Darren Criss didn’t get to spend too much onscreen time with his American Crime Story costars — but they more than made up for it when the cameras weren’t rolling.
During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday, Criss opened up about shooting the upcoming FX series, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, which chronicles the 1997 murder of the Italian designer outside his Miami Beach home at the hands of Andrew Cunanan, played by Criss.
“He was a spree killer, a very troubled young man who does not follow the typical prerequisites of a killer,” said Criss, 30, of Cunanan. “He didn’t kill small animals as a child, or have a history of violence. Such is the exploration of our show — how a kid with so much promise becomes somebody so destructive.”
Asked if he had “fun” playing the killer, Criss said, “I don’t know if fun is the polite word, but it certainly goes to dark places. We see the good sides of him, the sad sides of him.”
“But the fun part, truly, if I have to just be a big stargazer, is I got to do this show with this insane-o cast of huge superstars,” he continued, referencing A-list cast costars Edgar Ramírez as Gianni Versace, Penélope Cruz as his sister Donatella and international pop superstar Ricky Martin as Versace’s lover, Antonio D’Amico.
“So you have Latin royalty, and then the half-Filipino kid,” quipped Criss of himself.
Criss said he “made sure” to spend time with his costars offscreen, because “for plot reasons — and you can do the math — I don’t actually spend a lot of time with their characters at all onscreen.”
During production, Martin had everyone over to his house “several times” — and, according to Criss, the singer is quite the host.
“I’m sort of the Pied Piper of karaoke in singalong situations. I usually don’t bring booze, I usually don’t bring food, but I’ll bring a guitar and we’ll have a singalong, so that was my contribution,” said Criss. “One of my favorite memories of shooting the show is we’re at Ricky Martin’s house, which is already a place-setter of like, ‘Woah, this is wacky.’ And I’m sitting there next to his five or six Grammys, and what Ricky thought would be nice as a host was he got pedicures for people.”
“So I’m playing guitar — I’m playing ‘Let It Go’ and Penélope is singing that song, then I start playing one of Ricky Martin’s songs and Edgar Ramírez is singing it to me, he’s singing it to Ricky, we’re sitting next to his Grammys — and all the while, they’re getting pedicures. And I’m like … ‘How did this all happen?’ ”
“You’re now both livin’ la vida loca,” quipped host Jimmy Kimmel.
Starstruck Darren Criss Performed a Ricky Martin Song for Ricky Martin While Shooting Versace
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