Darren Criss on Playing Andrew Cunanan In The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

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In 1997, I read a newspaper article about a 27-year-old gay man from a posh private school in La Jolla, California, who was on the lam, wanted for four murders in three states. Vanity Fairassigned me to profile him, and the issue with my story in it was almost at the printer when news broke that Andrew Cunanan, the man I’d been tracking, had gunned down the fashion designer Gianni Versace on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion. Suddenly, Cunanan—and the spectacularly failed manhunt for him, which ended with his suicide eight days after Versace’s murder—was a national obsession, and I re-wrote my article, then expanded it into a book, Vulgar Favors: The Assassination of Gianni Versace. Both are now, in turn, the basis of Ryan Murphy’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, set to premiere on FX on January 17.

Cunanan, who was driven to his murderous deeds by the desire for fame and revenge, would have relished being portrayed by Darren Criss, who shares his striking good looks, his outgoing charm, and his half-Filipino heritage. But the similarities end there, obviously, and Criss is empathetic enough to understand that, for all its juicy details, the Versace saga is an epic story of real-life suffering. “My heart is really sensitive to the people who experienced something so horrible that I’m trying to breathe life into,” says Criss, 30, who grew up in the Bay Area and previously worked with Murphy on Glee and American Horror Story series will be told in reverse, tracing Cunanan’s path backward from the Versace murder, through his previous killings, all the way to his childhood growing up as the gifted and spoiled son of an accused-embezzler father and a victimized, mentally ill mother. Versace’s lush life contrasts with Cunanan’s descent into drugs, and his double life in the gay demimonde and in the closeted upper class.

Cunanan, Criss says, was “someone who had the potential to do so much more. How does that person become synonymous with something so sad, violent, or scary?” He adds, “It’s a story about the have and have-not—the ultimate creator and the ultimate destroyer.”

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story episode 1, The Man Who Would Be Vogue, advanced preview

The second season of Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story premieres Wednesday, January 17. Searching for a spoilery advanced preview? You came to the right place!

After the first season of American Crime Story took us on a wild ride as we watched the O.J. Simpson trial unfold, the series now shifts our attention to spree killer Andrew Cunanan and his crimes leading up to the murder of fashion icon Gianni Versace.

We have binged-watched the first eight episodes of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story to bring you an advanced preview of what to expect! Avoiding all spoilers? Turn away now!

Episode 1, “The Man Who Would Be Vogue,” introduces Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez), his longtime partner Antonio (Ricky Martin), Gianni’s sister Donatella (Penelope Cruz), and serial killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss). The episodes play in chronological order, beginning with only a few moments before Versace’s assassination and then taking viewers back in time.

While the real reason for Versace’s assassination remains unknown, American Crime Story goes on to speculate Cunanan’s motives and what leads him to murder Gianni. The final moments of “The Man Who Would Be Vogue” return audiences to the aftermath of Gianni Versace’s death, introducing his sister, Donatella.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story episode 1, The Man Who Would Be Vogue, advanced preview

’American Crime Story: Versace’ Is A Fractured Look At A Famous Murder

“I’m not interested in his intentions. Find him. Catch him. But don’t talk to me about what might or might not be going through his mind.”

This is Marilyn Miglin (Judith Light), widow of the third victim in the string of murders that brought Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) to Miami, where he fulfilled the title of Ryan Murphy’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, which debuts on FX on Wednesday. She doesn’t want explanations, or psychoanalysis; she just wants law-enforcement to get the man who killed her husband Lee (Mike Farrell).

The real-life Miglins have long maintained that Lee’s death was a random killing, and that he never knew Cunanan, so they — like the Versaces and the families of his other victims — will likely not be pleased with anything about this new American Crime Story season. And this fictionalized version of Marilyn Miglin will surely disapprove of the approach Murphy and company (primarily English writer Tom Rob Smith, adapting Maureen Orth’s book Vulgar Favors) have taken, which is much less interested in the hunt for Cunanan than in trying to understand how he could so swiftly and brutally end so many lives.

Those expecting a spiritual sequel to The People v. O.J. Simpson — with its sprawling casting of characters, deft mix of tones (which allowed Courtney B. Vance’s fiery but real Johnnie Cochran to somehow co-exist with whatever John Travolta was doing as Robert Shapiro), and vivid recreations of famous events — will likely be disappointed by the long-delayed second season(*). So, for that matter, will people expecting the story to primarily focus on fashion designer Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez), his sister Donatella (Penelope Cruz), and his romantic partner Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin), since the main character is Cunanan, with the Versaces popping up intermittently. (Critics were given eight of the nine episodes.)

