Every time a television show is done filming there are set pieces leftover that are still in good condition. Fox Studios has an entire team dedicated to making sure these pieces have the opportunity at a second home. American Crime Story: Versace wrapped this season and much of the show’s set decor was donated to Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles ReStores. This donation was made in December and over the holidays many friendly volunteers assisted with packing up these items at Fox Studio’s Warehouse.
Lisa Day, Director of Sustainability at Fox Studios, said, “After American Crime Story: Versace wrapped this season, our team had to find a new home for many of the gently used set pieces. Fox is dedicated to keeping as many reusable items out of the landfill as possible, so we decided to donate much of it to Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles ReStores. It’s reassuring to know these set pieces will be given a second life and support a great cause!”
Thank you to Lisa Day and Fox Studios for this incredible donation which will help us to build homes, community and hope.
Habitat for Humanity ReStores are nonprofit home improvement stores and donation centers that sell new and gently used furniture, appliances, home accessories, building materials and more to the public at a fraction of the retail price. For more information visit: habitatla.org/restore.
2. “American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace”: I’ve written before that showrunner Ryan Murphy is basically the Ken Burns of camp: a hard-working auteur with a unifying theory of America intent on tackling different aspects and eras of our culture and politics. His latest adventure explores crime, homophobia, fashion, HIV and Miami. Whether you like it may depend on how much time you’re comfortable spending in the mind of serial killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), but Edgar Ramirez, Penelope Cruz and Ricky Martin are wonderful as, respectively, Gianni Versace, his sister Donatella and Antonio D’Amico, too.
“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”
(Wednesday, Jan. 17, at 10 p.m. on FX): Having ignited a nonfiction reenactment craze with “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” Ryan Murphy and company return with this less-remembered tale of the psychopathic serial killer (Andrew Cunanan, played by Darren Criss) who murdered Versace (Edward Ramirez) on the steps of the fashion mogul’s Miami mansion in 1997. The first episode hits a hoped-for sweet spot between fact and sensation — especially when Donatella Versace (Penélope Cruz) arrives to take over her brother’s empire.
THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY (FX)
Premieres Wednesday, Jan. 17 at 10/9c
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?: The second installment of Ryan Murphy’s FX anthology series— which last tackled the infamous trial of O.J. Simpson — focuses on the 1997 murder of fashion icon Gianni Versace, the events leading up to his untimely death, and the effect his loss had on his family, his empire and the world.
WHY WE LIKE IT: True to its subject, this show is about as decadent as television gets. Shot (to so speak) in Versace’s actual Miami Beach mansion, this sumptuous drama is dripping with authenticity, bolstered by powerhouse performances from Emmy- and Oscar-winning actors, as well as a star-making — not to mention barely clothed — turn from Glee’s Darren Criss, who eerily slips into the role of Versace’s bespectacled killer
In the first episode of FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Versace’s (Edgar Ramirez) partner Antonio D’Amico (played by Ricky Martin) is grilled by an investigator who’s totally clueless about the icon murdered moments ago. Who was he, really? the investigator wants to know. D’Amico, his white shirt stained with the blood of his partner, musters, “He was a genius.”
He was, but “genius” doesn’t fully convey the enormity of Versace’s thinking, or his impact. Gianni Versace rose from opening a small Milan store in 1978 to being a fashion, media and branding virtuoso with an empire worth $807 million by the time he was murdered in 1997. As much as he shaped those worlds, his story may seem like a puzzling choice for Ryan Murphy’s next American Crime Story after the seismic shifts of The People v. O.J. Simpson. Whereas the O.J. story divided America along racial fault lines, Versace’s murder (by a gay man on a killing spree no less) didn’t have the same impact to people outside the insular, elite realms of fashion and media. But if there’s one thing Ryan Murphy loves, it’s the element of surprise, and stories with high octane-impact. And while Versace’s murder is a heinous injustice on its own, Murphy took on this story because it has implications bigger than a celebrity’s death. American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace is Murphy’s way of demanding accountability, of forcing the public to understand that the brutal slaying of one of the world’s greatest talents was due to deeply ingrained anti-gay discrimination within law enforcement and society as a whole.
