with honesty and compassion and as much delicacy as we could. And that was first and foremost my main objective.
GUMMER: Yes. That’s instilled in us as very young, isn’t it?
DEADLINE: Yes. Be capable. Don’t need too much. But I loved that scene. Tell me about working with Naomi.
GUMMER: I loved working with her. Thank you for saying that, by the way. It’s like working with Sarah [Pidgeon, as Carolyn Bessette]. It’s easy to arrive in the objective of the scene. It’s easy to find the answers you’re looking for and get there emotionally when you’re working with really good actors, good actors who are listening and who are gracious and giving and not trying to take anything away from you. Film is not like a play, right? You have a wide shot and then you have their coverage and your coverage. So sometimes it can feel disjointed in their part and your part. But with Naomi and Sarah, everyone on this show, but particularly those two, it was like, “Oh, we’re in a conversation together. We’re talking to each other.” Constance too, obviously.
With Naomi, I’m a huge fan of her work and she’s iconic. So there was a moment where I started getting lost in her work while she was talking to me and I completely forgot that I was supposed to be responding in the scene. I don’t know if it’s because I’m so used to just watching her on screen, but also because she’s very believable and really good. So I was just like, “Oh, it’s my line. Right. OK, got it.” But she really did teach me a lot about how important physicality is. She’s just so naturalistic physically. She’s incredible.
DEADLINE: When you talk about the physicality, that’s interesting because I spoke to both Sarah and Paul [Anthony Kelly, as JFK Jr.], and they talked about working with movement coach Julia Crockett. Did you work with her too?
GUMMER: I didn’t work with anybody. I read a lot about Caroline. I obviously looked at a lot of pictures of her. And I got a sense of her vibe and her energy and her essence through people that know her and that knew her at that time in her life. So, I gathered all that information and funneled it into my vision and my interpretation of her. My only hope was to do right by her and to do her justice and to pay tribute to her and hope that it served the story and elicited compassion in the audience.
DEADLINE: You’re playing one of the few people that’s still alive. And I know this is not your first time playing a real person by any means, but that had to have been scary on some level knowing she would see it or at least hear about it. How did you handle that?
GUMMER: I cannot imagine what it’s like to see your life portrayed on screen. I can’t imagine how hard that is. All I know is that we approached it with honesty and compassion and as much delicacy as we could. And that was first and foremost my main objective. I have so much admiration and respect for her, so I wanted to pay my respects to her.
That was my first scene with Paul. Before every take — we didn’t know each other well at all — but I would go up to him and just hold him and hug him. And I had to stand on my tiptoes because he’s so tall, but I just grabbed him. It makes me want to cry thinking about it.
DEADLINE: When it comes to putting it out there and it actually being released, obviously, we know that Jack, Caroline’s son made some statements saying it wasn’t right, and although Caroline hasn’t said anything that I know of, how do you manage that feeling of, OK, well, I’m just going to let it go. It is what it is. I’ve done the best to the best of my ability. How do you manage that feeling of just releasing it?
GUMMER: Well, first of all, I’m playing a character. It’s a dramatization of real life events. So it’s, again, my interpretation and my vision of a woman grieving the loss of her mother, trying to navigate being in the public eye, what is the cost of fame, then grieving the loss of her brother. She’s a real human being. This character is a real human being going through real human suffering and joy and pain. To me, that was my touchstone, just knowing and remembering that these are real human feelings.
DEADLINE: Tell me about working with Sarah and Paul. Another great scene is when they’re upstairs at the memorial for Jackie in the bedroom. And Caroline and Paul are just having this really heartfelt conversation.
GUMMER: That was my audition scene actually. I just feel like that scene said so much about her, her sense of humor, her wittiness, that even in the face of intense grief and loss and losing her mother, she was able to find humor in a memory of her with her brother. And it really highlighted, I think, their sibling relationship, their brother-sister banter. I remember that was my first scene with Paul. Before every take — we didn’t know each other well at all — but I would go up to him and just hold him and hug him. And I had to stand on my tiptoes because he’s so tall, but I just grabbed him. It makes me want to cry thinking about it, but these 30 seconds of holding each other helped us. It propelled us into the feeling and the emotions of that scene. And it’s hard to, in the moment, weave together a history of lives that you haven’t lived, but Paul and I have lived these lives that have brought us to these characters to play these people at this moment in time. And we found that feeling without saying anything to each other. And it was really beautiful. I think it really helped us.
DEADLINE: And what about working with Sarah?
GUMMER: Sarah’s an incredible actor. She’s totally with you. She’s listening. She’s present. And what I loved so much about working with her is that she had so many ideas. She’s a collaborative scene partner. So after every take, she asked me what I thought. She asked me if I had any ideas, what we could do differently. It felt like she’s interested in building something with me in that moment instead of just only figuring it out for herself.
It was really about finding something between the two of us that would help both of us convey the message of the scene and the feeling of the scene. So yeah, she’s very collaborative and she blew me away. She’s just really good. She’s just a totally other person. She’s a goofy, silly, disarming, incredible woman and friend and transformed every time the camera was rolling. She embodied, again, her interpretation of Carolyn with such confidence and force and bravery. It was really cool to watch.
DEADLINE: Are you considering revisiting American Horror Story? I know Paul will be in this next season.
GUMMER: So far I have not been asked to go back, but we’ll see.
DEADLINE: Would you want to do it?
GUMMER: I love playing in Ryan’s world. He’s always got his finger on the pulse and he’s really good at knowing what people want to see and reframing what you remember about certain events in pop culture. You always walk away from his show, like American Crime Story, and Love Story with a different perspective and understanding of what happened. He’s a master at that. I feel very lucky.