Excerpts from issue no 5 of Emmy magazine (source) | 25 May 2018
Author: acsversace news
The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Darren Criss, and more
Margaret and Graeme review The Bookshop, sci-fi thriller Anon, and The Assassination of Gianni Versace, as well as talking to star Darren Criss. | 23 May 2018
Darren Criss was concerned about playing serial killer Andrew Cunanan
Darren Criss first rose to fame as gay teenager Blaine Anderson on musical series Glee. Since the show finished in 2015, Criss has tried his hand at Broadway – appearing in Hedwig and the Angry Inch in the same year – as well as releasing music alongside his brother Chuck with their project Computer Games. Now, the 31-year-old has stepped into the shoes of Andrew Cunanan, the serial killer responsible for gunning down legendary fashion designer Gianni Versace in 1997, for the new nine-episode series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. Criss sat down with WHO whilst in Australia to chat all things Versace, his future plans and his upcoming tour with former Glee co-star Lea Michele.
WHO: How much did you know about Andrew Cunanan’s role in Versace death?
About as much as I think most people [knew] unless you were working in fashion in the ‘90s or living in Miami. I knew that he was shot and I vaguely remember that he was shot by someone who was half Filipino, that was about it, I only would have clocked that in because I’m half Filipino but other than that, I didn’t know a whole lot so like most people when you start to realise that he had a much larger history, not only personally but as far as how many more homicides there were, you just go ‘Oh my god how did I not know about this?’ and then the answer to that question is in the show, like ‘How did we not know about this?’ well X, Y and Z.
WHO: Did you feel any pressure in how you represented Andrew in the series?
I didn’t feel any more pressure than I feel for any role, which is to say that I treat all roles with the same sort of TLC, I’m really making sure that everyone’s taken care of. Now Andrew’s tricky because he was a real person and so I think there was less pressure and more… there was a great deal of concern that I had in that this was a real person that destroyed the lives of people who are still very much alive 20 years later and in the immediate aftermath of everything that happened in 1997, the family and friends of these people were bombarded with media.
Darren Criss was concerned about playing serial killer Andrew Cunanan
Andrew Mercado on TV: My Ryan Murphy obsession
I watched all 100 episodes of Nip/Tuck, convinced with every riotous instalment that it could not possibly get more morally corrupt. Every week I was proved wrong as the show always scraped new lows in reprehensible behaviour. And after six seasons of scandal and silliness, its producer Ryan Murphy proved he was only just getting started, with a prolific output ever since (and Netflix is his next home).
His dramas have sometimes been hit (Feud) and miss (Scream Queens) but they are impossible to ignore. And his incredible American Crime franchise, is unmissable, beginning with the multi-award winning The People v. O.J. Simpson and now on Foxtel’s showcase The Assassination of Gianni Versace.
This is the international TV drama of the year so far for me. Over nine episodes, it effortlessly recreates the most opulent of worlds, with Versace’s over the top mansions, and serial killer Andrew Cunanan (played by an actor Ryan Murphy discovered for Glee, Darren Criss). And despite it covering some of the creepiest territory yet (and that’s saying a lot, given Murphy’s wildly uneven American Horror Story), this is totally mesmerising from start to finish. It opens with the gunning down of Versace and then bounces around in time but, by showing every murder first and then following it with Cunanan’s twisted machinations, it helps make the tale even more twisted.
Murphy is never afraid to cast the biggest of stars, all of whom make you forget who they are. OK, maybe Cuba Gooding Jr wasn’t a great OJ Simpson, but others (like Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange as Bette and Joan) were totally convincing.
This time round, you will believe that Penelope Cruz is Donatella Versace and Ricky Martin will break your heart as Gianni’s partner. Australian audiences, used to seeing him on The Voice, won’t see anything they recognise here – he will amaze those fans.
Which brings us to fellow Voice judge, Delta Goodrem, who nailed Olivia Newton-John’s singing voice but could not get the rest of the illusion. The second part of Olivia: Hopeless Devoted To You, which one wag on rightfully described as “Hopelessly Convoluted”, was a ratings disaster, leaving all to declare, yet again, that the Aussie biopic is over.
And in that format, maybe it is. Covering an entire lifetime is getting old and, if the story needs to be set all over the world, that’s when we really get into trouble. There is not one second of The Assassination of Gianni Versace that is not dripping in authenticity or lushness, and Aussie productions cannot match multimillion-dollar budgets like that. It’s no longer good enough to re-create the climax of Grease, originally filmed at a high school oval in Los Angeles, at Luna Park in Melbourne.
The role Darren Criss was born to play
While Darren Criss’ most famous character saw him favouring bow-ties, cardigans and being an unabashedly good guy, his latest role calls on him to repeatedly drive a claw hammer into one of his victims, blood spluttering all over the walls of a downtown warehouse conversion.
Andrew Cunanan is most famous for gunning down Gianni Versace as he stood outside his beachside Miami mansion in 1997. But before he drew his weapon at the designer’s head, Cunanan had wreaked havoc with four other killings.
Even though American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace — with an A-list cast that includes Penelope Cruz, Edgar Ramirez and Ricky Martin — appears to be a drama about the famed design house, Cunanan’s story makes up something like 80 per cent of the time.
By structuring the series in reverse linearity and opening with the Versace murder before each subsequent episode takes a step backwards, to the other killings and back to Cunanan’s adolescence and childhood, it seeks to explain how someone as charismatic as him could end up where he did.
With the weight of almost the entire nine episodes on his shoulders, Criss gives a nuanced and powerful performance that’s been talked about in terms of how many statues he’ll nab come awards season.
Darren Criss talks about the emotional complexity needed to play the man who murdered Gianni Versace
Darren Criss’ role as a real-life mass murderer could not be further from the job that made him famous.
In The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story – the nine-part series about the murder of the fashion designer, which also stars Édgar Ramírezas Versace, Penélope Cruz as his sister, Donatella Versace, and Ricky Martin as Versace’s lover, Antonio D’Amico – the 31-year-old actor, singer and songwriter portrays Andrew Cunanan, the man who became famous for killing fashion designer Gianni Versace in July 1997 after murdering at least four other people. It’s a far cry from Blaine Anderson, the singing and dancing ‘Warbler’ character Criss played on Gleefor five years.
That said, The Assassination of Gianni Versace and Glee have more in common than just Criss as a star, and that’s how he got involved in the first place. Both series are executively produced by Ryan Murphy, who was also behind Nip/Tuck, The New Normal and the American Horror Story.
Darren Criss talks about the emotional complexity needed to play the man who murdered Gianni Versace
DarrenCriss: Australia – The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story premieres tonight at 8:30pm on @showcaseaus. #ACSVersace
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