Tag: acs versace

Emmy voters, I’m here to help – The Boston Globe

SOME OF THE BEST TV IS LIMITED: I mean limited series, a category filled with some of the year’s best goodies. Do not, I repeat, do not ignore “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” one of the year’s most riveting TV stories, and take special notice of its performances. And do not, I repeat, do not go gaga for “Twin Peaks,” which — and I know this is controversial — was significant simply for being so stubbornly self-referential and inscrutable. Be sure to check out the other Margaret Atwood adaptation, “Alias Grace,” which took on memory, storytelling, and the history of sexism. And don’t forget about “Howards End.” Yeah, yeah, I know those British costume dramas seem like they’re a dime a dozen, but the good ones, like “Howards End,” definitely are not.

Emmy voters, I’m here to help – The Boston Globe

Emmys 2018: Paste’s (Unofficial) Nominations Ballot

As any TV critic who moonlights as an Emmy observer will tell you, the Television Academy’s choices can be… frustrating. The tendency to nominate the same series and performances year in, year out; the reluctance to acknowledge certain challenging titles; the labyrinthine rules: The Emmys are often easy to predict, yet difficult to understand.

With that in mind, my annual mock Emmy nominations ballot is a plea for voters’ consideration, a paean to the medium’s finest and an attempt to highlight those still flying under the radar as voting gets underway. It’s full of tough decisions and merciless cuts—including a few that may have you scratching your head. It’s not predictive, but aspirational. And it’s written in the hope that it might get even a single voter to give a deserving series or performer another look.

Outstanding Limited Series

Alias Grace (Netflix)
The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (FX)
Howards End (Starz)
The Looming Tower (Hulu)
Twin Peaks: The Return (Showtime)

It’s been a strong year for limited series. As I’ve written for the site more than once, The Assassination of Gianni Versace is a remarkably radical treatment of queer themes, unspooling in reverse chronological order across multiple genres and painted in Miami pastels. Alias Grace is equally ambitious, in terms of both structure (toggling between two timelines) and perspective (that of an accused murderer); Twin Peaks, meanwhile, is so wildly imagistic, and yet so primal, that the eminences at Sight & Sound and Cahiers du Cinéma decided its excellence made it a film. (It’s a TV series. Always has been.) Even the category’s less groundbreaking entries, Howards End and The Looming Tower, are formidable iterations of familiar stories—an embarrassment of riches, indeed.

Outstanding Lead Actor (Limited Series/TV Movie)

Darren Criss, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (FX)
Jared Harris, The Terror (AMC)
Michael B. Jordan, Fahrenheit 451 (HBO)
Matthew Macfadyen, Howards End (Starz)
Kyle MacLachlan, Twin Peaks: The Return (Showtime)
Jimmy Tatro, American Vandal (Netflix)

So, here is where I come across a familiar Emmy dilemma. Criss does career-making work in The Assassination of Gianni Versace, transforming spree killer Andrew Cunanan into a gruesomely magnetic villain/protagonist, and in any other year I’d say you were out of your gourd not to give him the trophy. But MacLachlan does career-defining work as Twin Peaks’ Dale Cooper, earning Emmy nominations for the series’ first two seasons in 1990-1991, to which he adds both Coop’s doppelganger and Dougie Jones in last year’s revival. Criss will have more bites at the apple. I say give MacLachlan the award he’s deserved for almost three decades.

Outstanding Supporting Actor (Limited Series/TV Movie)

Miguel Ferrer, Twin Peaks: The Return (Showtime)
Ciarán Hinds, The Terror (AMC)
Alex Lawther, Howards End (Starz)
Tahar Rahim, The Looming Tower (Hulu)
Edgar Ramirez, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (FX)
Hugo Weaving, Patrick Melrose (Showtime)

In the interest of spreading the love, I left out two performances of note: Cody Fern and Finn Witrock, as murder victims—and, crucially, men in full—David Madson and Jeff Trail, in The Assassination of Gianni Versace. If you’ll forgive me that, then please consider Alex Lawther, an exquisitely funny, never ridiculous revelation as Tibby Schlegel, breathing life into a character that not even E.M. Forster could.

Outstanding Supporting Actress (Limited Series/TV Movie)

Penelope Cruz, The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (FX)
Laura Dern, Twin Peaks: The Return (Showtime)
Angela Lansbury, Little Women (PBS)
Judith Light, The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (FX)
Anna Paquin, Alias Grace (Netflix)
Tracey Ullmann, Howards End (Starz)

If you expected me to pick anyone but 92-year-old Angela Lansbury as Little Women’s Aunt March, you had another thing coming.