(*) This was actually intended as the third ACS season, and is debuting on schedule. The problem is that a planned second season about Hurricane Katrina took so long to figure out that Versace got done first, and the Katrina story will either air later this year or sometime in 2019.

The approach is The Talented Mr. Ripley by way of Memento, starting off with the eponymous murder (and a flashback sequence about how killer and victim crossed paths years earlier in San Francisco), then moving relentlessly backwards, so that most episodes concludes right before the events of the previous one, retracing the trail of violence and lies that took Cunanan to Versace’s front gate.

It’s a narratively audacious move, but a frustrating one, too. First, it asks us to understand and care about most of Cunanan’s victims, like Navy vet Jeff Trail (Finn Witrock) or soft-spoken architect David Madson (Cody Fern) only after we’ve seen them brutally killed. Worse, it does the same with Cunanan himself, who remains — despite an excellent, career-redefining performance by Glee alum Criss — a maddening cipher: a sociopath and pathological liar who becomes whatever he thinks the occasion calls for, even in front of people who think they know who he really is. For a long time, it feels as if Murphy, Smith, and company don’t even know who Cunanan was. And though the eighth episode — set in Cunanan’s child and teen years, and featuring Jon Jon Briones (currently starring on Broadway in Miss Saigon) as Cunanan’s profoundly influential father Modesto — finally begins to unravel the mystery man at the center of this all, it feels too little, too late for a show that’s spent so much time in the company of a man who keeps playing one variation of the same note, again and again.

At the same time, if you can view Cunanan not as the protagonist of Assassination, but its connective tissue, then it begins to feel more satisfying as a series of tragic vignettes about what it was like to be gay in America in the ’90s. Trail, for instance, deals with rampant homophobia among his fellow sailors, not to mention the corrosive impact of the new “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, while the Miglin marriage is presented as a business partnership (he’s in real estate, she’s a cosmetics magnate who regularly appears on Home Shopping Network) at least as much as it is a romantic relationship. Cunanan snuffed out lives and ruined others, but in the process gives the series reason to settle in with these people and tell their stories, with some powerhouse performances — in particular by Light, in what feels destined to be the first of many collaboration with Murphy, and by an unrecognizable Max Greenfield as a friend Cunanan makes shortly before the Versace killing — along the way. We see how much more dangerous it was to be gay back then, and yet how staying in the closet could be a life or death choice, and not always in an expected way. The series suggests Miglin’s path might never have crossed with Cunanan’s if Lee didn’t need to keep his sexuality a secret, and there are periodic suggestions that Cunanan’s spree could have been stopped much sooner if law-enforcement both cared more about his victims and saw this fugitive gay escort as more of an ongoing threat.

“They hate us, David,” Cunanan tells Madson to talk him out of calling the cops at one point. “They’ve always hated us. You’re a fag.”

The Versaces reappear whenever their story overlaps thematically with what’s happening with one of the victims — Gianni officially comes out of the closet in a magazine interview in the same episode where Trail gives a less glamorous interview about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — and Ramirez, Martin, and, especially, Cruz, are so outstanding that it’s easy to wish Assassination devoted more time to its title character.

Like most of Murphy’s productions, the season — directors include Murphy himself, Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Dan Minahan, Nelson Cragg, and Matt Bomer (who starred in Murphy’s HBO adaptation of The Normal Heart) — is a visual marvel, particularly whenever we get to spend time in Versace’s world and understand that the fanciness of the decor is less an indulgence than a philosophical imperative by a man who, as Donatella explains, “has a weakness for beauty; he forgives it anything.”

But Cunanan’s just not interesting enough to support so much screen time, especially because we don’t really get to understand what makes him tick until the story’s nearly over. And even then, it’s hard to find empathy, given what we know about all the horror he inflicted.

“I am not like most escorts,” he boasts to Lee Miglin. “I am not like most anybody. I could almost be a husband, or a partner. I could almost be. I really could. Almost.”

The anthology miniseries boom that Murphy created with American Horror Story means each season could almost be anything at all, and there are plenty of times where Assassination feels almost as great as the O.J. season. But because its central character is always only almost one thing or another, it’s only almost, and never quite there.

’American Crime Story: Versace’ Is A Fractured Look At A Famous Murder

The real story behind the best ‘Versace’ looks

When the cast and crew of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” attempted to recreate the life and fashion sensibility of the murdered Italian designer, immersing themselves in his flamboyant aesthetic was key to telling the story well.

So they set out to showcase his dramatic world with both setting and costume: Producer Ryan Murphy obtained permission to film the series, which debuts Wednesday on FX, inside Versace’s former home, Casa Casuarina in Miami, where the rooms are decorated with bold tile, frescoes and seashells. And actor Edgar Ramirez, who plays the doomed designer, embraced Versace’s creative vantage point, which was heavily influenced by classical motifs.

