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By Hope Sloop
Published June 4, 2026, 10:00 a.m. ET
You kind of want to hate Paul Anthony Kelly the first time you meet him.
At 6’2”, the Canadian actor and star of Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette is not an intimidating presence, per se, but he has the exact charisma that is required to play the titular “heir to Camelot.” Old Hollywood good-looking, new Hollywood talented, and timelessly enthusiastic, he’s the kind of person who makes you look scrupulously for faults because, clearly, he can’t be that good. Except, he is.
I first met Kelly weeks after Love Story — which broke Hulu streaming records over the course of its month and a half long release schedule — aired its finale, which tackled the tragic deaths of Kennedy Jr. and his bride, as well as the aftermath of the devastating plane crash that also claimed the life of Bessette’s older sister, Lauren. Having been blown away by his performance in the series, I started a conversation with him at a Disney-sponsored event, congratulating him on his sudden and immediate rise to fame, as well as the awards buzz the show has been garnering. Perhaps it’s because Kelly’s celebrity has grown so quickly, but I distinctly remember being taken aback by how down-to-earth he felt at the time. For someone who is known primarily (“solely” might be a better word, as this is Kelly’s first major acting credit) for playing a character with the weight of the world on his shoulders, you might almost forget this person is experiencing a trajectory similar to the personalities at the heart of the show.
“It’s very interesting to have an even better understanding of what John went through on a day-to-day, and I think that’s also brought me closer to my understanding of him as well,” Kelly tells me as we sit down over Zoom to chat about his role in the series. “The correlation of my personal life and being an actor to John and Carolyn’s and what they went through and what we tried to discover and live through this show, it’s becoming more and more a similar reality.”
The reality that Kelly, who boasts Love Story as his first major acting credit and spent years trying to make it before having his headshot picked up by Ryan Murphy himself, stepped into this role without a general understanding of what it was like to live in the skin of JFK. Jr makes his work even more astonishing. Aside from a physical transformation that required him to be in the gym every day in the lead-up to production and during filming, Kelly worked around the clock to find Kennedy’s exact tone and delivery, listening to Profiles in Courage — the JFK. Jr. narrated book about his father — day in and day out.
Photo: Hulu“This is a good question and after this, I will go back on my little Spotify app and see how many hours I’ve actually listened to it, because I think it totals, from front to back, probably at least over 100 times,” he says, adding that he would often listen to it before bed, in his trailer, or just quietly in the background while going about his day. Not that I was doubting him, but during our chat, Kelly proceeded to recite, verbatim, one of his favorite chapters from the book that he would often queue up just before a scene, as it helped him find the voice of the American media icon.
The small voice changes and affectations are things you notice when you go back and watch the show for a second time, as I did. On a first watch, I was (of course) enamored with all of the big swings and major emotional moments sprinkled throughout the series, but it was only when I took a magnifying glass to Kelly’s performance that I noticed something remarkable: there’s no anxiousness to his work. Taking on a major project like this would be enough to make even the most veteran of actors feel intimidated, the actor brings a certain stillness to the character that, when noticed, can feel jarring at times. While Kelly himself suffers from ADHD tendencies — he made it a point to share that even during our interview, he found himself picking at his fingers off-camera — getting into John’s body forced him to get out of his own head first.
“I’m always fidgeting. I’m always doing something. It’s hard for me to focus entirely,” he tells me with a laugh, clearly addressing something he hasn’t spoken about in public much before, if at all. I share that I am very much the same way, and that it makes it even more impressive that he managed to break out of it to find a sense of tranquility unlike his own. “But I think the physicality, before any of these things or these moments for John in the show, really let him just settle, and then he was more present. Present with who he was with or present within himself. And I think it was a great asset too,” he adds.
Despite having gone from a relative unknown — Kelly was a working model for years before booking the part in the FX series alongside Sarah Pidgeon — to A-List level star overnight, the actor is still approaching every day with the same mantra that carried him through the grueling filming process of Love Story; production worked on such a tight deadline that the show would shoot during the week and then Pidgeon and Kelly would use their days off for rehearsals, they said during a recent FYC event in Los Angeles. Call it dedication or call it a responsibility to Kennedy and Bessette, both actors have spoken about the handling of the project and making sure that it did not feel like a cheap rehashing of the unspeakably sad tale.
Maybe it is that feeling of responsibility or maybe it’s the decade Kelly spent trying to break into the industry, but in each scene of Love Story, you can feel both the challenge of being a newcomer and the ease of being green in a project surrounded by the likes of Constance Zimmer, Alessandro Nivola, Grace Gummer, and Naomi Watts. There’s a certain breath of fresh air that Kelly exudes in a project that focuses on someone who had everything going for him but none of it figured out. I’d like to think that’s what Murphy and series creator Connor Hines saw in Kelly from the start, but I also wouldn’t want to discount the polishing that went into playing this very specific version of a figure known all too intimately by the American media.
In fact, while chatting with the up-and-coming actor — who has already booked his next role, collaborating again with Murphy on the highly anticipated new season of American Horror Story — I called myself out, albeit not directly, by asking Kelly if he’s ever faced the burden of perception in the way I imagine. Having pressed play on my screeners months ago based solely on the poster and the knowledge that he hadn’t done much in front of a camera prior to this, I found myself expecting less from his performance and his capabilities. Cut to halfway through the series, as each major scene has yielded a full range of emotions. If you do find yourself mischaracterizing him, though, it’s okay, he’s happy to let the work speak for him.
“There are certain instances where that has been perceived,” he shares of feeling underestimated based on his appearance, saying that he has felt like some people believe there’s “no substance” to him at the outset. “Being able to prove that wrong is definitely a proud point.”
It’s not something he’s too worried about these days, especially after the cast claimed a Gotham Tribute Award for Best Ensemble and the Emmy buzz continues to roll in ahead of the nominations being announced in July. More than ever, Kelly says he’s thinking about the man behind the story, especially as he and Pidgeon discuss the show ad nauseum for their FYC (for your consideration) campaigns. Surprisingly, Kelly doesn’t seem to be jaded or tired of discussing the role and the project that put him on the map. On the contrary, his excitement at the opportunity shines just as brightly off-screen as it does in his performance.
“Going into this show and the press and everything that’s required now and being at the forefront and just out there in the public in this new sphere, I carry a lot of John with me in that,” Kelly explains, “That’s kind of my biggest, well, one of my biggest takeaways from doing this show and getting to know him on my own personal level… And I go into these situations with confidence and charisma — I don’t sweat the small stuff and just have fun with it.”
If it didn’t come across in all nine episodes of Love Story, it’s saliently clear in every interview the actor gives that he’s not yet (and hopefully not ever) lost the gratitude and humility of being plucked from a crowd of thousands for this project. Even as he’s now faced the ugly head of the internet and its endless stream of opinions, he’s managed to keep his composure and put his best foot forward. Kelly tells me that he’s heeding his own advice now about putting things in perspective and trying to focus on what he knows. And what he knows is that he is proud of the performance he put forward and will keep sharing that joy and excitement with anyone who feels it, as well.
“You gotta laugh to keep from crying, that’s kind of the Kelly family motto,” he says, adding that he often reminds himself of that while looking back at the story that the series set out to share. While a tragedy and a drama, the show is also filled with love and humor, and that is the most lifelike kind of story he wants to tell. “Living without laughter is not really worth it.”
See, it’s really hard to hate him, even if you kind of want to. He’s the real deal and he’s here to stay.
Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette is now streaming on Hulu.
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English (US)