EXCLUSIVE: Catfish Jean (To Leslie) is set for a key recurring role in American Sports Story, Ryan Murphy’s FX anthology series based on the podcast Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc., Deadline has learned.
American Sports Story, a new extension of Murphy’s “American Story” franchise, is a scripted anthological limited series focusing on a prominent event involving a sports figure and re-examines it through the prism of today’s world, telling that story from multiple perspectives. It hails from the Boston Globe and Wondery.
The first installment, written by Stu Zicherman, based on the Gladiator podcast, charts the rise and fall of NFL superstar Aaron Hernandez, played by Josh Andrés Rivera, and explores the connections of the disparate strands of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide, and their legacy in sports and American culture.
Jean will play Ernest “Bo” Wallace, one of Hernandez’s friends and bad influences.
In real life, Wallace was convicted in 2016 on charges of accessory to murder after the fact in the 2013 shooting death of Odin Lloyd and sentenced to 4 1/2 to 7 years in prison.
Other previously announced cast members include Tony Yazbeck, Lindsay Mendez, and Patrick Schwarzenegger, who will play former NFL star Tim Tebow. Josh Cannavale also recurs in the series.
Zicherman is executive producing with Murphy, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Alexis Martin Woodall and Brad Falchuk. Hernan Lopez and Marshall Lewy of Wondery executive produce alongside Linda Pizutti Henry and Ira Napoliello of the Boston Globe.
Jean will be seen next kin Joel Silver/Doug Liman’s Road House reboot for Amazon MGM Studios. He also starred alongside Andrea Riseborough in the independent feature To Leslie. His other credits include: AMC ALLBLK dramedy series Send Help, All Rise, Survivor’s Remorse, and The Rookie. He’s repped by Stewart Talent and Authentic Talent and Literary Management.
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Source: DLine
