‘Love Story’ Star Paul Anthony Kelly Welcomes 1st Baby With Wife Syd Widziszewski-Kelly

Kelly also recalled how Widziszewski-Kelly had informed him they were expecting around the same time that he landed his star-making role as John F. Kennedy Jr.

“February comes around, and I felt pretty good about it, but casting said they were reading other gentlemen for it. I was like, ‘OK, that’s fine. Whatever,’” he told the magazine. “A few months go by, and near the end of April I got an email from my agents. Casting wants to see me again to do another tape. Twenty minutes later, I got another email and they’re like, ‘We’re just going to go straight to the producer callback.’ We’re in Portland. That’s our home base now, my wife and I. So I do the Zoom, and right before we’re about to go for dinner for our second wedding anniversary, she tells me we’re pregnant. May 1 was a big day.”

Kelly continued, “The next day I got a phone call from my agent: They want to see me for a chemistry read with Sarah [Pidgeon], who was already cast as Carolyn, the following week. The stipulation was I had to have my green card before then. The phone call came on Friday. Saturday I got my green card. Sunday I booked my ticket.”

Kelly and Pidgeon, 29, portray Kennedy and Bessette-Kennedy in Love Story, which premiered on February 12. The limited series also stars Grace Gummer as JFK Jr.’s sister, Caroline Kennedy, and Naomi Watts as his mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Kelly said on The Kelly Clarkson Show on Monday that he almost gave up on trying to break into acting right before he booked Love Story.

“I’d been going after it for 12, 13 years, and it was just getting to the point where I was auditioning a lot, wasn’t really moving forward with anything and was like, ‘OK, cool. It’s not for me,’” he reflected. “And then I had this wonderful opportunity.”

Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette airs on FX Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET. Episodes stream the next day on Hulu.