Emmys 2018: Paste’s (Unofficial) Nominations Ballot

Daniel Minahan Reflects On “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”

LOS ANGELES – Daniel Minahan has known Ryan Murphy since the mid-1990s. Both were journalists in L.A. at the time and were starting to pen prospective narratives for TV and film. Murphy went on to be a prolific and lauded TV series creator (Nip/Tuck, Glee, American Horror Story, Feud), winning four Emmys and nominated for assorted others while Minahan established himself as a producer and director, becoming an Emmy nominee in the former capacity for Outstanding Drama Series on the strength of House of Cards (season 5). Minahan’s other credits include serving as EP and showrunner of Marco Polo and directing episodes of such series as True Blood, Six Feet Under, Homeland and Game Of Thrones.

Yet as their careers progressed, Murphy and Minahan’s professional paths hadn’t formally crossed–until the true crime anthology TV series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (FX) brought them together, as EPs/directors. Minahan directed three episodes, including the finale and “House by the Lake,” an installment submitted for Emmy consideration in directorial achievement.

When first presented with The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Minahan said he felt “very connected” to the material. “I thought it was brilliant and it was in a time period I know something about. I grew up during that time. It was a story I felt that I could really bring something to. and there was the additional attraction of working with (EP) Brad Simpson again. He worked on one of my first features.”

Minahan had the advantage of getting to work on The Assassination of Gianni Versace from the very outset. “I was there while Ryan was shooting the first hour. I picked up the atmospheric stuff in Miami, got to know the crew and saw the style of what Ryan was establishing. What I found as I began directing was that the work took on a life of its own. Each episode is almost a standalone piece, with the show spanning different genres.”

“House by the Lake”
Minahan described “House by the Lake” (episode 4) as “a psychological thriller” in which Minneapolis architect David Madson (portrayed by Cody Fern) is forced to go on the run with Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), the man who murdered at least five people, including fashion designer Versace, Madson, and Chicago tycoon Lee Miglin. “This episode had a really intense emotional through line,” assessed Minahan. “To me, it’s sort of where the show begins to explore deeper themes of hate and homophobia. We get into the core of the series through the eyes of David and Andrew.”

The inherent challenge throughout the show, continued Minahan, was “depicting real people’s lives, particularly the victims.” This necessitated Minahan having to maintain a delicate balancing act between his role as a dramatist while still honoring these real-life characters. “It was important to me that the show be compelling and that people would want to follow our story, but at the same time we had to be respectful of the victims as individuals as well as their families. I feel we told the story in a way true to the lives of these people.”

There was also painstaking research to accurately depict the events. For example, Cunanan’s first murder victim was Jeffrey Trail (Finn Wittrock) with Minahan and his compatriots turning to forensic photography and police reports “to imagine the blocking of the crime and where it took place.”

Perhaps the biggest creative and logistical challenge of the show, though, was its casting which extended far beyond the principal performers. There were more than 200 speaking roles. Minahan related, “It took a lot of energy to find the right actors. Our casting people were spectacular and tireless. A lot had to be done on tape, with my trying to meet in person those considered for the more important roles. One of the hardest to cast was Andrew’s mother, Mary Ann.” Ultimately Minahan gravitated towards Joanna Adler, a well-respected New York theater actor, for that challenging role.

As for the biggest takeaway or lesson learned from his experience on The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Minahan observed, “I’ve been working closely, shoulder to shoulder with the crew, executives, creatives and showrunners on the last five shows I’ve done. The major takeaway for me moving forward is I want to create a family like the family that Ryan has created at Ryan Murphy Productions. When you reach a certain level, there’s the expectation that everyone brings their most excellent work to the show. But beyond this, Ryan’s company has a respect and familial quality for its people. You feel safe, protected. There’s loyalty. You have the feeling you are doing something important. It’s still a series. It’s still entertainment but there’s a greater sense of purpose and significance to the stories you tell.”

Daniel Minahan Reflects On “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”

BMI Composers Talk Scoring Hit Series at SCL Panel Discussion

The music of award-winning BMI composers Mac Quayle, Siddhartha Khosla, Nathan Barr and Fil Eisler was front and center during a recent panel discussion hosted by the Society of Composers & Lyricists in LA. Moderated by Katie Aselton, the presentation also included clips from their respective shows: American Horror Story, This Is Us, The Americans, and Empire, and offered the eager audience an inside perspective on scoring and what’s needed to help propel an ongoing series.