“He had a poster of the Roman empire in his shop in Calabria, [Italy,]” Ramirez said at a recent panel discussion of the series. “When we think about the Roman Empire, we tend to think about washed-out statues . . . But the reality is that the Roman Empire was very colorful. The blues were very intense and the gold was intense.”

Recreating Versace’s outlandish designs for the series became a painstaking project for Emmy-winning costume designer Lou Eyrich, who not only tracked down genuine vintage pieces, but created looks for the show without any cooperation from Gianni’s sister (and current artistic director of the brand), Donatella Versace, or the Versace company itself — which has denounced the entire production as a “work of fiction.”

“Gianni Versace was fearless and bold in his use of color. He understood the female physique and how to make a woman feel and look sexy,” says Eyrich, who has also designed the costumes for “American Horror Story.”

Versace was also fond of using mixed media in his designs. For example, a Greek key pattern seen on the border of the iron gates to his villa appears in his clothing for men. “The more you look [at his creations], the more you see [those motifs],” says Eyrich.

Since his death at age 50 in 1997, many of Versace’s pieces have been scooped up and preserved by collectors. Eyrich had to scour the Internet to outfit not only Ramirez, but Penélope Cruz, who plays Donatella, and Ricky Martin, who plays Antonio D’Amico, Versace’s domestic partner of 15 years.

Many pricey items were out of reach for Eyrich and her team: At stores such as the Way We Wore in LA, the asking price for a Versace shirt from the era is a hefty $1,500, and an animal-and-baroque-print skirt suit goes for $4,500.

“We didn’t have the budget to get the pieces we really wanted. We ordered a lot online,” Eyrich says. “We were competing with a lot of serious collectors.”

Of all the actors in the show, Ramirez was the one Eyrich was able to provide with the most authentic duds. “Almost all of Edgar’s costumes were Versace,” she says. “We sourced the jeans, the shoes and the shirts [from vintage shops]— which I’m sure he loved.”

One exception is a shocking-pink bathrobe Versace wears to breakfast at his Miami villa on the morning he’s murdered by Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss). Eyrich had this made to Murphy’s specifications — she says the producer requested something with some “float” in it, so she used an especially lightweight silk. “When Edgar walked, it billowed,” Eyrich says.

Eyrich relied on her “genius tailor” Joanne Mills to remake a dress Versace designed for his sister — a sexy, black leather number accentuated with a series of men’s leather belts linking the bodice to a choker.

“We got every photo we could of [the original] dress,” Eyrich says of the frock that Donatella wore to a party at the New York Public Library celebrating Vogue’s centennial in 1993. “We were very careful to show our utmost respect; I didn’t want to make it look like a made-for-TV movie [design]. I want to pay tribute but not ever minimize. Joanne recreated all the hardware — the belt buckle — and made the full-leather skirt.”

Eyrich and her team also created a whopping 17 looks for a pivotal scene at Versace’s final haute couture fashion show in Paris in 1997, which plays out, in flashback, in the second episode, which airs Jan. 24. Donatella argues with her brother about the direction of their company and needles him about not being able to keep up with younger designers John Galliano and Alexander McQueen.

“You were the future, once,” she says snidely. Ever defiant, Versace tells his younger sister that great design comes “from the heart.” He reduces her to tears of shame with a runway show that unveils one inspired creation after another: A sleek, white evening gown slit up the side, a glittering red minidress and the pièce de résistance — a metallic mesh mini “wedding dress” covered with crosses, worn with a silver-headband veil. The daring piece is for the “Versace bride,” Gianni declares, not a “virginal” one.

“He had this rock ’n’ roll approach to couture,” Ramirez has said. “At this level, in high fashion, he mixed sexuality and glamour, something that, until he came along, were on two different tracks.”

The real story behind the best ‘Versace’ looks

“Assassination of Gianni Versace” investigates murder and homophobia

With its first season, “American Crime Story” – Ryan Murphy’s anthology series dramatizing infamous true-life criminal investigations – took the audacious risk of addressing the O.J. Simpson case, a still-polarizing public spectacle which continues to cast a long shadow over our cultural identity.

The gambit paid off. “The People vs. O.J. Simpson” became must-watch T.V., garnering widespread critical acclaim and earning multiple awards. Though many of Murphy’s other shows (“Glee,” “American Horror Story,” “The New Normal”) have had their share of both admirers and detractors, “Crime Story” met with almost unanimous approval, ensuring its return for a second season.

Though it’s taken a couple of years, that season has finally arrived.

