\n\t[This story contains spoilers from\u00a0Love Story,\u00a0episode six, \u201cThe Wedding.\u201d]<\/p>\n
\n\tPortraying Calvin Klein<\/a> \u2014 a name nearly everyone knows and a designer who defined minimalist fashion in the 1990s \u2014 is no small feat, but Alessandro Nivola<\/a> was up for the challenge.<\/p>\n \n\tKlein is also largely responsible for launching the career of another fashion icon: Carolyn Bessette. And while FX\u2019s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette<\/a> mainly focuses on the relationship \u2014 and tragedy \u2014 of JFK Jr.<\/a> (played by Paul Anthony Kelly) and Carolyn (Sarah Pidgeon), viewers also get a glimpse of Carolyn\u2019s life before she met John, when she lived in New York\u2019s East Village and worked for Calvin Klein. He also played a role in bringing the couple together.<\/p>\n \n\tThe first six episodes depict Carolyn\u2019s working relationship with Calvin, her rise through the ranks at the fashion company, and the two\u2019s real friendship. \u201cThere was a platonically romantic element to it,\u201d Nivola tells The Hollywood Reporter. \u201cI think he really loves her.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s what makes Thursday night\u2019s episode<\/a> especially painful: Carolyn tells him she\u2019s quitting her job because the public attention surrounding her relationship with John could affect her work. During the same conversation, however, Calvin reveals he knows she asked another designer \u2014 Narciso Rodriguez \u2014 to create her wedding dress, putting the nail in the coffin.<\/p>\n \n\tBelow, Nivola talks about that pivotal moment, which he calls a \u201cbreakup scene,\u201d the preparation he put into embodying Calvin (including mastering that voice) and the time he coincidentally ran into the real Calvin while having lunch in New York City.<\/p>\n \n\t***<\/p>\n \n\tYour family has had incredible TV success the last couple of years, with your son Sam Nivola<\/a>, starring in HBO\u2019s hit The White Lotus season three<\/a>, and now with you in Love Story which is No. 1 on Hulu and Disney+<\/a> How are you taking it all in? What has the reception been like for you?<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s kind of a phenomenon. I\u2019m off in Geneva now filming a movie. So I feel far away from everything. I\u2019m up in the Alps or something (laughs), but I gather that it\u2019s really become a sensation. It\u2019s very rare, especially now, when it\u2019s so difficult to capture everyone\u2019s attention at once \u2014 hardly anything does that anymore. So when there\u2019s something that everybody talks about in the workplace, or whatever, that\u2019s a great thing, because it\u2019s a throwback to another time.<\/p>\n \n\tWatching old footage of Calvin, he had this confidence and aura, similar to Carolyn. How did you work to embody that presence and his voice?<\/p>\n \n\tIt was his voice that made me want to play the role. They had offered me the job, and I didn\u2019t know what he looked or sounded like. I didn\u2019t really know anything about him. I just looked up an interview with him, when the offer first came in. The minute that I heard his voice, his whole personal history was there. The Bronx sound of having grown up there, the son of Jewish immigrants and gone to public school. On the other hand, the cosmopolitan, international, fashion society world was in there too, his complex sexuality \u2014 everything to me, I could hear immediately. That became my launch point for beginning the character work. I feel like characters\u2019 voices are a window into their soul. Everybody has a particular way of talking that is influenced by where they\u2019re from, what their education is, who they have kept company with, who they want to be. Calvin had worked to try and lose the Bronx sounds that were in his voice and it remained nonetheless. (Laughs.) As he got older, you start to hear it less and less, and now, hardly at all, in his 80s.<\/p>\n \n\tHis physicality was very particular as well. He had a really particular way of moving, of using his hands, of walking through a room, of holding himself. They were all things that I could start to see from interviews that I\u2019d watched and talk shows and behind-the-scenes stuff at some of his runway shows. There\u2019s a great interview that I dug up of Jon Stewart with him backstage at one of his shows in the early \u201990s, and Jon Stewart\u2019s being snarky and funny. You can see Calvin being different in that kind of a setting than he is in the more formal settings of a sit-down talk show. What emerged was the portrait of a guy who was, on the one hand, incredibly media savvy, very in control of his own image and his own brand, a perfectionist and had a high standard of excellence. On the other hand, [he\u2019s] flirtatious and funny and had a little bit of a devilish, wild streak underneath. I wanted to try and tease out all those elements in every scene.<\/p>\n \n\tDid you ever reach out to Calvin Klein throughout this process?