Dree Hemingway has seen your memes. The actor, who recently portrayed Daryl Hannah on FX’s Love Story, knows the reception to her role has been mixed, but she’s not bothered — she’s laughing along with the rest of us. “The memes are funny,” the 38-year-old tells NYLON over Zoom. “I’m here for all of it. Everybody deserves to have an opinion. I know I have mine.”
Set in ’90s-era New York City, the latest anthology series from superproducer Ryan Murphy tells the tale of Carolyn Bessette and John F. Kennedy Jr.’s whirlwind romance with the help of some scene-stealing set pieces and covetable vintage Calvin Klein looks. But before there was Carolyn, there was Daryl. Hannah and JFK Jr. dated on and off for five years, with the dissolution of their relationship playing out on Love Story. And though it was probably a distressing time to be Daryl Hannah, both in reality and in fiction, Hemingway loved every minute of it.
“I would love to be Daryl all day long,” she says. “That would be literally the dream. It was such a joy playing her. There’s a sensitivity, there’s a realness about her, and she’s so specifically who she is that it was just so fun to explore that world of Daryl.”
Now, with the cultural phenomenon in the rearview, we’re catching up with Hemingway to get her true thoughts on the reactions to her role, working with Murphy, and the inside scoop on her next project: a film about her great-grandfather Ernest Hemingway’s final years.
I imagine you’ve been getting a lot of attention lately for your role in Love Story. How has that been for you?
It’s been so nice. It’s nice to get attention for something that you’ve worked really hard on. It’s fun to see people being so invested in this show. You work so hard and you spend so much time with something and then it finally comes out and you just are like, “All right, here you go.”
Have you been seeing people’s reactions to your portrayal online?
I have seen people’s reactions. I’ve seen people being like “Oh, she’s so annoying.” And then looking up Daryl and being like “Oh, she did a good job” or something like that. But it’s good that people are talking. I guess that’s all we could really want.
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.
I read that you wrote a letter to Daryl [Hannah]. What was the vibe of the note?
It was really just a love note to her saying how much I admired her, how much I’ve admired her as an actress and a woman, prior to even being cast as Daryl. How much I really just fell in love with her as a human being. I watched interviews and that feeling of really spending time with somebody you’ve never spent time with, but researching. That was really the note, and just not like “Hey, I want to meet you or talk to you.” Just, like, “It was really an honor of my lifetime to be able to portray you and research you.”
Is there a reason why you didn’t want to speak with her directly?
I would have loved to directly have spoken to her, but I guess there’s nerves in directly speaking to somebody. I also didn’t want to intrude in any way. I didn’t want to make her feel awkward if that were something that she didn’t want to do or something.
Did you end up hearing back from her?
I haven’t heard back from her, but that’s OK. It was not the expectation. It was more so just like “I really appreciate you. I admire you as a person, a philanthropist, an actress.” I wasn’t trying to have her communicate back.
I also think [she needs] her own time. The show’s just come out; I’m sure there’s a lot to digest there and stuff like that. What I really want to emphasize is that this is a dramatization. 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. So, I think that it’s nice to respect that and her.
Had anyone ever told you that you looked like Daryl Hannah before filming?
No, but it was funny because I remember growing up my mom used to be stopped in the airport as either Daryl or Michelle Pfeiffer. Never Mariel [Hemingway]. I assume that if my mom is stopped, then I look similar to my mother.
What were some of the interviews and clips that you watched to really learn how to be Daryl?
I have an amazing dialect coach, and we dug up a couple of interviews. I didn’t want to watch any of her films, because I wasn’t trying to play her as the actress, it was very much just her.
There’s a couple different interviews I found that had different energies to them. There [were] the quieter versions or the more outspoken, and I just wanted to see how she was and how her mannerisms were. It was more of a study of that, in a sense. And then taking those mannerisms of what I had seen and interviews I had read of hers and stuff like that, and just trying to exude as much of what I felt was genuinely her into the character.
Will we see more of Daryl on Love Story?
No. It’s the Carolyn Bessette, JFK [Jr.] story, and you’re seeing the end of his relationship with Daryl, which was a very long relationship. It was two people who had so much history together and who had really been through it together, and then you see him meet his love. [It’s] the end of that love story into the new love story.
What was it like working with the cast and the crew?