“People often ask us if we’re going to do JonBenét Ramsey,” executive producer and frequent Murphy collaborator Alexis Martin Woodall told TV Guide. “It’s a big crime but it doesn’t have larger implications. We always have to have a social context. I think it’s really important to shine the light on the world FBI’s largest failed manhunt and why that happened.” That’s why this iteration of American Crime Story has “assassination” in the title: it chronicles how homophobia ended the life of one of the world’s greatest talents. Entrenched homophobia caused local police teams to bungle investigations of Andrew Cunanan (played by Darren Criss) as he killed his first victims in Minnesota and Chicago. It’s also why the FBI botched its manhunt in spite of generous evidence, clues and tips. And internalized homophobia is certainly why the gay community itself downplayed the fact a gay killer was on the loose, afraid of making gay people look bad.
Yes, Versace’s murder was a high-profile crime. But what should have been a watershed moment to look at how bias let a madman murder five people, including Versace, went to waste because the mostly closeted gay community was afraid (understandably) of the attention Cunanan’s sexuality would foist upon them. Twenty years later, the prolific showrunner is getting justice. Because of his need to correct the record, their shared sensibilities and his singular penchant for visual razzle-dazzle, Murphy is the only TV producer who can give Versace’s death as much meaning as his life. Unsurprisingly, it’s also his best work yet.
“Dramatic, emotional, brash — big primary colors of emotion and subtlety,” is how Tim Minear an executive producer who’s worked with Murphy on AHS and Feud: Bette and Joan, described the House of Murphy sensibility to TV Guide. “Pushed,” is another word he uses frequently. It’s a nebulous term, but one that makes sense to anyone who’s been yanked through the screen by Murphy’s heightened sense of, well, everything in his shows, whether it’s a chorus of gay schoolboys signing Katy Perry on Glee or Chaz Bono hacking off his hand in Horror Story.
Murphy and Versace don’t make the same products, obviously, but fundamentally, they create the same effect: baptism into a world of media obsession, celebrity worship, glamour, filth and sex. “I think it’s the responsibility of a designer to break rules and barriers,” Versace once said, and he lived it. Versace bucked fashion rules that said expensive clothes were supposed to look refined. He borrowed from taboo subcultures — punk, bikers, sex workers — and made dresses that were loud and risqué, purposefully showing too much skin or too much pattern, to upend ideas of good taste. He also single-handedly rebranded Miami, where he created an opulent mansion, as a destination for beautiful jet-setting people. He practically created “supermodels” — Naomi Campbell was his main muse — and, as the first to deliberately place celebs like friends Prince and Madonna in the front row of his shows, he pioneered the idea that fashion could mean celebrity, rock & roll and sex.
He was openly gay, a rarity in the days when “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” was supposed to be progress but barred gay people in the military from speaking about their personal lives. Being out was so rare and risky for a public figure then — yup, even for a fashion designer — that in April 1997, just months before Versace died, Ellen DeGeneres came out and saw her sitcom canceled and career stalled for years. Versace was a rebel. Versace invented giving zero f–s. Just as Versace didn’t simply make clothes but rather, a feeling, Ryan Murphy doesn’t make TV as much as he makes commentary. Nineteen years younger than Versace, Murphy also comes from humble beginnings (working class Indianapolis) and cut his teeth writing about entertainment for glossy pop culture magazines. Then he started creating pop culture himself, first with Popular, then Nip/Tuck, Glee, Scream Queens, the AHS series, The People v O.J. Simpson and Feud. Though every subject has been different, Murphy imbues every show with the same principles of contradictory emotion and images that leave viewers asking aloud and/or rewinding to see what the hell they just saw.
