Before the ‘Love Story’ Finale, Those in Ryan Murphy’s Kennedy Universe Gathered for an Exclusive Toast

The unseasonable heat in Los Angeles broke on Saturday night, just in time for Ryan Murphy to toast the team behind the FX smash hit Love Story. At the Chateau Marmont penthouse overlooking Sunset Boulevard, guests assembled in the cool air to celebrate the show’s critical and commercial success. The word of the night was whirlwind, with nearly everyone describing the show’s meteoric rise as such. “I’m still not fully comprehending it,” said Sarah Pidgeon, who plays Carolyn Bessette. “It’s fascinating to see a younger generation learn about Carolyn. And yes, things have changed. The paparazzi have changed, but our relationship to fame has not.”

The finale of the show, which airs this Thursday, has been kept under wraps; even many of the cast members haven’t seen the final edit yet. “I know the finale is big for me, because I was there shooting it,” said Constance Zimmer, who plays Carolyn’s mother, Ann Marie Messina. “I just can’t wait to see it.” Paul Anthony Kelly, who plays John F. Kennedy Jr., recalled the immersive feeling of filming the series. “We were just in it the whole time. It was our whole lives,” said the actor. Kelly, who lives in Portland, Oregon, and has traveled all over since the show premiered—from the Dior fashion show in Paris to the recent Vanity Fair Oscar Party—sees his home in Oregon as a place of respite. “We moved there two months before I got the role in Love Story. We were living in Altadena, in Los Angeles, and then we moved up to Portland. Then I got this show and was moving to New York.” Whirlwind, right?

Since Love Story’s premiere just ahead of Valentine’s Day, interest in the series and its stars, as well as the real-life people they all portray, has only grown. The show was met with some skepticism early on—but since it began airing, fans have embraced its interpretation of ’90s style. “With Crime Story”—the anthology franchise whose first season focused on O.J. Simpson—“we received a lot of attention about the politics and revisiting the case,” said producer Brad Simpson. “With this show, it’s been fascinating to see how much attention we’ve been getting from the fashion community, especially online.”

Everyone in the room on Saturday looked like they had walked straight off the runway. Pidgeon was dressed in The Row; Kaia Gerber in Marc Jacobs; Kelly in Giuliva Heritage. Dree Hemingway, who plays Daryl Hannah on the show, recently returned from a photo shoot in Switzerland and was joking with Kelly as they waited by the bar. Their friendly repartee was a far cry from what’s shown between the characters on the show. “It’s a dream to be in a Ryan Murphy show,” said Hemingway.

The dinner also included two stars of the upcoming FX series The Shards, based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel about a group of privileged high schoolers in Los Angeles in the 1980s. Gerber, a new staple in the Murphy universe, attended with her costar Hayes Warner. The show’s wrap party had been held the night before, and the two are set to go on vacation together after filming for seven months. “The hair is big,” said Warner. “I spent about four hours in the makeup chair to get it right.”

Instead of creating a formal seating arrangement, Murphy opted to have guests sit at smaller tables around the terrace. But there was a catch: Between each course, everyone had to move to a different table to chat with new people. Luckily for this crew, that was an easy proposition.

When Grace Gummer, who plays Caroline Kennedy, saw Kelly from across the room, she ran to give him a long hug. The two have become close, from both filming the show and promoting it. The queen of the Murphy universe, Sarah Paulson, brought Murphy’s favored movement coach, Julia Crockett, to the dinner as her guest. Crockett worked with Pidgeon on Love Story. “We spent a week at the Hotel Roosevelt, walking down the hallways to perfect Carolyn’s walk,” said the coach. “There isn’t as much video of her as you think, so we had to really work on growing the character from the inside.” Paulson also worked with Crockett to create her version of Linda Tripp for the Impeachment season of American Crime Story. “I learned not to turn my head with my neck, but with my nose,” the Emmy winner said. “Linda was always sticking her nose in people’s business, so we decided her nose led her movements.”

“It’s exactly as I pictured it in my mind when I was writing it,” said Love Story creator Connor Hines about the finished product. When asked if he’d be interested in taking on another couple for his next project, he paused and said, “Maybe Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. They have the right intensity.” Sounds like another hit.