American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez is not a funny show. The FX series delves into the true, tragic story of how New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez (Josh Riviera) became a killer, sentenced to life in prison, where he ultimately died by suicide. American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez also looks at the grotesque ways in which football culture commodified Hernandez as a product, willfully ignoring warning signs of CTE and mental illness to push the troubled young man onto the field in pursuit of glory. The show also explores the physical and sexual abuse the young Hernandez suffered as well as his closeted queer feelings for other men.

Essentially, American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez embraces darkness at almost every turn, so it should come as a pleasant surprise that American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez Episode 5 “The Man” has multiple moments of levity. As soon as Aaron Hernandez arrives at Gillette Stadium to join the New England Patriots, American Sports Story offers some hilariously campy moments lampooning some of the NFL team’s most iconic personalities. Hernandez gets a light moment meeting fellow new tight end Rob Gronkowski (Laith Wallschleger) and we visit coach Bill Belichick‘s (Norbert Leo Butz) private office, where he blasts Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” as a theme song.

“Dude, it was so funny,” American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez star Josh Riviera told Decider during an interview at Summer 2024 TCA. “That was very, very helpful to have that. It’s such a light moment.”

According to Riviera, so much of the humor in that scene came from co-star Laith Wallschleger. “I believe he actually used to play for the Cardinals. Like, the dude is massive. And, he was so funny,” Riviera said.

“He did, like, twelve different takes of some variation of whatever he ended up getting there. He would be like, ‘That’s Tom Brady. He’s got such nice teeth!’ He would be making me laugh, man.”

Norbert Leo Butz also had “great fun” shooting his silly Bon Jovi scene, especially since it was his very first day working on American Sports Story.

“I don’t know if Bill Belichick rocked out solo by himself to Jon Bon Jovi, but it feels right,” Butz said. “Like you could see that he could be.”

“He’s a huge music fan, and not just of Jon Bon Jovi, of like, great rock and roll. He’s a huge rock fan. So, that private moment felt like a really important moment to get.”

Both Rivera and Butz thought those lighter moments weren’t just helpful for them as actors, but that they expressed something more nuanced about the characters in American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez.

“It was nice to to be able to think about the day to day humor and goofiness that that would be in a character like that,” Riviera said. “It was very helpful to have moments like that, to kind of just build what that baseline is.”