American Sports Story Star Shares His Opinion on Aaron Hernandez and Shayanna Jenkins’ Relationship

Warning: This article contains mention of suicide.Based on The Boston Globe and Wondery’s Gladiator podcast, the first season of American sports history chronicles the rise and fall of Aaron Hernandez. The football star was selected to play for the New England Patriots during the 2010 NFL Draft. He played tight end for three seasons, but was released from the team after being accused of the murder of Odin Lloyd. Hernandez died in his prison cell in 2017 of an apparent suicide and was diagnosed with stage 3 CTE after his death.

The former NFL player was engaged to his childhood friend, Shayanna Jenkins, played by Jaylen Barron on the FX show. The actress says that although she never met the real person her character is based on, she wanted to do her justice. From watching interviews, Barron understood that Jenkins was a strong, intelligent woman who was genuinely in love with Hernandez. She decided to incorporate that love into her performance and make sure viewers felt it on screen.

Screen speech interviews Barron about preparing for the complex role, Aaron and Shayanna’s relationship, and what genre she’d like to explore next American sports history.

Barron believes Aaron loved Shayanna in his own way

“Despite the demons he was battling, his love for her never waned and was never hidden.”

Screen Rant: Being based on a true story, how much did you know about Aaron Hernandez before joining the show?

Jaylen Barron: When I found out about this, I was 16 or 17, at the time the trial was happening. I dove deeper into this because of the Netflix documentary. This was one of the first things that was released about him besides the Gladiator podcast. The only thing I knew about him was that he was very handsome and had a mental illness. After watching the documentary, I thought, “This is crazy.” I’m like, “Sorry, Shayanna, I could never do that. It could never be me.” And then we literally fast forward years later, and here I am. I am her.

When I booked the role, I dove deeper and watched a bunch of his and her interviews, and tried to lurk on social media as much as I could to find out more. Aaron was a mystery. He was even a mystery to Shayanna. The only thing I really had to do was what the show’s investigators were giving me and their interviews and interviews with his teammates and what they were saying about him. Most reliable sources I feel wouldn’t lie about his character.

Does playing a character based on a real person influence your performance?

Jaylen Barron: Yes, of course. She is a real person. Unfortunately, I don’t know her personally, but that factors in a lot more because I want to make sure I’m doing her justice and I’m not making her look a specific way. I really wanted her to seem like how I perceived her in her interviews: genuinely in love with him, strong, smart, and caring. And those were the choices I made as an actress in every scene I did. It was just embodying the love she felt for him and then projecting it outwardly.

They are said to have had an early friendship, but the show doesn’t delve much into Aaron and Shayanna’s history. Did you or the writers find anything that helped fill in those gaps?

Jaylen Barron: Their interviews, what they talked about, even the courtroom scenes of them talking about how long they’d known each other and how in love they were – it just gave you a high school sweetheart. And despite the demons he was fighting, his love for her never waned and was never hidden. He loved her, in his own way, but he still loved her and she loved him. I really tried to make sure it didn’t get lost in the story. I didn’t want it to seem like she was just a woman who was cheated on.

She is betrayed, but he loves her, trusts her, and she was the only one there to help him. I was really trying to imagine myself in her shoes with a man I’ve known since I was 14. I have his son and we have this future that I want together and I want my son to have a father. I don’t want her to be fatherless, so I’ll do whatever it takes. If you have this mindset, then there is nothing you cannot do to secure your child’s future. I don’t judge her for that.

Barron wishes Aaron had been honest with his fiancée

“Now we’ll never know if she would have reacted well or not. She could have helped him.”

Speaking from your character’s perspective, what do you think drew you to Aaron romantically?

Jaylen Barron: I don’t know what conversations they were having in private, but just based on his personality, I feel like he’s very charismatic and charming and sweet and silly. I think this would turn any woman into a very handsome and successful man, especially since she has known him since she was a teenager. Why not? So that I could figure out who Shay was in particular, I just based it on Aaron. If he’s a jokester, she has to understand the jokes. So that means she also has to be kind of silly.

She obviously has a personality that none of us have ever seen before. And if you notice in episode 5, when we’re at the mansion, she’s playing with him. They are eating pizza. “Ooh, let’s get out of here. People like me, Aaron, so go ahead or get lost.” She wasn’t just some dorky background character in his life. It had to match his fly, and that’s how I wanted it to be seen. It was a strong woman who stood by him, let him shine, but she was still herself.

Do you think Aaron ever wanted to tell Shayanna the truth about anything that was going on? Did it provide you with a sense of comfort?

