Grace Gummer is opening up about her latest TV role.
The 40-year-old actress recently portrayed Caroline Kennedy in the FX series Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette, but she almost wasn’t in it.
During an interview with THR, Grace revealed that she had a competing offer another show, but Love Story executive producer Ryan Murphy called her and convinced her to join his show.
“He called me and was like, ‘What is this other show you’re doing? Why don’t you do our show? I promise, it’s going to be amazing,’” she said. “He’s very, very direct; he knows what he wants, and he’s decisive and smart as hell. So I trust him.”
Grace is, of course, no stranger to working with Ryan, as she previously appeared in three seasons of American Horror Story and most recently, and episode of All’s Fair.
The actress, whose famous parents are Don Gummer and Meryl Streep, also opened up about that emotional scene in the Love Story season finale, where Caroline learns of JFK Jr, Carolyn and sister Lauren Bessette’s death in a plane crash.
” You have to sort of search within yourself in a very deep way, emotionally,” Grace shared about preparing for the scene. “Technicality is really important to me as an actor. Knowing the lines was, first and foremost, my center and my mark within the scene. I made sure that I knew all the beats because a lot of the words were repeated, but they were all said in different ways. So I really tried to make sure that I knew what I was saying when I was saying it so that I wouldn’t have to think of any of that.
“Secondly, I really let myself go,” she added. “There’s nothing I left behind, physically or emotionally. I let myself be completely open and vulnerable. And, to be honest, I try to imagine what it’s like to lose someone you love, and it’s unimaginable, but I tried to do my best.”
It took ten takes for the scene, and director Anthony Hemingway, who worked with Grace on American Horror Story: Freak Show and All’s Fair, pushed her to keep going.
“He said, ‘Just go again. Go again. I know you have it in you,’” she recalled. “By the eighth take, I was like, ‘I actually don’t know how many more of these I can put myself through,’ but I think we ended up using one of the last takes.”
If you missed it, earlier this week, Grace joined her Love Story co-stars at a SAG-AFTRA conversation in Los Angeles, before heading to Italy to attend Dua Lipa and Callum Turner‘s wedding.
Posted To:Grace Gummer Love Story Television