<\/p>\n \n\tThe day before I was going to start shooting, I was sitting in Bar Pitti, which is a restaurant in Manhattan on 6th Ave, and I was with a friend. He was asking me what I was doing next, and I told him I was about to start playing Calvin Klein the next morning in Ryan Murphy<\/a>\u2018s show. As I said the name \u201cCalvin Klein,\u201d this big black SUV pulled up by the side of the curb and out he stepped with his boyfriend and walked in. I had lunch three tables from him for an hour and a half. Both my friend and I were just shitting ourselves. (Laughs.) We couldn\u2019t believe it. I\u2019ve lived in New York most my life, and I\u2019ve never crossed paths with him. People keep telling me he goes to that restaurant all the time. I go to the restaurant all the time. I\u2019ve never seen him there, and there he was. That\u2019s my closest encounter.<\/p>\n \n\tI\u2019d watched so much footage of him in the two months leading up to that day, that I just knew. I had such a powerful image of the way that he walked and his physicality that I couldn\u2019t even see his face as he was getting out of the car, just as his foot landed on the sidewalk, I knew it was him. He almost brushed right by me.<\/p>\n \n\tYou didn\u2019t say hi or anything? <\/p>\n \n\tI didn\u2019t want to bother him. It was just an amazing coincidence.<\/p>\n \n\tThis show has taken over social media with so much about the fashion. Have you heard from him? Because it seems [the brand] Calvin Klein is having such a resurgence now. <\/p>\n \n\tI know, I\u2019m curious to know what he makes of it all. I have not heard anything from him. Leila George, who plays my wife Kelly in the show, has told me that [the real] Kelly [Klein, Clavin\u2019s ex-wife] has posted about it, saying how reminiscent it was and how our portrayals were really accurate. So that means a lot. People keep asking me, \u201cHow would you feel if somebody were playing you in show or a film?\u201d And I always say, \u201cIt would piss me off!\u201d (Laughs.) I can\u2019t imagine it not being annoying, but maybe it\u2019s fun.<\/p>\n \n\tBut I think that the show certainly isn\u2019t in the business of trying to slander anybody. It was important to me, when I was reading it to begin with, that I didn\u2019t feel that these character portrayals were at anybody\u2019s expense or trying to sort of dramatize things in a way that was going to damage reputations. I can\u2019t imagine he would feel that way. I hope not.<\/p>\n \n\tThere\u2019s a powerful moment in episode six when Carolyn tells him that she went with a different designer to design her wedding dress and then when she leaves the camera pans to a sketch that Calvin drew of a wedding dress, insinuating that Calvin thought she\u2019d ask him to design her wedding dress. How do you think Calvin was feeling at that moment? Do you feel that marked the end of their friendship?<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s a beautiful scene. Emotionally, there\u2019s so many things running through it at the same time. The relationship between Calvin and Carolyn in the show certainly, and I think to some extent in real life, there was a platonically romantic element to it and this is kind of a breakup scene between them. (Laughs.) There\u2019s something tragic and heartbreaking about it for both of them. Just before the scene begins, he finds out that she\u2019s asked one of his prot\u00e9g\u00e9s, Narciso Rodriguez, who was a younger designer at Calvin Klein, that he had brought up and hired, she was asking him to design the dress. It\u2019s really like a knife in his heart just before she comes in to talk to him. He\u2019s carrying that into that scene. This is a man who\u2019s unused to being in a position of vulnerability like that \u2014 he\u2019s the king of his domain. The feeling of being broadsided by something like this, he\u2019s unaccustomed to and ill-equipped to deal with. I think his natural response is rage, resentment and anger. There\u2019s this kind of barely disguised seething feeling of resentment towards her that\u2019s coursing through it. But, at the same time, I think he really loves her and cares about her and wants the best for her. He can\u2019t bear to send her away without her knowing that, even though it costs him in that moment when he\u2019s so hurt to tell her that he thinks she\u2019s going to look great and she made the right choice. Also, he issues a warning that he hopes she never loses the thing that she had when he first met her. Those are all genuine expressions of a profound affection for her. And to have those things playing at the same time is what creates the tension of the scene and the emotional complexity of it. It was a lot of fun to play. I think that was the last scene that Sarah and I shot together, so we\u2019d been through the whole story of our relationship in the show up to that point.<\/p>\n \n\tThe series really immerses viewers in \u201990s New York<\/a> \u2014 the fashion, the energy, the Calvin Klein campaigns with Marky Mark (aka Mark Wahlberg) and Kate Moss. Was the experience as nostalgic for you as an actor? Did you feel on set like you were transported back to that time?