Jaylen Barron: I feel like she gave him a sense of comfort, but I feel like her infidelities were like any other man’s infidelities, where they regret it when they get caught. Do I think he would go to her and say, “I’m cheating on you”? No, because he’s just cheating for the sake of cheating.

He is doing what millions of other men do. There is no difference. Would he have come to her? Maybe, but probably not, if it weren’t a “getting caught” situation. But I think she made him comfortable because they had known each other forever, he was in love with her and this was the mother of his child. As for telling her, I don’t know.

She also found that bag of money and a gun in their house during episode 6.

Jaylen Barron: I don’t think that was something he would have shared with her because he didn’t want to put her in danger or risk losing her. She was a good girl. He knows she would say, “You need to tell the police, you need to do this, you need to do that.”

It’s so hard to say because there’s this narrative of who he is that everyone perceives versus what I actually believe versus what the truth actually is. I just hate the fact that he was keeping all these secrets from her. Now we will never know if she would have taken it well or not. She could have helped him.

Shayanna clearly knew something was up with Aaron, but what do you think her worst fear was?

Jaylen Barron: I think her biggest fear is losing him and losing the family dynamic. This is something she really wanted and doesn’t want anything to happen to him. Just like any man you love, you don’t want him to go. You don’t want anything to fall apart. I think that was his biggest fear: losing the family lifestyle he always dreamed of.

Shayanna imagined a “white picket fence” life with Aaron

“I feel like she imagined just mom, dad, the white picket fence, a standardized lifestyle and all this extra money didn’t really mean anything to her.”

There’s a moment when Shayanna is painting the sidewalks and Aaron tells her, “We can pay someone to do that,” but she says, “No, I want to do that.” What is the life she envisioned for herself and Aaron?

Jaylen Barron: Normal. It didn’t come from millions and millions of dollars where they could hire someone to do this. She was used to being raised like, “I can do this. This is my baby’s room. I don’t need anyone else to do this.” All this extra money is a little strange to her, so she has a hard time understanding where he’s coming from with it. And I feel like he has a hard time understanding how to use it correctly and doesn’t know that we don’t just need to pay someone to do it.

We could do it alone because it’s love. This is an activity we could do together. He’s kind of missing that mark. I feel like she imagined just mom, dad, the white picket fence, a standardized lifestyle and all this extra money didn’t really mean anything to her, but it was there. I don’t think she knew what to do with it. I don’t think she understood the gravity of the kind of lifestyle that would happen to them if nothing had happened.

There’s a really touching scene where Shayanna expresses these struggles she’s having with her fiancé, and her mother tells her to be grateful. What was it like for her to hear that?

Jaylen Barron: I think it was a story that a lot of women could tell their daughters about how not many people have this million-dollar opportunity, so you just sit there and keep quiet. And like she said, be grateful for what’s happening to you. It’s an unfortunate circumstance, but in Shay and her mother’s situation, they obviously didn’t know anything needed to be done at that time.

And if her mother had given her the advice, “You should really figure this out and not keep quiet,” then who knows what might have changed in the end? If she had made it a point for Shay to find out something about Aaron, this might not have happened because she was aware and someone was pressuring her to find out what was going on in his mind.

This is a limited series, so are there any other genres you’d like to explore? Any cool future projects for you?

Jaylen Barron: Yes. There are some cool projects coming up, but I want to take on a role in a thriller, like a secret agent, Kill Bill kind of woman. I feel like I made the child horse a healthy family. I took the risk with Blindspotting, and here I am being the noble wife of this crazy drama. And next I want to be the villain with a sword. I want to fight someone. I want to do the most. I want to do somersaults off a balcony or something. I want to do everything. I never know what my next dream role will be until it falls in front of me.

It’s only when I see it that I think, “This is it! This is what I’m looking for. This role was my dream role.” I had said after Blindspotting that I wanted to do something more serious, more grounded, normal girl. And then it landed in front of me. We’ll see what happens next. I’m just waiting for my managers and my agents to send it, and I send them an audition tape, and they’re like, “That’s it.” Any role I take on next is my dream role.

About American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez

Produced by 20th Television

The first installment of FX’s American Sports History is based on the Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc. podcast from The Boston Globe and Wondery. The 10-episode limited series charts the rise and fall of NFL star Aaron Hernandez and explores different aspects of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide and his legacy in sports and American culture.

American Sports History: Aaron Hernandez airs Tuesdays at 10pm ET on FX.