“The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” makes its much-anticipated premiere on January 17 (on FX), and promises to deliver the same kind of savvy and cinematic style which elevated “O.J.” above the level of a lurid potboiler and prevented it from being an exploitative rehash of a story most of us already knew all too well.

The murder of fashion giant Versace on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion in 1997 came as a shocking twist at the end of a news story that had already been unfolding for weeks. In April, Andrew Cunanan, a 27-year old San Diego resident, had begun a cross-country killing spree which started with the beating death of an acquaintance and claimed the lives of at least three more people before climaxing in the shooting of Versace on July 15. The fact that Cunanan was already a known fugitive (he had been placed on the FBI’s “10 Most Wanted” list), and that he had been “hiding in plain sight” in Miami for two weeks before the designer’s killing, opened law enforcement officials to criticism for their failure to apprehend him before his final act of violence; that he continued to elude capture until his suicide by gunshot eight days later only fueled further controversy.

Complicating the entire investigation, of course, was the matter of sexuality. Cunanan was gay. He was familiar to many in the gay club scene of which he was a part, and known to be a charmer. He had a history of becoming involved with older men from whom he would receive money and gifts. As these facts were revealed during the manhunt which followed his first murder, it was impossible not to speculate that they may – in the homophobic atmosphere of the mid-nineties – have had some bearing on the seriousness with which law enforcement took the case, begging the question of whether Versace’s eventual killing could have been prevented.

With the first installment of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” Murphy and writer Tom Rob Smith waste no time in addressing that question. After an elegantly orchestrated opening sequence depicting the events of that July morning – in which the activities of both Versace and Cunanan are intercut until they come together for their fatal meeting – the show immediately begins to explore a subtle but pervasive homophobic slant.

The obvious discomfort of detectives at Versace’s mansion over the presence of the victim’s boyfriend (Antonio D’Amico, portrayed with surprising authenticity and tenderness by Ricky Martin); their questioning of him about the designer’s sexual habits and perceived promiscuity; the revelation that stacks of “wanted” posters showing Cunanan’s face are sitting, still undistributed, in the trunk of an FBI agent’s car – all these details and more reveal a certain prejudicial thinking within the law enforcement community.

It’s not just an issue within official circles, either. The first episode culminates with the arrival of Donatella Versace (played with regal, imperious splendor by a spectacularly blond-wigged Penelope Cruz), who swoops in to protect the family business by clamping down on the way her dearly departed brother’s image is depicted in the media. Though it’s never explicitly stated, it’s clear that public perception of his sexuality – which was an “open secret” during his life – is central to her concerns.

There is also the matter of Cunanan’s relationship with his own sexuality. As the show begins to explore his history (beginning what will presumably be a continuing pattern moving between flashbacks to the events leading up to Versace’s murder and the saga of the manhunt which followed it), we see his deliberate obfuscation about being gay with his friends. Likewise, Versace, though seemingly open about his nature within his exclusive circle, is nevertheless depicted as being carefully guarded about it; though the subject of his sexuality is – glaringly – never mentioned in his scenes, this self-protective attitude comes less from the script than it does from the exquisitely modulated performance of Edgar Ramirez, whose layered portrayal gives us a generous and sympathetic impression of the late designer.

Joining Ramirez, Cruz, and Martin to round out the principal cast is Darren Criss as Cunanan. It’s a challenging role, for many reasons – not the least of which is the fact that much of what we see of him is necessarily based on speculation. In the first episode, what comes through is a portrait of a deeply, almost painfully insecure young man, hiding behind blatantly fabricated fantasies to create an image of himself to sell to those around him. What does not come through – at least not yet – is his attractiveness and appeal. Criss is a handsome actor, but as Cunanan he seems decidedly ordinary; this is not a bad thing, by any means, but to convince us of this killer’s ability to charm his way into the lives of so many men he must also show us some of Cunanan’s charisma. Hopefully, as the series progresses, more of this will be revealed.

The series’ cast is also peppered with other recognizable faces – Max Greenfield, Dascha Polanco, Jay R. Ferguson, Jose Zuniga, Annaleigh Ashford, and Oscar nominee Cathy Moriarty (in a welcome cameo as a pawnshop owner) all appear in the first episode, with names such as Judith Light and Mike Farrell scheduled to come.

Apart from the usual celebrity appeal of Murphy’s shows, “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” is also steeped in the same attention to detail and period authenticity we have come to expect – the opulence and glamor of the high-end fashion world in which Versace was immersed has been recreated with obvious delight, of course, but equal attention has been given to the more squalid environments which are every bit as much a part of the story.

Welcome as these “A-List” attractions may be, though, they are not what make the upcoming season of “American Crime Story” worth watching.