Murphy never hid his sexual orientation in his cutthroat industry, either. And just like Versace, Murphy’s distinctly gay sensibility informs his shows as much as a queer point of view was imbued in Versace’s clothes and casa. Their common language is camp, expressed through an innate instinct to provoke people with a patchwork of disparate, non-conformist influences. Gay men, particularly those of a certain age who endured hardships of yore, are unmatched in their ability to merge the sad, beautiful, profane, holy and hilarious in a single sentiment. If anything unites Murphy’s wildly different works, it’s delighting in the mix. Their end products aren’t the same, but Murphy and Versace are cut from the same cloth.
Andrew Cunanan, on the other hand, was the shadow image of the two. Using the thoroughly researched book Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History as its bible, the FX series depicts how Cunanan had all the desire to be as prominent as Versace or Murphy but did nothing to accomplish it other than lie and con. Versace and Murphy achieved success with endless hours of work and sacrifice, but Cunanan just earned the tokens of it — cash, clothes, drugs — through manipulation and sinister deception. And where Versace and Murphy boldly confronted homophobia by being out and outspoken, Cunanan succumbed to it by lying and pretending to be somebody else, so much that nobody who knew him really knew who he was. He killed his closest friends in egomaniacal tantrums; Cunanan shot Versace because he represented what Cunanan could’ve been, and what he felt he deserved. He wanted to be famous. “The most ironic thing of all,” Alexis Martin Woodall said, “is that he wanted to be remembered and nobody remembers who he was. Everybody thinks fame is the answer and for most people, fame is totally destructive.”
Murphy delights in showing monsters up close, as he does in American Horror Story, but he’s most poignant when he probes how real-life monsters became that way. The Assassination of Gianni Versace allows Murphy to do what he does best: make viewers understand — but not empathize — with the devil. And only Murphy could achieve the delicate balance of vilifying a person without vilifying an entire culture — exactly what kept the case from having the same kind of cultural impact that O.J. had. That long overdue impact can now finally occur in Murphy’s dramatic retelling.
Murphy directed the first episode of Versace and, as everyone knows, he never shies away from brutal images. The season opener goes back to Versace’s face, ripped open by the stolen .40 caliber semiautomatic Cunanan used, several times in the hospital and autopsy room. It is gruesome and haunting, yet fitting. Versace made Medusa, the mythological monster with a head full of snakes, his logo; he saw the beauty in the grotesque and knew that shock had value. Murphy has made those elements hallmarks, using them as Trojan horses to make points about racism (O.J.), sexism (Feud) and now, homophobia, a subject that’s obviously personal. In the years since Versace’s demise, many groups and museums — and even his sister Donatella (portrayed in the FX series by her friend Penelope Cruz) — have honored Versace’s legacy. But 20 years after Versace’s death, Ryan Murphy has created a work that not only pays respects to the legendary designer but channels righteous anger at the institutions that robbed the world of a master whose sole life purpose was to create beauty, fun and love. And he manages to do it in a way that doesn’t shy away from the fact that Versace’s killer was cut from what Cunanan considered to be the same cloth. The result is a series so intense that even the cast and crew cried while shooting.
“The word genius is overused,” said Woodhall. “Except with Ryan. He really is a genius. He is a visionary.”
The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story premieres Wednesday, Jan. 17 at 10/9c on FX.
Edgar Ramírez spent much of the last year staring at someone else in the mirror.
The Venezuelan actor transformed himself into an elf working as a government agent in David Ayer’s contemporary fantasy thriller “Bright,” which opened in theaters and on Netflx on Friday. He also plays fashion icon Gianni Versace in the Ryan Murphy-produced limited series “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” which premieres on FX in January.
Over the course of his career, the 40-year-old Ramirez has played everything from a Greek god to legendary boxer Roberto Durán, but these two roles required something else entirely.
For “Bright,” which costars Will Smith, Ramirez asked the Italian sartorial house Kiton to craft his character Kandomere’s suits, while makeup artists gave him prosthetic ears, special teeth and a wig that was purposefully stranded together to look intentionally unnatural. Portraying Versace was actually more intense. Ramírez wore not only prosthetics but also a wig cap that made him nervous.
