Josh Rivera Takes the Lead

The actor plays the tortured football player Aaron Hernandez in a Ryan Murphy-produced series.

- ALESSA DOMINGUEZ

"I'M TRYING TO slim down now," says Josh Rivera halfjokingly. "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) familyapproved boyfriend. "I was like, Tight, I made it.' Like, I'm Hollywood now... smooth sailing," he says.