Josh Andrés Rivera, Patrick Schwarzenegger In ‘American Sports Story’ – Deadline

The primary installment of Ryan Murphy’s American Sports activities Story anthology collection for FX will star Josh Andrés Rivera as Aaron Hernandez and Patrick Schwarzenegger as fellow former NFL star Tim Tebow. The season relies on the podcast Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Soccer Inc from the Boston Globe and Wondery.

The challenge reunites Schwarzenegger with Murphy; the actor’s first TV position was on Murphy’s Scream Queens.

These aren’t any new developments that occurred through the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike; each castings have been performed in early 2023 however by no means confirmed by FX. Deadline reached out to the community and producing studio twentieth Tv about each in January-early February; the offers are believed to have closed at round that point or quickly thereafter.

“We now have a reasonably full set of scripts for American Sports activities Story by Stu Zicherman,” FX Chairman John Landgraf stated at TCA on Jan 12, noting that the collection is “heading towards manufacturing.”

That clearly has been delayed by the WGA strike, which began in Could, and the SAG-AFTRA strike, which has been occurring since July.

American Sports activities Story, one among two new offshoots in Ryan Murphy’s “American Story” franchise alongside American Love Story, is a scripted anthological restricted collection specializing in a distinguished occasion involving a sports activities determine and re-examines it by way of the prism of in the present day’s world, telling that story from a number of views.

The primary restricted collection installment charts the rise and fall of NFL famous person Aaron Hernandez and explores the connections of the disparate strands of his identification, his household, his profession, his suicide, and their legacy in sports activities and American tradition.

Tebow and Hernandez have been longtime pals going again earlier than their time within the NFL. They have been one-time teammates on the College of Florida, the place they shared within the 2008 SEC Championship win and went on to defeat the Oklahoma Sooners for the BCS Championship title. Tebow was identified for looking for Hernandez whereas on the staff, together with defending Hernandez from being kicked off the staff over marijuana use and serving to to diffuse a state of affairs in a bar when Hernandez received into an altercation with the bar supervisor. The 2 first met when Tebow hosted Hernandez on a recruiting journey to UF earlier than he graduated highschool.

Zicherman is govt producing with Murphy, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Alexis Martin Woodall and Brad Falchuk. Hernan Lopez and Marshall Lewy of Wondery govt produce alongside Linda Pizutti Henry and Ira Napoliello of The Boston Globe.

Rivera subsequent stars in The Starvation Video games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. He lately performed Chino in Steven Spielberg’s adaption of West Facet Story. He notably carried out within the authentic firm on the primary nationwide tour of Hamilton. Rivera is represented by Paradigm and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.

Schwarzenegger recurs on Prime Video’s breakout The Boys spinoff Gen V. He additionally did an arc on Prime Video’s common collection The Terminal Record and starred in Max’s restricted collection The Staircase. On the characteristic aspect, Schwarzenegger was most lately seen in Stowaway. He’s repped by UTA and Administration 360.