In addition to this discussion’s featured series, each of the composers are renowned for their work in several other projects. Quayle’s credits also include Mr. Robot, for which he won an Emmy, FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, and the Emmy-winning The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story. Khosla’s credits include Marvel’s Runaways, and E!’s first scripted drama series, The Royals. Among Barr’s many credits are the Emmy-nominated main title theme of Netflix’s Hemlock Grove, as wells as Flatliners, while Eisler’s resume is also impressive with music for Shameless, Revenge, To The Bone and CHIPS. | 14 June 2018

‘Versace,’ ‘AHS: Cult’ and ‘9-1-1’ composer Mac Quayle explains how he scores so many shows at once [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW]

[…] Compared to the low-key score that accompanied “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” the “Versace” sound was deliberately grander and baroque, befitting the tone of the show and the subjects involved. “’O.J.’ was a lot more subtle. We tried to do it more grand at first and it didn’t work. We went back and said it needed to be more subtle,” Quayle revealed. “There was a lot of discussions about the sound for ‘Versace.’ The murder took place in ’97. A lot of the backstory is in the decade before that. There were scenes in nightclubs, there was this creepy serial killer, there was Versace’s love for opera. When we latched onto the sound, I then started calling it if Giorgio Moroder was scoring ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ in an Italian villa.”

When it came to the theme for Versace’s (Edgar Ramirez) murderer, Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), Quayle concocted a piano melody before folding in a screeching, haunting horn sound — an aural symbol of his twisted mindset.

“For such a creepy sound, it ended up with a very friendly nickname around post-production. It was ‘The Seagull’ sound. I was hunting around and going through some weird sample libraries and I just came across this — I can’t even tell you what it is now, where it came from,” Quayle said. “All of the sudden, it’s like, ‘OK, there’s Andrew’s creepy mind.’ It had different levels of intensity. It could be really just screaming, very creepy and then a little more subtle, sort of in the background, just adding into the melody, so it was a fun little texture to add.” | 14 June 2018

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Writer on Adapting David Madson’s Murder

The subtitle of the second installment of “American Crime Story,” “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” emphasized Andrew Cunanan’s (played by Darren Criss) most infamous murder, but writer Tom Rob Smith was determined to not overlook the killer’s other victims in his adaptation of Maureen Orth’s nonfiction book “Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History.”

With a Friend Like This…

Cunanan’s first murders were close to home. As depicted in the fourth episode Andrew snaps and ambushes his friend, Jeffrey (Finn Wittrock), much to the horror of former boyfriend, David (Cody Fern), who becomes his second victim.

“There is a difference in tone and in the way Andrew saw [those] murders compared to [those] of Versace and the others,” Smith says. “It’s someone who has had a nervous breakdown, in effect, who crumbled to nothing — who is full of loathing in his life, and is lashing out at the two people who he feels have drifted from him. Once he crosses the line, he thinks, ‘Now that I’m a killer, what should I do?’”

With these two killings Andrew’s potential future life collapses, Smith says.

Orth’s reporting was vital for Smith’s research and gave vital insight into the real-life mindset of everyone as it was happening. Smith credits Orth’s book with helping to establish how “American Crime Story” would handle David’s death, which occurred after Andrew coerced his ex to go on the run with him post-Jeffrey’s murder.

“What Maureen’s book did was go to the family, and their grief, after describing his death,” Smith says.

Drawing Out the Death(s)

Smith took great pains to make David’s final moments on-screen appear as close to reality as possible (replicating the lake, tall grass, and the home nearby that was evident in crime scene photos), but because the murder itself “would have taken a couple of seconds.” Smith lingered on the moment.

“Clearly, we don’t know what went through his mind in those few seconds, but I really wanted to contrast Andrew, and it became about the love of his family,” Smith says.

Though the show would quickly reveal these are David’s final thoughts, “it was about trying to take that part of the book, which deals with the grief of the family, and put it into that moment, so it didn’t become a series of mechanical facts about the murder,” Smith says.

To give the proper respect to the other deaths, Smith’s limited anthology series jumped around in time, starting with Versace’s (Edgar Ramírez) homicide, and then backing up to show what led to it.

“The other murders aren’t just a prelude to the thing that everyone knows,” he says. “The format was a way of increasing their weight in the structure of the story, and not make them just look like they were a stepping stone on the way to a thing that everyone knew. These victims, who had been given no attention, were incredible people. To be able to pull their story into the light was sad, rewarding and emotional.”

‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Writer on Adapting David Madson’s Murder

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, the death of an icon

COMING OFF THE back of the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning limited series The People vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, producer and director Ryan Murphy knew the bar was set high for a second season.

“OJ was a courtroom show, so this had to be different,” he explains.

Nobody can accuse Murphy of repeating himself as the gripping The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story comes to our screens.

Based on the book by Maureen Orth – Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace and the Largest Failed Manhunt in US History – the nine-episode tale begins with serial killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) murdering Gianni Versace (Édgar Ramírez) on the steps of his Miami mansion in 1997.

It then traces the path of both characters in reverse, including events leading up to Cunanan’s killing rampage and Versace’s earlier brush with death.

“I was living in Miami at the time and [the assassination] felt very personal,” says Latin pop icon Ricky Martin, who plays Gianni’s long-term boyfriend Antonio D’Amico in his biggest television role to date.