\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tFor sure, 100 percent. I arrived in New York in 1994 when I was right out of Yale and that was the beginning of my adult life. Within a year from graduating, I was starring in this play on Broadway with Helen Mirren called A Month in the Country, and there were all these other young guys who are now movie stars who were making their Broadway debuts at the same time. There was Jude Law, Damian Lewis, Rufus Sewell, Billy Crudup and Robert Sean Leonard. We all got to know each other because of being in shows on the same street. We would all meet up after the show every night at this place called Cafe Un Deux Trois in Times Square \u2014 and just go all night, every night, for nine months. We\u2019d end up in one of our apartments when the sun came up, then sleep all day, and go and do the shows again. That was from the start of the runs of our plays until they finally closed. It dispersed as we went off to do our other projects. But that period of around \u201995 was the most supercharged moment of my early adulthood. My career was just starting off, and doors were opening right and left. The city still was before cell phones, and there was just such a vibe there. You could still live in Manhattan and be making no money. I was living on Christopher Street in the West Village in a $500 a month studio. It was a very different New York at that time than it is now \u2014 and one I can\u2019t help but think back on as a little golden era. So, it definitely reminds me of a moment in my life that was meaningful and exciting.<\/p>\n \n\tDid Carolyn really pitch Kate Moss to Calvin?<\/p>\n \n\tI have no idea. They did so much research. I did a ton of research myself on Calvin, and I read a biography of his. There\u2019s a book that they based a lot of the research on [Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy]. Maybe that was a detail that they extrapolated from that book or from somebody they spoke to. Calvin, at that moment, was definitely starting to be interested in a new aesthetic that Kate Moss came to be a paradigm for. It wouldn\u2019t have been a crazy surprise that she was chosen because he was starting to design for that aesthetic. But I don\u2019t know the details of how she, in particular, was was chosen.<\/p>\n \n\t[Note: In Love Story, Calvin introduces John and Carolyn at a party. But it\u2019s been reported that the pair met at a fitting<\/a> at Calvin Klein\u2019s studio.] I\u2019m aware Carolyn and John met at the office for a fitting, so he is responsible for them being together.<\/p>\n \n\tBefore that Annette Bening fitting scene was the first day of my shoot. Annette\u2019s a friend of mine, we did a movie together a few years ago. The first thing I did when I read that scene was call her up because I come into the scene and it was going to inform how I greeted her. I said, \u201cHey, how well did you know Calvin Klein? Were you guys buddies?\u201d She was like, \u201cNo, I didn\u2019t know him at all. I think I met him once at a gala or something.\u201d So that was funny. But I think that generally, they tried to be as accurate as possible. [Editor\u2019s note: Annette Bening told Good Morning America<\/a> earlier this week that the scene where Carolyn dresses her for a premiere \u201cdidn\u2019t happen in real life.\u201d]<\/p>\n \n\tI did read somewhere that [Klein] had some hand in introducing them, maybe at some party, but I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n \n\tThe whole speech that I give in the lead up to introducing them, where I take her from that backstage area through the party and everything, there was empty space there. Max [Winkler] the director, had said, \u201cI need you to fill this. It\u2019s going to be about a minute long.\u201d I had been listening to him tell these anecdotes over and over and over again, because I had them recorded and was listening to them in my ear obsessively as I was going through my day, just to keep listening to his voice, and so I had about 10 different anecdotes of his and little expressions that he was always saying, like, \u201cYou\u2019re really kind of terrific\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m a bad boy,\u201d these are all things that he really said (laughs) in a bunch of different interviews. That whole story that I tell as I\u2019m taking her to meet him and about how, \u201ceven after 40, you can still have fun,\u201d that was all I just lifted word for word from an interview that I heard and just improvised it. So, I know that was true.<\/p>\n \n\t***<\/p>\n \n\tLove Story\u00a0releases new episodes Thursdays at 6 p.m. PT\/9 p.m. ET\u00a0on\u00a0FX<\/a>\/Hulu, streaming on Hulu. Check out all of\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter\u2018s\u00a0Love Story\u00a0coverage here<\/a>,\u00a0including our premiere launch piece<\/a> and interviews with Sarah Pidgeon<\/a>, Paul Anthony Kelly<\/a>, Dree Hemingway<\/a>, showrunner Connor Hines<\/a> and production designer Alex DiGerlando<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains spoilers from\u00a0Love Story,\u00a0episode six, \u201cThe Wedding.\u201d] Portraying Calvin Klein \u2014 a name nearly everyone knows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[205338,49,50660,48,361,3494,75,2112,22977,150057,16878,2125],"class_list":["post-520317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-alessandro-nivola","tag-ca","tag-calvin-klein","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-disney","tag-entertainment","tag-fx","tag-jfk-jr","tag-john-f-kennedy-jr","tag-love-story","tag-ryan-murphy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}