Ramirez recalls, “The first day, I told Ryan, ‘I’m ready to take this off and shave my head and put the wig on my shaved head.’ He said, ‘Edgar, trust me. You don’t need to do it. It looks great already.’ I had a little freaking out moment with the prosthetic, but I think that every actor using it for the first time can relate.”
During our conversation, Ramírez discussed the unique world building his character is a part of in “Bright,” and what he thinks viewers will learn about Versace.
…
You shot “Versace” after this? What made you want to do it?
I was very excited about the team, and, of course, I’ve admired Ryan’s work for many years. You never know, but honestly, I knew that journey was going to be interesting. It was going to be something that would inform me with a lot of things.
Most of the public knows of Versace only as a brand. Others might remember him just from photos in fashion magazines and the circumstances of his death. What do you feel viewers will learn about him from your portrayal?
He was, above all, a family guy. In the most Greek way, in the most Roman way, I mean, he was an emperor. But very, very, very, very, very concerned for his family and for his legacy, family wise. This was surprising, because I was around when Versace exploded as a brand. I remember all the revolution in the ’90s, how Gianni mixed sexuality with glamour, something that had never been done before. I mean, the ’70s were run down and sexy, the ’80s were opulent and conservative and then Gianni married the two and everybody went crazy.
And the supermodels too.
Exactly. He created all that culture. I wouldn’t be invited to the first row of any fashion house now if it weren’t for Versace, who created this culture.
I know that Versace’s family was not involved in the project. Did that make you nervous going forward?
Cautious, but not nervous, because in the end, this is an approximation to what the life of this designer could have been like and, of course, our reconstruction or re-creation of the events that led to his assassination. Even when you’re doing characters or based on real people, again, it’s only impersonation. It’s not a photograph. It’s a painting. It’s not exact. If it was my family, of course, I would have reservations. First of all, it’s your life. They were a family that went through one of the most horrible tragedies that was witnessed in the world of celebrity and fashion in the last 50 years. It was horrible what happened. I wouldn’t want anything to do with it. I totally understand that.
So, two roles in a row where your makeup and costume were integral to your character.
No, it’s true. I’ve never thought about it. That it was one or the other where I completely transformed my body. Yeah, but with Versace, it was different, because it was a prosthetic, and the transformation was somehow deeper. To feel a bald cap and to see your head shape change? It was kind of scary at the beginning, because I thought that it might look fake but also because it always takes you some time to get used to see yourself like that. It feels very foreign.
He gained twelve pounds, learned to speak English with an Italian accent. And he discovered he looked very much like the man he will now play on television. So Édgar Ramírez turned into the Calabrian designer, who was killed in Miami in 1997. And while he was acting, he also found himself doing another job, for which he had taken a degree.
The first thing that Édgar Ramírez does when he arrives on our photo shoot in Los Angeles is to put music. After five minutes, we are all singing “You make me turn / you make me turn / like a doll” and “The first beautiful thing I’ve had since life” together with Patty Pravo and Nicola Di Bari, who leave the Édgar’s phone.
“These are songs I discovered because they liked Gianni Versace,” he tells me. He has just landed from Buenos Aires, where Pablo Trapero’s quietude with Bérénice Bejo turns, and I immediately notice a coincidence. “Today is December 2nd. It would be Gianni’s birthday, he would have turned 71 and we are here talking about him.” Of him and the long-awaited television series in nine episodes American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, which will air from 19 January on FoxCrime. Ramírez, who is also an interpreter of Bright, just released on the Internet, is Venezuelan, son of diplomats, a journalism graduate, in the private sector he calls himself “single but hopeful”, even though some newspapers have given him a recent flirtation with Ana de Armas, revelation of Blade Runner 2049. He, however, was discovered thanks to another biographical series, Carlos, on the Venezuelan terrorist, directed by Olivier Assayas and released in 2010: one of the first television products signed by a great author of cinema. “We were pioneers of one trend, maybe we did not even realize it at the moment.”
One of the things that impress most is its resemblance to Versace. Had he ever noticed it?
“Neither I nor others. Until I was called by Ryan Murphy (producer, director and author of the series, ed)! ”
Do you remember where it was on July 15th 1997, the day of the stylist’s murder?
