I’m trying to slim down now, ” says Josh Rivera half-jokingly. “Hollywood loves the lean boys. Timmy Chalamet is working his butt off.
” We’re at the rock-climbing gym Brooklyn Boulders in Long Island City on a July afternoon. Rivera, who packed on nearly 30 pounds of muscle to play Aaron Hernandez , the late star Patriots tight end who was convicted of murder, bulges out of his loose cutoff beige shirt and gray shorts. Rivera was 24 years old and working as a principal standby for the touring version of Hamilton when he sent in a tape for Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story.
He was cast as Chino, Maria’s ( Rachel Zegler ) family-approved boyfriend. “I was like, ‘Tight, I made it.’ Like, ‘I’m Hollywood now .
.. smooth sailing,’” he says.
The feeling didn’t last. Not long after production for West Side Story wrapped in 2019, the pandemic hit. At the time, he was in the middle of a workshop for the musical version of The Outsiders, which shut down.
It was a sobering experience. As West Side Story was attracting Oscar buzz in 2021, he was working as a barback at a midtown restaurant: “I remember people being like, ‘Hey, are you that guy?’” Embarrassed, he would reply “no.” After supporting parts in The Hunger Games prequel and the film adaptation of Cat Person, he has worked his way back with his first leading role in American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez .
Part of the Ryan Murphy American Story franchise and adapted from a Bosto.