So it makes sense to ask if there’s anything left to say about Hernandez, the Connecticut native whose heinous crimes left three people dead and ended a promising NFL career. Stuart Zicherman, creator and writer of the new FX series “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez,” believes there is something left to say.

“I actually wasn’t sure until I read the Globe article,” Zicherman said. “In our modern news cycle, stories are simplified or sensationalized, and Aaron was always portrayed as just a monster. The Globe’s reporting opened things up, and the complexity made it a different story.”

The FX show, the latest installment in executive producer Ryan Murphy’s “American Story” series, is based on the Globe/Wondery podcast “Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc.” The show, which premieres Tuesday on FX and is available to stream on Hulu the next day, traces Hernandez’s life over 10 episodes – from Bristol, Connecticut, where he grew up with an angry, abusive father, to Gainesville, Florida, where he blossomed as a talented but troubled college football player, to Massachusetts, where his out-of-control drug use and increasing paranoia led him to become increasingly violent.

In 2015, less than three years after his Super Bowl appearance and signing a $41 million contract with the Patriots, Hernandez, then just 25 years old, was behind bars. He had been convicted of murdering Odin Lloyd, a mild-mannered semi-pro football player who was dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancée, and charged with the 2012 murders of two other men, Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado. (Although Hernandez was later acquitted of those murders, he was convicted of illegally possessing the firearm used in the killings.)

Because the former football star is viewed by many in the public as a ruthless killer, Zicherman said the challenge for the writers was to give Hernandez “humanity, depth and complexity” but to do so without rationalizing his criminal behavior.

For example, “American Sports Story” sheds light on aspects of Hernandez’s background and personality that may have contributed to his downfall, including his at times violent personal life, the potential effects of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) caused by repeated blows to the head while playing football, his discomfort with his sexuality, his rampant drug and alcohol use, and his fascination with guns.

“My approach was to examine what Aaron did, how he did it and why he did it, but without ever excusing the fact that he did it,” said Zicherman, who has worked as a screenwriter on the television series “The Americans” and “The Affair.”

“We will never forgive Aaron for being a murderer,” Zicherman said.

The show comes with a standard caveat. At the end of each episode, an on-screen message reminds viewers that American Sports Story is a drama, not a documentary. Although the series is inspired by true events, some of the show’s characters, characterizations, incidents, locations and dialogue are “fictional or invented.”

Actor Josh Andres Rivera, who plays Hernandez, said the appeal of the role lies in the football player’s complicated backstory, particularly his strained relationship with his father, his secret about his bisexuality and the way some powerful people – notably Urban Meyer, Hernandez’s coach at the University of Florida, as well as Patriots owner Robert Kraft and coach Bill Belichick – either overlook or downplay his off-field issues.

“Aaron learns that he can get away with things because he’s physically gifted. He’s a toy that people can use to win,” Rivera said. “That’s a lesson he learns very early on, and unfortunately that’s what really turns his ability to keep getting away with things into a weapon.”

Rivera, who weighed about 185 pounds for his role as Chino in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 remake of “West Side Story,” said he had to gain quite a bit of mass to reach Hernandez’s 240 pounds. “A big part of pre-production was just eating a ton and working out all the time,” he said.

But the role required more than big muscles, a prosthetic to raise the bridge of the nose and the careful application of temporary tattoos on his arms, chest and back. Rivera also studied the posture – the way he walked and talked – of Hernandez, whose mother, Terri, was Italian and father, Dennis, Puerto Rican.

“He had a certain level of self-confidence and self-assurance that, I think, half worked in my body. I channeled that as best as I could,” Rivera said. “But I couldn’t go so far that it didn’t feel right or didn’t look natural.”

While Belichick, Kraft and Hernandez’s former teammate at the University of Florida, Tim Tebow (played by actor Patrick Schwarzenegger), all play important roles in the story, former Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who combined with Hernandez for 20 touchdowns in their three seasons together, is barely seen in the series.

“I never really noticed it,” Zicherman said of the relationship between Hernandez and Brady. “It’s more about the culture of the Patriots.”

But the show is also about the bond between the troubled NFL player and his devoted fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins, the mother of Hernandez’s only child, a daughter. (The two attended Bristol Central High School together and became a couple after Hernandez was drafted by the Patriots in 2010.)

Actress Jaylen Barron, who plays Jenkins in the series, said she didn’t know much about the Hernandez saga until she watched the three-part Netflix docuseries “Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez,” which came out in 2020.

“I remember looking right at Shayanna and saying, ‘That can’t be me. That can’t be me,'” Barron said. “And here we are. In fact, it’s me. I’m here doing this.”

Barron, who appeared on Starz’s “Blindspotting” and Showtime’s “Shameless,” believes Jenkins has been misrepresented by some media outlets, portraying her as a thoughtless accomplice rather than a young woman who refused to believe her baby’s father was capable of murder.

“When all this was happening, she was ridiculed in the media… It’s so easy to demonize people,” Barron said. “It was important to me that we give Shayanna some dignity. She didn’t know what she was doing – she was a young mother trying to get her life together.”

Even though most people know how Hernandez’s story ends, Zicherman believes “American Sports Story” will give them food for thought.

“What was his background?” he asked. “If we say Aaron Hernandez was not born a murderer, then what was he?”

Mark Shanahan can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @MarkAShanahan.