Sarah Pidgeon spent Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette recreating a relationship remembered through weddings, paparazzi photographs and public scrutiny. The scenes that keep returning to her are considerably quieter.
Speaking with Vogue Singapore for its September issue, Pidgeon singled out Episode 8, “Exit Strategy,” and a series of vignettes showing Carolyn inside the Tribeca apartment she shares with John F. Kennedy Jr.
Director Jesse Peretz used different areas of the apartment and the passage of time to build the sequence. Pidgeon said exploring parts of the set viewers had not previously seen and finding “different physicality” for Carolyn’s feeling of being trapped gave her another way into the character. What stayed with her afterward was the stillness of the finished images.
The reflection arrives roughly five months after the nine-part limited series ended and less than two weeks before the 78th Emmy Awards, where Pidgeon is a first-time nominee for playing Bessette. Entertainment Weekly revisited the Episode 8 sequence after her new interview was published Aug. 31.
Episode 8 Found Carolyn Alone in Different Corners of the Apartment
“Exit Strategy” opens with Carolyn moving through different areas of the apartment as time passes, with k.d. lang’s “Smoke Rings” playing over images that rely far more on Pidgeon’s movement and expression than dialogue. She smokes, sits and drifts through the rooms as the episode establishes how confined Carolyn has become.
Pidgeon said Peretz’s idea was to use a series of vignettes at home to mark that passage of time. Finding spaces within the set that had not previously been used on camera gave her new physical choices for communicating Carolyn’s state without having to explain it aloud.
“I also find the shots so beautiful, with so much stillness,” Pidgeon told Vogue Singapore. The episode, which aired March 19, eventually moves into the escalating strain between Carolyn and John as their marriage is further tested by press attention, personal losses and their increasingly different responses to the life surrounding them.
Getting the Role Initially Left Pidgeon ‘Frightened and Nervous’
The confidence required for those quieter scenes came after a much less confident beginning. Pidgeon told Vogue Singapore that learning she had been cast as Bessette initially produced “complete and total silence” because she understood how much attention still surrounds Carolyn’s image and legacy.
“I was understandably frightened and nervous about taking that on,” she said. Pidgeon responded with extensive research, but some periods of Carolyn’s life offered more material than others. She said the Calvin Klein years were among the most difficult to establish physically and energetically because there were significantly fewer photographs and videos of Bessette from that period.
What Pidgeon did recognize was the experience of being a young woman moving through New York before anyone knew her. She connected that period of Carolyn’s life with the anonymity and possibility of navigating Manhattan while still figuring out who she wanted to become.
There is another part of Carolyn she would prefer not to leave on the set. Pidgeon described her as someone with “a real sense of self” who did not apologize for who she was, and said she hopes to carry some of that self-possession into her own life.
Playing Carolyn Bessette Brought Pidgeon Her First Emmy Nomination
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The performance has now brought Pidgeon her first Emmy nomination. The Television Academy nominated her for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie alongside Claire Danes, Sally Field, Carey Mulligan and Sarah Snook.
Love Story received six nominations overall. In addition to Pidgeon’s acting nomination and the show’s Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series bid, Constance Zimmer was nominated for supporting actress, while the production received nominations for casting, period costumes and period or fantasy/sci-fi makeup. The 78th Emmy Awards air live Sept. 14 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on NBC and stream on Peacock.