Rob Gronkowski Reacts to Unhinged Viral Clip of ‘American Sports Story’ Actor Who Plays Him
It was the laugh heard around the world. Or at least around NFL Twitter.
Viewers of FX’s “American Sports Story” cracked up themselves during the introduction of Rob Gronkowski to the Ryan Murphy-executive-produced drama. The legendary Patriots and Buccaneers tight end made his debut shortly after the series’ central character Aaron Hernandez (Josh Andrés Rivera) first shows up in the Pats’ locker room. It’s a moment perfectly calibrated to go viral, and it did when shared by NFL writer Dov Kleiman, among others.
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“Aaron! ‘Sup, bro? I’m Rob,” Gronkowski, as played by actor Laith Wallschleger, says. “They call me Gronk.”
When Hernandez says, “They call me Aaron,” Gronk replies with a hilariously neutral, “Nice.” Then he launches into: “Hey, you meet coach yet? That dude is fucking scary, bro [while pantomiming some kind of Frankenstein’s monster walk and launching into a maniacal laugh].”
Anyone who’s seen that is obsessed with it and IndieWire’s Ben Travers said that, while real-life coaches Urban Meyer (Tony Yazbeck) and Bill Belichick (Norbert Leo Butz) never become more than caricatures, “the same could be said for the five minutes you get of Laith Wallschleger’s looney Rob Gronkowski, but I would mean it only as a compliment.”
Now the real-life Gronk has weighed in about the moment, and it turns out there’s a very, very good reason why Wallschleger seemed to capture Gronk’s off-the-wall energy in such an uncanny way. The two have known each other for years and collaborated on many projects together, with Wallschleger as Gronk’s go-to body double.
“That is my good friend Laith that was playing me there,” Gronkowski told host Kay Adams on the FanDuel NFL show “Up and Adams.” The four-time Super Bowl champion continued: “I’ve known him for about 14 years. And he definitely went over the top, and I feel like it just fit the show perfectly, though. Especially with all the other characters and Coach Belichick and just seeing Robert Kraft in the show as well. I feel like it was, definitely, as I said, over the top, a little exaggerated that’s for sure. But it played the part for how this show was produced.”
Gronkowski and Wallschleger have worked together on many commercial shoots in the past: “He plays all my doubles in all my other commercials and kind of everything else I do. He was my double in ‘Kick of Destiny,’ actually as well, in the commercial. Yes, he stands in for me, that’s what a double does. He’s shorter than me, he’s not as jacked as me either. And he’s not as sweet as me either. But he’s alright. He does have the laugh down. He does.”
However, their partnership might be jeopardized a bit by Wallschleger’s sudden viral fame. “Laith is becoming too big time,” Gronkowski noted. “Because I shot a commercial yesterday too, and he was supposed to be my stand-in as well, my double. And guess what? He canceled last second because the clip was going so viral he became so big time. So ooh, Laith, you’re so big time, man.”
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