“I remember that the atmosphere in Miami changed completely and people were living in fear because there was a man on the streets killing people randomly.” While the Italian designer’s romance with Antonio is explored in the series, so too is his relationship with sister Donatella, played by Oscar-winner Penélope Cruz.

“I’ve worked closely with House of Versace over the last

15 years, and I always liked Donatella,” says the Spanish actress.

“She is a very strong, affectionate and generous woman. I think I knew every single piece from Versace by the time I was 15 because I was a big fan and I dreamt one day I could wear his designs. Being in his mental space as this character is like a dedication to him because he’s present around every corner.”

The enthralling series pulls back the fabric on the rich and famous entrepreneur’s life to reveal what really went on behind closed doors, where the likes of Madonna, Cher and the late Princess Diana were amongst the regular visitors to his house.

“There is a Madonna guest suite upstairs, which was the first place I went to when we came to film [at the house],” Murphy says. “I heard she used to sit in the bathtub and stand up naked to tease them out in the courtyard [where they were] drinking.”

The Assassination of Gianni Versace is a touching tribute that transports viewers into the life of a global icon, and his untimely death that shook the fashion world.

Steps of death

One of the most significant scenes in the series is the tragic murder of Gianni. Murphy admits the gruesome assassination – filmed on the exact steps where he died 20 years ago outside the former beachside Versace Mansion-turned-boutique-hotel – was traumatic for all involved.

“The crew were crying, the actors were crying because it was the spot he was killed and you could feel his presence,” Murphy reveals of the two weeks spent shooting inside and outside of the property.

“Édgar was lying on those coral steps for two days and they were sharp, so that was awful for him, too. Ricky didn’t want to see Édgar until the cameras were rolling. Édgar had on the prosthetics, with part of his face shot off and covered in blood, so it was tough for Ricky to see his friend like that. He was heaving and sobbing and stayed in that state for a long time.”

Dead or alive

Venezuelan actor Ramírez shudders as he recalls the physically and psychologically draining experience of lying on those steps.

“It was an interesting exercise of trust and abandonment, because I spent days with my eyes closed, being handled by all the paramedics and witnessing all the emotions that Ricky put into it, as he was holding my body and screaming,” he reminisces.

The star says it was imperative that he put himself into a meditative state and keep as quiet as possible to play out the scenes. But it came with its challenges.

“When they put me on the gurney for the first time, I did have a panic attack,” he admits.

“My mind knew that it was fine, but my body was reacting in a surprising way to what everyone was saying around me and we had to stop rolling so I could get up and remind myself I was still alive!”

No acting required

For Martin, being cast in his most significant acting role came with all the emotions you’d expect: nervous excitement and exhilaration. A close friend of Ramírez’s, the She Bangs and Livin’ la Vida Loca performer vividly recalls the morning he arrived to film the scenes in which Antonio discovers the body on the steps and holds the dying designer until the ambulance arrives. “It was a luxury to be able to walk into the actual home that Gianni and Antonio shared, because all I had to do was touch the walls and I could feel the emotion; it was vibrant,” he says.

“I got there at five o’clock in the morning on the day we were shooting those scenes and I started working on my emotions inside the home. When I finally got outside and saw my friend Édgar lying on the steps covered in blood, I just started hysterically crying.”

Playing a murderer

At the same time his co-stars filmed Gianni’s horrific death, former Glee headliner Criss was in a different headspace portraying the killer who had been obsessed with the designer for most of his life.

“I can’t tell you how weird it felt for me to be walking around the house dressed as Andrew Cunanan,” Criss remembers.

“I was wearing the outfit that he murdered Versace in and walking around inside the house. But when I took a picture of the pool and saw myself in the reflection, sprayed with blood, I said, ‘Oh my god, I’ve got to delete this photo, it’s horrible and irreverent because Andrew never made it inside the house!’”

Being Donatella

Superstar Lady Gaga was originally intended to play Donatella. However, when scheduling clashed with her film A Star is Born, she was forced to pull out. With the other cast already in place, Murphy reached out to Cruz.

“I thought because she was friends with Donatella she could be an advocate for her,” Murphy explains of Cruz’s first TV role.

Meanwhile, the actress admits she was “shocked” when she got the call.

“I was silent on the other end of the phone for a while, wondering what Donatella would think,” she explains of her reaction.

But she embraced the opportunity, which required a three-hour process of multiple wig changes, contact lenses and those unique Donatella snow-white eyebrows to transform her for the cameras.

“In the end, I hope Donatella understands when she sees this that we are showing what a heroine she was. This is a beautiful love story between brother and sister, and what she went through to keep her brother’s dream and the House of Versace alive.”

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, the death of an icon