“Love Story” star Dree Hemingway, who portrays Daryl Hannah in the show, said she attempted to contact Hannah before the “Splash” actress’ blistering critique of the Hulu series.
Hannah blasted “Love Story,” which revolves around the real-life romance between John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette, in an essay published in the New York Times last week.
Hannah dated Kennedy Jr. on and off from 1988 to 1994, with the dissolution of their relationship playing out on “Love Story.”
In a Nylon interview published on March 4, Hemingway said she wrote Hannah a “love note” letting her know how much she admired her even before she was cast as her.
“I really just fell in love with her as a human being,” Hemingway said she expressed to Hannah.
“That was really the note, and just not like ‘Hey, I want to meet you or talk to you,’” she clarified. “Just, like, ‘It was really an honor of my lifetime to be able to portray you and research you.’”
Hemingway, 38, said she didn’t want to “intrude in any way” or pressure Hannah into speaking with her, and that she’s okay with the fact that Hannah never responded to her.
“I also think [she needs] her own time,” she mused. “The show’s just come out; I’m sure there’s a lot to digest there and stuff like that.”
Hemingway acknowledged that “Love Story” isn’t entirely accurate.
“What I really want to emphasize is that this is a dramatization,” she stressed. “We are not exactly portraying her or how something went down. There’s a fiction involved in all of this.”
“With any person that you loved and you were dating, I’m sure it’s a hard thing,” she continued. “So, I think that it’s nice to respect that and her.”
Hemingway said she’s seen the mixed reviews about her portrayal of Hannah.
“But it’s good that people are talking. I guess that’s all we could really want,” she noted.
“The job is you do your work, you put in your energy, and then it goes into the ether, they edit it and it comes out. At the end of the day, it’s up to the universe and the people.”
In Hannah’s New York Times essay, she slammed the show’s portrayal of her.
“I have long believed that engaging with distortion often amplifies it. But a recent tragedy-exploiting television series about John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette features a character using my name and presents her as me,” she wrote.
“The choice to portray her as irritating, self-absorbed, whiny and inappropriate was no accident,” she continued.
Hannah, 65, insisted that the Ryan Murphy series isn’t “a remotely accurate representation of my life, my conduct or my relationship with John.”
“I have never used cocaine in my life or hosted cocaine-fueled parties,” she wrote. “I have never pressured anyone into marriage. I have never desecrated any family heirloom or intruded upon anyone’s private memorial. I have never planted any story in the press. I never compared Jacqueline Onassis’ death to a dog’s.”
Kennedy’s cousin Douglas Kennedy agrees, telling Page Six exclusively that “Love Story”s take on Hannah is “unfortunate” and completely fabricated.
“Daryl Hannah was great,” he told us. “Whenever I saw her, she was very sweet and had [John’s] best interests at heart. I think that’s a misrepresentation.”
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