More John and Carolyn

Love Story, the John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette series that Ryan Murphy has been working on, is a main character this week after he released screen test photos of Paul Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon, the actors playing the iconic couple, and with the paparazzi shooting them filming in New York. More pap images from the set last night are now available as Paul and Sarah worked on a scene in which, evidently, John and Carolyn are out on a date together, presumably early on in their relationship. 

John’s on his bike at one point, and then he and Carolyn are laughing and flirting – at least that’s what it looks like, if these photos were taken while the cameras were rolling and not in between takes. I mean, I kinda hope it was in between takes because, and I covered this in my last post about the series and the actors, to me this doesn’t look right. Not that I want to pile on, I honestly don’t, but I’m the creep who has watched almost every invasive video and looked at every pap photo of John and Carolyn, especially Carolyn, and it was never like this. As gross as that is to admit, I also know I’m not the only one. Many of you are just as familiar with the “fight” video as I am. 

At the same time, I understand that the whole point of this project is to go beyond the images and the footage that was circulated at the time, that shaped our understanding of Carolyn and of her with John as a couple and, perhaps, ground them as real people. Not sure that’s possible though given the reaction to what we’ve seen so far. There’s been a lot of conversation online and the consensus seems to be that in Carolyn’s case especially, well, it’s not giving Carolyn. She never, ever looked… giggly. 

Much of the focus, though, has been her hair, and the shade of the blonde in particular. I haven’t weighed in on her hair because I have no business talking about blondes but Vogue spoke to Carolyn’s colorist, Brad Johns who had this assessment, and it’s not an endorsement. 

“Totally wrong, the opposite of what we were going for. If you show that on TV and fashion people see it, they are going to think, why the f-ck is she all ashed out with her hair only one color?”

And then when asked whether or not it might be a wig, Brad Johns said: 

“Oh, that’s not a wig, unfortunately.”

He’s retired but his protegée is still working in New York – and an offer has now been made to production to go to the source to get the hair right. Ryan Murphy’s team has to be aware of all this noise. I wonder how they’ll respond.