With the previous season’s examination of the O.J. case, Murphy and his creative team were shrewd enough to realize that what made the story important was not the sensational details of the murder and trial, but rather the underlying current of racism which informed every aspect of the way events unfolded. With their handling of the Cunanan story, it is obvious that they have brought that same understanding to the proceedings – and as before, the way their observations about the social biases within their story’s setting provides a pointed reflection of those that linger in our own time.

“The Assassination of Gianni Versace” may be a tale of American crime, but it’s also a tale of American homophobia.

“Assassination of Gianni Versace” investigates murder and homophobia

For ‘Versace’ actor Darren Criss, SF childhood still shines brightly

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Darren Criss is pleasant and dutiful during an interview on a recent Thursday afternoon, answering questions about his role as serial killer Andrew Cunanan in the new FX miniseries “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.”

But when the subject shifts to his childhood in San Francisco, the actor is downright joyous.

Criss happily remembers stories that have been buried for a while, including the time he called San Francisco actor Peter Coyote, whose son was a classmate of Criss’ brother, for advice about getting into acting. Criss was 7 years old.

“The synapses in my brain are suddenly awakening,” Criss says, talking faster. “I remember really, really nervously looking at the school roster, getting the number and going into the closet and shaking nervously, and saying, ‘Hi, is Mr. Coyote there?’ For a child to be talking to an adult on a level other than, ‘Can so-and-so come over to play video games?’ it was a nerve-racking experience.”

Criss says Coyote gave him a vote of confidence, and talked to him about enrolling in the Young Conservatory program at the American Conservatory Theater. Criss flourished there, and appeared in the musicals “Fanny” and “Do I Hear a Waltz” with 42nd Street Moon when he was 10.

The St. Ignatius College Prep graduate went on to University of Michigan, where he co-created “A Very Potter Musical” in 2009. It became a YouTube hit, and he has since glided effortlessly between film and stage, performing as openly gay singer Blaine on television’s “Glee” between 2010 and 2015, and in a “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” revival that started at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre in 2016.

But his most challenging performance — maybe anyone’s most challenging TV performance this year — is as Cunanan, the designer-obsessed serial killer in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace.”

Criss is onscreen more than anyone in the highly anticipated follow-up to “The People Vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” which won nine Emmy Awards in 2016. “Versace” co-stars Edgar Ramirez as Versace, who was shot by Cunanan in 1997. Penelope Cruz plays Donatella Versace, the designer’s sister.

Told in a challenging but rewarding reverse chronology, Cunanan comes off at first as a monster. But the pulpy exterior also gives its lead characters nuance; the series presents Cunanan and Versace as talented gay men with parents born outside the U.S.; with one finding the American dream and another becoming a living nightmare.

Speaking by phone from his Los Angeles home last week, Criss is reserved about his performance. While most reviewers have already seen all eight episodes, Criss had only seen four — and binged those the night before.

“It’s hard to watch anything you do objectively,” Criss says, when asked for his first impressions. “That sounds so unenthusiastic, but I promise you it’s not. I’m thrilled with how a lot of things turned out.”

One thing Criss insists is that he didn’t follow the dark character — there are scenes of physical and emotional torture by Cunanan, followed by an alarming lack of empathy — into the abyss.

On the worst days, Criss says, he would execute a pratfall down a stairway on set or provide other blooper reel material to lighten the mood. And he insists that while the victims of Cunanan both living and dead weighed on his mind, the most violent scenes were not as harrowing to perform as they look on screen.

“You have to remember that, (A) of course, it’s fake, (B) there’s not this creepy music looming in the background,” Criss says. “And there are 30 or 40 people around you who you can crack jokes with and grab a tea with, and give you the sort of necessary levity.”

Levity seems to be Criss’ default position, especially after the questions about Cunanan end and the San Francisco conversation begins again.

Criss and his musician brother, Chuck, who put out a pop album together last year under the band name Computer Games, took every advantage of the San Francisco art community. Criss says he hung out with theater performers in their 20s and 30s when he was a preteen; and their lessons were in the forefront of his mind as he created “A Very Potter Musical” and subsequent musicals.

But his parents recently moved out of San Francisco after 40 years, seeking a warmer climate in Southern California. When Young Conservatory director Craig Slaight retired after 29 years at ACT, Criss says, Slaight’s party doubled as Criss’ own goodbye.

“It was a nice time to get a couple of drinks, and say, ‘Fare thee well, San Francisco,’” Criss says. “When I go back, I’m a stranger in a strange land — I’m on Yelp, I’m on whatever hipster blogs. I treat it like a true tourist.”

There’s no bitterness for Criss about the changes in San Francisco or in any other part of the interview. Criss says that during the 1990s, there were probably a lot of natives from the 1950s and ’60s who were angry. That won’t be him.

