‘American Sports Story’ Casts Tammy Blanchard As Aaron Hernandez’s Mother

EXCLUSIVE: Emmy Award-winner Tammy Blanchard has been cast in FX’s American Sports Story, the new FX anthology limited series from creator Stu Zicherman, in a series regular role, sources tell Deadline.

American Sports Story, a new extension of Ryan Murphy’s “American Story” franchise, focuses on a prominent event involving a sports figure and re-examines it through the prism of today’s world, telling that story from multiple perspectives.

The first installment charts the rise and fall of NFL superstar Aaron Hernandez, played by Josh Andrés Rivera, and explores the connections of the disparate strands of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide and his legacy in sports and American culture. Season 1 is based on the podcast Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc. and hails from the Boston Globe and Wondery.

Blanchard will portray the mother of the disgraced football star and convicted murderer, Terri Hernandez, we hear. 20th Television and FX declined to comment for this story.

Additional cast includes Jaylen Barron, Jake Cannavale, Catfish Jean, Tony Yazbeck, Lindsay Mendez and Patrick Schwarzenegger.

In addition to Zicherman and Murphy, executive producers also include Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Alexis Martin Woodall and Brad Falchuk; Hernan Lopez and Marshall Lewy of Wondery; and Linda Pizutti Henry and Ira Napoliello for the Boston Globe.

Blanchard most recently portrayed Audrey in the Off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors. She won a Primetime Emmy Award for her portrayal of a young Judy Garland in Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, and was Golden Globe and AFI nominated for this performance.

She received a 2011 Tony Award nomination for her performance as Hedy La Rue in the Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying opposite Daniel Radcliffe and John Larroquette. Blanchard was also nominated for a Tony for her Broadway debut in Gypsy opposite Bernadette Peters, for which she received a Theater World Award. She also starred opposite Denzel Washington in the revival of The Iceman Cometh.

Film credits include A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Into the Woods, Blue Jasmine, Moneyball, The Good Shepherd and Cadillac Records, among others. TV credits include Dare Me (USA), Hoke (FX), The Big C (HBO) and The Good Wife, among others.

She is repped by Paradigm Talent Agency.