“I was twenty, I was in Venezuela, I was getting ready to go on a trip to Europe. In memory, the death of Versace and that of Lady Diana are closely linked. At the end of the summer, when the princess died, I was friends in Bergamo. The Versace case struck me very much because, at the time, my parents lived in Miami and when I went to visit them, my sister and I often passed in front of Gianni’s house. It was the moment of the Ocean Drive boom and now I understand how he had sensed, as a visionary, what Miami was becoming: a capital of cultural and sexual diversity, as well as a place with immense real estate potential.”
How did you prepare?
"The series is based on a book (The murder of Gianni Versace of Vanity Fair journalist Usa Maureen Orth, ed. Tre60, ed) that I did not want to read because it’s all about Andrew Cunanan, the serial killer. Cunanan is linked to Gianni’s death, not to his life, which is what interested me. I read more, watched many interviews and talked to people close to Gianni who trusted me. Do not ask the names: I will never reveal my sources, I was a journalist. I can tell you that it’s not about family people. ”
Also because the family has not had any involvement. Penélope Cruz told me that she spoke with Donatella Versace, whom she interprets, to reassure her that everything would be done with the utmost respect.
“I confirm. It is not a sensationalistic thing, I would not have accepted. And I also speak in the name of Penélope and Ricky (Martin, who plays Gianni’s companion, Antonio D’Amico, ed). For everyone it was an experience of those that change your life. We have become friends, perhaps because we are Latins and we have grasped the essence of the story, which is the story of a man who was, first of all, attached to his family, who knew well the joy and torment of working with relatives and he put the affections first. Moreover, right from the title, there is a political indication: it is the murder of Gianni Versace, not his death that we are going to show. Because it was not an accident. Gianni was targeted because it was a symbol.”
Do you think he was a happy man?
"Satisfied, certainly. He had achieved a lot thanks to his talent and hard work: he was a workaholic, much more timid and serious than one might think. He had revolutionized fashion. First he mixed sensuality and glamor, took the liberties of the seventies and immersed himself in the hedonistic climate of the eighties, capturing a precise moment: there have never been so much money in the world as then, there has never been so much desire for luxury, he created the clothes that represented the spirit of the time. He frees fashion from ateliers, contaminating it with cinema and rock’n’roll. He was an artist who expressed himself by drawing clothes, but everything inspired him. I think he was also the first to put a piece of work – "Vincerò”, from Puccini’s Turandot – as a soundtrack to a fashion show.”
Physically, how did you work on the character?
“I get ten years of makeup and I’ve put on a dozen kilos, which is very easy. The difficult now is to lose them! I shot in English, with an Italian accent, trying to reproduce Gianni’s voice when he spoke English. It has already happened to bring to reality people who actually existed (as well as Carlos, the boxer Roberto Duràn, ed) and I would like to say that an interpretation is not an imitation. It is a painting that tries to restore a soul, not to photocopy a face.
É ingrassato dodici chili, ha imparato a parlare inglese con accento italiano. E ha scoperto di assomigliare moltissimo all’uomo che adesso interpreterà in televisione. Così Édgar Ramírez si è trasformato nello stilista calabrese, ucciso a Miami nel 1997. E, mentre recitava, si è trovato a fare anche un altro mestiere, per il quale aveva preso una laurea.
La prima cosa che fa Édgar Ramírez quando arriva sul nostro set fotografico a Los Angeles è mettere la musica. Dopo cinque minuti, stiamo tutti cantando «Tu mi fai girar / tu mi fai girar / come fossi una bambola» e «La prima cosa bella / che ho avuto dalla vita» insieme alle vico di Patty Pravo e Nicola Di Bari, che escono dal telefono di Édgar.