“It’s always going to be different, everyone is going to hold their experience of a city higher than the people ahead of them,” says the 30-year-old actor and singer. “I try not to be a curmudgeon, because to me that’s the fastest way to be old.”

And that San Francisco childhood will always be with Criss, as long as the synapses are still firing. Asked if he remembers co-starring in “Fanny” when he was 10 years old, he provides a couple of warm stories, then sings a few bars from his 20-year-old performance. (“Be kind to your parents/ Though they don’t deserve it …”)

“ACT is such a huge part of my life, and I’m so forever grateful for them existing,” Criss says. “If I grew up in any other city in any other circumstance, I don’t know if I really would have had the support system in place to make this dream a reality.”

For ‘Versace’ actor Darren Criss, SF childhood still shines brightly

REVIEW: Gianni Versace gets stylish attention in new miniseries

The opening minutes of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” are about as operatic as television gets.

Jumping right into the meat of the story, they show serial killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) gunning down the designer on the steps of his Miami mansion.

The limited series then backtracks, detailing what may have prompted the action and what kind of lives the two led.

Versace, for as much as the FX series’ producers can discern, had everything Cunanan wanted – power, fame, money and attention.

In flashbacks, we see the young man pretending to travel in the same circles. He drops plenty of salient information. But, really, everything he knows he gleans from magazines and books. He and Versace weren’t friends.

His is a matter of desire and “Assassination” is a telling portrait of fame, from those who have it and those who want it.

Written by Tom Rob Smith, the episodes take full advantage of the luxe settings created by Judy Becker and Jamie Walker McCall. You can feel the opulence of Versace’s world, sense the desire from Cunanan’s.

When Director Ryan Murphy shows glimpses of Cunanan’s past, you can see why he wanted to be in the designer’s inner circle. But that circle? It’s practically strangling. While Versace (Edgar Ramirez) appears to be a man about town, walking to the newsstand to get his daily dose of reading material, he’s very much a product of his own kingdom. Murphy gives a good tour of the home (parts were actually shot there) and offers a glimpse of the relationships he has with his lover (Ricky Martin) and sister Donatella (Penelope Cruz).

In subsequent episodes, it’s very clear Donatella is powerful. (“Nearly every dress I make is for her,” Versace says of his designs.) She controls everything – down to the way he looks before he’s cremated. Martin’s Antonio D’Amico, though, is often the odd man out.

Through Cunanan, we learn Versace created fabrics and was branching out into costume design. To make his story seem legit, the killer drops plenty of factoids and names. Cunanan is a smart man. But his obsession isn’t channeled and, the miniseries suggests, it turned into jealousy.

There are other victims in later episodes (Cunanan killed in the Midwest before he headed to Florida) and examples of the divide that existed between the young, ambitious man and the people he admired.

Criss doesn’t overdo any of the guises. He’s very good kissing up to the powerful; he’s able to blend in when he’s trying to hide from authorities. And while Murphy and other directors aren’t afraid to show his kinkier side, it is strange that moments seem like they’re from “American Horror Story,” not “American Crime Story.”

Max Greenfield makes an impression as a gay man Cunanan befriends in Florida and Finn Wittrock, Judith Light and Mike Farrell make it worthwhile to hang in to see just how far this story goes.

If there’s a loose thread it’s that “Assassination” doesn’t give us enough of Versace. Ramirez makes him a fascinating character. He just isn’t given the runway Cruz gets. She makes Donatella her own – right down to the deep voice. She’s more attractive than the designer’s sister but she still finds the insecurity that must nip at the heels of related fame.

Because it’s so great at reclaiming an era we almost forgot, “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” easily stands as first must-see offering of 2018. It checks all the boxes needed for the perfect winter miniseries and there’s not an inch of it that isn’t stylish.

REVIEW: Gianni Versace gets stylish attention in new miniseries

Gianni Versace ‘American Crime Story’ looks closely at his killer

Gianni Versace and Andrew Cunanan were both smart, talented, engaging and popular. Versace grew up to become the most influential fashion designer of his generation. Cunanan grew up to kill Versace.

“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” examines this tragic 1997 confluence when the second season of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series premieres Wednesday at 10 p.m. on FX.

“We can’t know what went on in Andrew Cunanan’s head,” executive producer Brad Simpson tells the Daily News. “But we try to get under his skin. How does a guy with so much to give end up going to such a dark place?”

This gives “Versace” a considerably different feel from “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” Murphy’s acclaimed first season of “American Crime Story,” which aired in 2016.

“The O.J. series was more focused on the trial, the lawyers and its impact on America,” says Simpson. “This is more of a thriller.”

