By now it’s been well-documented what it took to get Carolyn Bessette’s very specific look on Ryan Murphy’s Love Story, but less attention has been paid to Sarah Pidgeon’s real-life transformation to play the fashion icon.
The Tony-nominated Pidgeon, best known for starring in Tiny Beautiful Things and I Know What You Did Last Summer, was a brunette prior to being cast as Bessette. Although her Love Story costar, Paul Anthony Kelly, was used to being told he always looked like John F. Kennedy, Jr., Pidgeon tells Glamour she was never told she looked like anyone specific.
The chemistry is truly off the charts.
“I don’t really know who my doppelgänger is,” she says. “I haven’t always had blonde hair. I got blonde hair this past summer. So yeah, I was brunette for a while. I think I’m still waiting to find my long-lost twin, but it’s been really fun to portray Carolyn in the series.”
Actors are used to changing their hair colour for roles, but the 29-year-old Pidgeon went a step further to portray Bessette. Pay close attention, but as the series airs (the first three episodes are now streaming on Hulu, with a new episode to debut each week through the end of March), Bessette’s eyebrows get thinner, which is a choice Pidgeon and the makeup team made in order to fully commit to the popular ’90s trend. (You can see the after photos below.)
So what does Pidgeon have to say about the choice now that filming is done? Is she glad she did it, and would she do it again? Below, she and Paul Anthony Kelly open up about their prep, how they bonded, and the fame that’s sure to follow. Read on.
A perennial style icon for the ages, Carolyn is back on our moodboards thanks to Ryan Murphy's ‘Love Story’.
Glamour: Knowing how iconic JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette are, how nervous were you taking on these roles?
Sarah Pidgeon: So nervous.
Paul Anthony Kelly: Still haven’t slept.
Sarah: I was really excited when I got the audition and then the job, but there’s such a responsibility portraying a real person. It was not lost on me before I even really got deep into it. So I think that brought its own nerves and anxieties, but also excitement because it’s such a wonderful opportunity to grow close to someone who I’ve really grown to admire. It just sort of hit me like a ton of bricks that I think that nervousness helped in a sense, to feel a sense of focus and duty each day when we walked on set.
Paul, as of early February, you had 14,000 Instagram followers. I can’t imagine what those numbers will be post-launch.
Paul: I mean, just getting the 14,000 was a big change. I had like 400 a couple months ago. The nerves were always there. But they’re the good type that really makes you focus. I’m so blessed to be able to work with wonderful actors on the show. The whole experience was just incredible.
How did you embody JFK Jr.’s overall look?
Paul: The team here really set me up for success. I worked with a dialect coach to really drop into John’s cadence and vocal rhythm and his lackadaisical New York kind-of-cool-guy, easygoing, confident vocals. And then I was training physically for it. John was a pretty active guy. I was a bit smaller before I started this, so I had to put on some muscle.
Sarah: Now he’s absolutely jacked.
Paul: Not at all. There were a lot of great lengths that we went to. I worked with an acting coach to really break down any barriers I had. This is my first major production, so I was really thrown into the deep end, but I learned to swim very quickly.
Sarah, how about you? I noticed your eyebrows are thinner in the show, especially as it goes along.
Sarah: The eyebrows went away. Yes.
Was that makeup, or did you actually tweeze them?
Sarah: Yeah, we tweezed them. I was just hoping that they would grow back. I kind of like the ’90s brows, but they have grown back. But we’ll see if I go a little thinner. Time will tell.
I’m so impressed by that level of commitment. Meanwhile, there’s been so much talk about Carolyn’s hair and clothes, but what about her voice? There’s only like 11 seconds or so of Carolyn speaking publicly; everything else is private. How did you home into that?
Sarah: In terms of creating this characterisation of Carolyn, like you said, there’s very, very little footage of her speaking. And she has sort of this deeper, warmer tone. And while I listened to her voice and took that in as part of the incorporation of my character, it felt like there was a lot more to glean from these photos that were taken of her. But I also had to understand that those were mainly paparazzi photos. And you hold yourself in a very different manner when a stranger is taking a photo of you than when your friends or family’s taking a photo of you. And she never sat for an interview. So I think I was able to piece together interviews that people gave about her through all the books I read and just took all this information of these descriptors of how she moved, how she talked, how she interacted with people and sort of layered them and saw what were the common themes.
And throughout looking at the images, her eyes are so alive. I think people described her as being able to connect with anyone and making you feel like you’re the only person in the room, and she would touch you and play with your hair. And also as she became more public, her eyes became her main defence mechanism of knowing whether or not she was being seen or not, safe to leave her house. I took that all in, and I worked with this wonderful movement coach, Julia Crockett, who was integral into creating this physical characterisation of Carolyn. And yeah, of course, clothes and hair really does a whole lot of work. It changes how you hold yourself immediately.
Paul, you have a great head of hair, but did they have to add to it to get this very stiff version of a...
Paul: No.
It’s all your hair?
Paul: It’s all me. Yep. It’s a good brush and a hairdryer and a little bit of water.
Sarah: Mousse?
Paul: No, not really. It was really just a lot of water brushing. Michelle, who did my hair, she is a wizard.
Episode four is one of my favourites because we see such a playful side of John and Carolyn. How did you both bond prior to filming?
Sarah: Well, I just got to hang out on that boat [in episode four] while Paul drove it around.
Paul: That was so fun.
Sarah: We were off Long Island. That was the first of two times we’ve been on a boat for the show. And there’ve been many times throughout filming this where Paul and I were just sort of stranded, the two of us, and that offers a huge opportunity to bond.
Paul: Totally. I think we were pretty bonded before we got into those situations…
Sarah: Agreed.
Paul: Sarah was already cast before me, so I had this support that was just always there for each other. It was instantaneous from the moment we met; we knew we were going to do this together.
Sarah: Yeah, it’s like when you meet a friend…
Paul Anthony Kelly: You just know.
Sarah: You’re sort of immediately friends with them.
Paul, you're married. Has your wife seen the episodes yet?
Paul: Oh yeah.
Sarah: She came to set.
Paul: My wife was present for making the vast majority of it. Yeah.
Is she prepared for what’s about to happen to you?
Paul: I don’t know if anyone’s prepared for what might happen. We’ll see. We’re just taking it in stride, and I’m so lucky for this wonderful support system.
This article originally appeared on Glamour (US).