Everybody is so talented. Ryan [Murphy]’s sets are really a beautiful machine that everybody knows what they’re doing. The cast were incredible. Mainly my scenes were all with Paul Anthony Kelly, and I love him tremendously. I couldn’t be happier for him. I think he is so deserving of everything and all the praise he’s getting. I think he’s so magnificent.
Sarah [Pidgeon], we only met when we were in hair and makeup, but I love her as well. She’s beyond talented. Grace Gummer is incredible. It was just such a magical feeling being on that set, because I think we were all just so excited to be doing what we were doing. It’s such a great love story. The writing was so incredible, and [showrunner] Connor Hines is amazing. Connor Hines in general is my fashion icon, because his outfits were so magical while filming. I was like, “What are you wearing today, Connor?”
Even … Ceglia Michelle, who is head of hair, is incredible. Everybody’s their own artist. It was just a really great experience.
Fashion obviously plays a huge role in the show. Were there any specific looks that you really loved or items that you wore that you’ve incorporated into your wardrobe after filming?
I’m not a big dress girl, and I’ve definitely become more of a dress girl after doing this. Especially the wardrobe that Rudy had come up with for Daryl, was very… It felt very kind of ’90s Galliano-esque, but more vintage in a sense. These dresses with these swoop necks and falling to the ground, stunning. Most everything I wore was no-name vintage. That was very much Daryl as well.
I really, really fell in love with the outfit that I wore to meet Jackie [Kennedy Onassis] for dinner, when Jackie doesn’t show up at dinner. I felt like it was very much Daryl’s take on trying to do a Chanel suit and doing a dressed up look for that family. I thought it was very chic.
You’re currently in the process of producing your first project, [The Hemingway Files], a film about your great-grandfather. What is it like working on something so personal?
We’re at the very beginning stages still. It’s very exciting. It’s personal, but it’s also, like, he’s still such a thing to people. It’s the end of his life, and I think it’s a very personal and intimate time that a lot of people don’t necessarily know about. I’m excited for this one. If done really well, which I think it will be, there’ll be a lot of information that I think people didn’t know.
When you say “in the early stages”…
We’re still casting and things like that. We have a script that we’re perfecting [with] incredible writers. Originally, the script was there, and I was asked to join in. This isn’t me putting together this project; I was graciously invited into it. I’m really grateful, because I really love it very, very much.
I have a mental image of you sifting through old boxes of family journals or documents that have been passed down, but I’m sure it’s not really like that when you’re working on something like this.
There’s some of that, and there’s a lot of people who aren’t a part of our family, who are historians in knowledge of him and who have done so much research. There’s a lot of talking to them and also, yeah, less sifting through boxes, but I wish it were as glamorous as sifting through old family boxes. We can pretend.
Is there anything you learned about your great-grandfather that you didn’t know before?
I’m going to not give anything away. I don’t want to give anything away. I really don’t.
This is going to have a biographical element to it, as does Love Story. How do you think your experience working on Love Story will influence your approach to The Hemingway Files?
It’s really just doing the research and trying to do right by everybody who’s involved in the story, if that makes sense. But I think it’s two different birds. When you do anything that is based on people — real people — you really have to do the research. What’s really nice about Love Story is that, even though this is a dramatization, he really is focusing on the love story and isn’t trying to cut anybody down in any way. I think it’s been very beautifully portrayed.
With The Hemingway Files, there’s an element of that and the showing… I don’t want to give too much away, but I think it’s the research and the writing and really trying to portray a story in a beautiful way that’s also touching to the audience and touching to the families involved.
I know you said you’re still casting, but would you ever consider taking a role?
There’s no role for me. Unless I’m in Idaho in the bar working… I could do that. Take a real small cameo. But honestly, there’s no part of me that joined this to be in it. This really is not about me; this is about him. I signed on, which is an honor to be involved in this, but I’m only a little factor of this project.
Do you have a message for the Love Story fans out there?
Watch it and enjoy. We need more love in our life right now in the world that we’re living in. Just bask in the addiction of the Ryan Murphy Love Story.
Ryan Murphy is known for these anthology series, so hopefully next time he makes [one], we’ll see you back as a whole new character.
I would love to be back. Anything Ryan does, I would be honored to be a part of. I think he is so talented, and it’s a really fun world to live in. I’m really honored that I was asked to be a part of this one.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