“Versace,” which stars Darren Criss as Cunanan and Edgar Ramirez as Versace, is based on the 1999 book “Vulgar Favors” by Maureen Orth. She is a consultant on the TV series, which also features Ricky Martin as Versace’s lover Antonio D’Amico and Penelope Cruz as the designer’s sister and inspiration, Donatella Versace.

The real-life Versace family has disowned the show, as it disowned Orth’s book, labeling it “a work of fiction.” The book and the TV series both show Gianni Versace, who was 50 when he was murdered, as sexually promiscuous and Donatella with a snappish edge, particularly toward D’Amico.

Simpson says no disrespect is intended.

“Any crime like this is tough on the families of the victim,” he says. “I can understand why families don’t want it replayed.

“But crime is a genre, in books and on TV, and Maureen Orth is an accomplished and respected reporter,” Simpson adds. “We have tried to be ethical and do right by Versace. We believe he was a genius, and the series makes that clear.”

The opening of the first episode also makes it clear, Simpson notes, “that Versace loved life.”

In a long scene that cuts back and forth between Versace and Cunanan on the morning of the murder, we see the Italian designer rising in his luxurious, sun-drenched Miami Beach mansion, then dressing and strolling out to a local news dealer to buy fashion magazines.

Multiple scenes also show the designer talking about how the most important part of his clothing is the expressions on the faces of the models.

If they seem joyful, he says, the clothes themselves will exude the same pleasure.

Conversely, Cunanan increasingly exudes darkness, right up until he takes his own life at age 27, eight days after gunning down Versace. “He’s not a murderer born,” says Simpson. “He’s a murderer made. He was born, like Versace, with a ton of potential. He just went another way.”

Fans who know Criss from Murphy’s “Glee” and musical roles will see him morph into pure menace here.

“They may be shocked,” says Simpson. “But he’s an incredibly versatile performer.”

“Versace” also inevitably dives into the gay culture of the 1990s, which Simpson notes was much further underground than the LGBT world today.

“Versace was one of the few public figures who dared to be out,” Simpson says, and the attitudes of police and others in the show feel much more distant than just 20 years ago.

“Back then, you couldn’t imagine gay people getting married,” says Simpson. “We’ve come a long way in 20 years, though not all the old attitudes are gone.”

In the end, “Versace” leaves several questions unanswered or unknowable: why Cunanan took the turn he did, and why he wasn’t caught after killing four other people.

Whatever happened, two smart men with great potential wound up dead. That’s a crime.

Gianni Versace ‘American Crime Story’ looks closely at his killer

Ryan Murphy digs into another crime story with ‘Versace’

“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” (10 p.m. Wednesday, FX) is inherently more interesting than its acclaimed predecessor, “The People vs. O.J. Simpson.”

Sure, the title’s a bit of a spoiler. But there isn’t a white Bronco chase. There’s no, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” Aside from the principals — the Italian fashion designer and his obsessed murderer, Andrew Cunanan — few details of the 20-year-old crime remain rooted in the American consciousness.

Best of all, there isn’t a Kardashian in sight.

As Versace, Edgar Ramirez makes one of the grandest entrances you’ll ever see on TV. He rises from bed in a room that resembles the Sistine Chapel, slides into slippers worth more than my car and dons a fabulous pink robe before stepping onto his balcony to survey his Mediterranean-style villa that’s decorated in what could charitably described as “drug lord chic.” Eight uniformed servants, as still as statues, await him in the courtyard, where he glides by, grabbing a glass of orange juice from a silver tray before venturing out for breakfast by the pool in what looks like Bellagio’s most exclusive corner. The scene is as operatic as it is opulent.

Versace’s name is in the title, and viewers will learn quite a bit about the designer, his sister Donatella (Penelope Cruz) and his partner of 15 years, Antonio D’Amico (Park Theater headliner Ricky Martin). The real star, though, is “Glee’s” Darren Criss, who threatens to turn the spree-killing Cunanan into a camp icon.

Driving through South Carolina on his way to Miami Beach, Cunanan changes the radio station from a report of his being wanted for murder to one playing Laura Branigan’s “Gloria,” which launches him into a jubilant singalong. Later, he dances about to Phil Collins and Philip Bailey’s “Easy Lover” in a tiny pink swimsuit inside a pink hotel suite while some poor mark he hustled on the beach struggles mightily for breath on the bed.

Keep in mind, the series may be written by Tom Rob Smith (the miniseries “London Spy”), based on the controversial book “Vulgar Favors” by Maureen Orth, but it’s overseen by Ryan Murphy of “American Horror Story,” “Glee” and “Nip/Tuck” fame. Ball gags and bondage gear are the only types of restraint he’s ever shown.

