Paul Kelly lands first role as JFK Jr. after 13 years
Paul Kelly landed his first professional acting role as John F. Kennedy Jr. in Love Story after 13 years of auditioning. He said the break finally came after a long stretch of close calls, and the job put him into a high-profile project about John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette.
13 Years Before Love Story
“I had 13 years of auditioning: A lot of nos, some close-to things, never really locking it in,” Kelly said during the Actors on Actors interview. After that run, he said, “Maybe this isn’t for me.” The part in Love Story ended the waiting period with his first-ever professional acting credit.
Love Story centers on the doomed romance between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, with Sarah Pidgeon playing Bessette. For Kelly, the role changed his career from repeated auditions to a credited screen debut in a project built around two public figures whose names still carry instant recognition.
Three Weeks With Ryan Murphy
Kelly said he had three weeks to prepare after being hired, and the production gave him a dialect coach, an acting coach, and a physical trainer. “I had three weeks to prepare from when I was hired, which was not a lot of time,” he said. “I’m Canadian — I have a totally different speech pattern to John F. Kennedy Jr.”
That compressed schedule forced the role to be built fast: Kelly said he had to learn how Kennedy Jr. moved, talked, and walked, and he also had to get a little bigger for the part. “Yeah, big-time stretch,” he said when asked about the physical demands.
Voicing JFK Jr.
Kelly said he listened to John F. Kennedy Jr.’s narration of Profiles in Courage to find his voice. He also said Kennedy Jr. was always running, biking, Rollerblading, and working out, which made movement as important as speech in his preparation. Ryan Murphy and his team backed that work with coaching that turned a first-time television performer into someone ready to carry a biographical role.
The gap between 13 years of auditions and three weeks of preparation is the whole story here: Kelly did not arrive with a long screen résumé, he arrived with a first credit in a project that asked him to match a real person’s voice, posture, and pace on a tight schedule. That kind of start is a hard entry point, but it also gives him a cleaner career launch than a small supporting bit ever would.
For readers tracking Kelly’s next move, the useful detail is simple: his first professional role is now on the board, and it is attached to Love Story rather than a low-profile debut. In this business, that is the kind of credit that can reset the rest of the audition calendar.
