How Connor Hines won over Ryan Murphy and beat impostor syndrome to make 'Love Story'

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Growing up, my grandparents virtually had a shrine to President Kennedy and Jackie.For many descendants of Irish immigrants, especially from the Boston area, the Kennedys were the realization of the American dream: a family that overcame anti-Irish prejudice and built an empire that would propel one son to the White House, two others to the Senate, and generations of public servants after them.

Needless to say, the lore of the family was embedded in me from a young age.Around 2020, I descended into a Kennedy rabbit hole, starting with the tycoon and patriarch Joseph P.Kennedy Sr.

and working my way through the generations.When I reached John F.

Kennedy Jr.and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s story, a switch went off within me — that jolt of adrenaline and inspiration you pray to stumble upon as a writer.

Yes, their courtship was singular, sweeping and at times volatile, but I was mostly struck by the acute disconnect between the way they were posthumously characterized by friends and family and the often misogynistic, reductive narrative that surrounded them at the time.The more I read about them, the more convinced I became that there was an entirely new story to be told — through a fresh lens that could humanize and dimensionalize two people who had been so widely mythologized.But obsession does not a show make.

I was more than aware that I wasn’t at a place in my career where a network or streaming service would likely entrust me with a story of that magnitude and lore — until a few months later, when it was announced in Deadline that Ryan Murphy was launching a new anthology series, “American Love Story.” The first season: John F.Kennedy Jr.

and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy.Fortunately for me, the heads of Color Force, Brad Simpson and Nina Jacobson — the producers behind acclaimed series such as “The People v.O.J.

Simpson” and “Say Nothing” — read a samp...