As charming liars go, Criss’ Cunanan falls somewhere between those of “Catch Me If You Can” and “The Talented Mr. Ripley.”

A flirtatious young man approaches Cunanan at a nightclub and asks what he does for a living. “I’m a serial killer,” he responds. “What?” the man asks, unable to make out his answer over the roar of the music. “I said, ‘I’m a banker.’ I’m a stockbroker. I’m a shareholder. I’m a paperback writer. I’m a cop. I’m a naval officer. Sometimes, I’m a spy. I build movie sets in Mexico and skyscrapers in Chicago. I sell propane in Minneapolis. Import pineapples from the Philippines. I’m the person least likely to be forgotten.”

I’m waiting for Benj Pasek and Justin Paul to set that to a foot-stomping beat for “Cunanan: The Musical.”

The Versace family has slammed the series, saying it “should only be considered as a work of fiction.” Among the limited series’ more controversial aspects are allegations that the designer had contracted HIV and that he had met, interacted with and even become captivated by his killer nearly seven years before in San Francisco.

But, as Cunanan says when he’s confronted about his series of lies and told that what he says matters: “Only if they know it isn’t true.”

Ryan Murphy digs into another crime story with ‘Versace’

‘Assassination of Versace’: Criss is electrifying

★★★☆

WHAT IT’S ABOUT Fashion designer Gianni Versace was shot and killed by a lone gunman when walking outside his Miami Beach villa in 1997. This second of Ryan Murphy’s “American Crime Story” series, “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” begins on a brilliant sunny morning, with Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) stalking Versace (Edgar Ramirez) after he returns home. The police response is bungled, in part because the FBI had not distributed posters of Cunanan, already wanted in a string of murders, including wealthy Chicago businessman Lee Miglin (Mike Farrell, appearing in later episodes), and two Cunanan friends, former Navy officer Jeff Trail (Finn Wittrock) and Minneapolis architect David Madson (Cody Fern). After Versace’s murder, his sister Donatella (Penélope Cruz) arrives to figure out what to do with the empire, and with her brother’s lover, Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin). This nine-parter is based on Maureen Orth’s 1999 book, “Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History.”

MY SAY “Versace” is a story told in reverse. This begins at the beginning — the shooting of Versace on July 15, 1997 — then proceeds backward, year by year and crime by crime. Criss’ Cunanan starts off as a fully formed monster, then devolves from there. As a point of comparison, imagine that he enters the series as Frankenstein, then with each subsequent week, a new body part is subtracted, until the penultimate episode, when he is simply a beating heart.

If this sounds confusing, it’s not. If it sounds macabre and horrifying, then that it most definitely is. In an electrifying performance, Criss spins his character’s lies so deftly that the violence that invariably follows them is a blow to the solar plexus. When he smiles brightly, the psycho middle-distance stare also follows, and he then pulls out the gun from his waistband.

Nevertheless, this reverse narrative was a risky decision by Murphy because it places viewers in the awkward position of omniscience. As they move backward in time, they know what’s coming before the victims do. Cunanan becomes more despicable, but less comprehensible. Why this horrifying string of murders? The question hangs there, while an answer hovers just beyond reach, taunting viewers, like Banquo’s ghost.

Reasonably enough, neither “Versace” nor Criss wanted to humanize Cunanan, so they dehumanized him instead. They also succeeded so well that they undercut both the premise and title of the entire miniseries. This is called “the assassination” of Versace as an indictment of mid-’90s America, which kept the closet closed on so many gay men, or forced someone like Trail out of the “don’t ask don’t tell” Navy, or allowed a murder spree like this to happen due to homophobia in the police response.

But as far as the first eight episodes are concerned (the only ones offered for review), Versace wasn’t “assassinated” any more than John Lennon was “assassinated.” They were killed by loner psychotic men armed with handguns. This alone makes “Versace” even sadder and scarier, as much a real-life “American Horror Story” as an “American Crime” one.

You’ll also want to know whether this is as good as “The People v. O.J. Simpson” (the first “ACS”), and the answer is no. Based on the Orth book, “Versace” still goes well beyond the book to re-create dialogue that no one could ever possibly know. The creative license is justified but hardly airtight. “O.J.” had Jeffrey Toobin’s book and the vast reportorial record. This has a cipher (Cunanan) and supposition at its core.

There are many pleasures here, however, and they are entirely in the craftsmanship. There are some superb performances — Judith Light as the repressed widow of Miglin is stunning — and it’s hard to think of one that isn’t good. “Versace” gets the little things right. It’s the bigger picture that’s the problem.

BOTTOM LINE Sorry, not as good as “O.J.,” but Criss turns in a dynamic performance in service of a desperately sad story.

‘Assassination of Versace’: Criss is electrifying