«Sono canzoni che ho scoperto perché piacevano a Gianni Versace», mi dice. È appena atterrato da Buenos Aires, dove gira La quietud di Pablo Trapero con Bérénice Bejo, e mi fa subito notare una coincidenza. «Oggi gi è il 2 dicembre. Sarebbe il compleanno di Gianni, avrebbe compiuto 71 anni e siamo qui a parlare di lui». Di lui e della molto attesa serie televisiva in nove puntate American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, che andrà in onda dal 19 gennaio su FoxCrime. Ramírez, che è anche interprete di Bright, appena uscito su Internet, è venezuelano, figlio di diplomatici, laureato in giornalismo, nel privato si definisce «single ma speranzoso», anche se qualche giornale gli ha attribuito un flirt recente con Ana de Armas, rivelazione di Blade Runner 2049. Lui, invece, è stato scoperto grazie a un’altra serie biografica, Carlos, sul terrorista venezuelano, diretta da Olivier Assayas e uscita nel 2010: uno dei primi prodotti televisivi firmati da un grande autore di cinema. “Eravamo pionieri di uni tendenza, forse al momento neanche ce ne siamo resi conto.”
Una delle cose che colpiscono di più è la sua somiglianza con Versace. Se ne era mai accorto?
«Né io, né altri. Fino a quando sono stato chiamato da Ryan Murphy (produttore, regista e autore della serie, ndr)!».
Si ricorda dov’era il 15 luglio 1997, il giorno dell’assassinio dello stilista?
«Avevo vent’anni, ero in Venezuela, mi stavo preparando a partire per un viaggio in Europa. Nella memoria, la morte di Versace e quella di Lady Diana sono strettamente collegate. Alla fine dell’estate, quando morì la principessa, ero da amici a Bergamo. Il caso Versace mi colpì moltissimo perché, all’epoca, i miei genitori vivevano a Miami e quando li andavo a trovare, io e mia sorella passavamo spesso davanti alla casa di Gianni. Era il momento del boom di Ocean Drive e adesso capisco come lui avesse intuito, da visionario, che cosa stava diventando Miami: una capitale della diversità culturale e sessuale, oltreché un luogo dall’immenso potenziale immobiliare».
Come si è preparato?
«La serie si basa su un libro (L’assassinio di Gianni Versace della giornalista di Vanity Fair Usa Maureen Orth, ed. Tre60, ndr) che io non ho voluto leggere perché è tutto su Andrew Cunanan, il serial killer. Cunanan è legato alla morte di Gianni, non alla sua vita, che è quello che interessava a me. Ho letto altro, guardato molte interviste e parlato con persone vicine a Gianni che mi hanno dato fiducia. Non chieda i nome: non rivelerò mai le mie fonti, sono stato giornalista. Posso dirle che non si tratta di persone della famiglia».
Anche perché la famiglia non ha avuto alcun coinvolgimento. Penélope Cruz mi ha detto che ha parlato con Donatella Versace, che lei interpreta, per rassicurarla che tutto sarebbe stato fatto con il massimo rispetto.
«Confermo. Non è una cosa sensazionalistica, non avrei accettato. E parlo anche a nome di Penélope e di Ricky (Martin, che interpreta il compagno di Gianni, Antonio D’Amico, ndr). Per tutti è stata un ‘esperienza di quelle che ti cambiano la vita. Siamo diventati amici, forse perché siamo latini e abbiamo colto l’essenza del racconto, che è la storia di un uomo che era, prima di ogni cosa, attaccato alla sua famiglia, che conosceva bene la gioia e i tormenti del lavorare insieme ai parenti e metteva gli affetti al primo posto. Inoltre, fin dal titolo, c’è un’indicazione politica: è l’assassinio di Gianni Versace, non la sua morte che andiamo a mostrare. Perché non è stato un incidente. Gianni è stato preso di mira perché era un simbolo».
Pensa che fosse un uomo felice?
«Appagato, certamente. Aveva ottenuto molto grazie al suo talento e al duro lavoro: era un workaholic, molto più timido e serio di quanto si possa pensare. Aveva rivoluzionato la moda. Per primo ha mescolato sensualità e glamour, he preso li libertà degli anni Settanta el’ha immersa nel clima edonistico degli anni Ottanta, catturando un momento preciso: non ci sono mai stati così tanti soldi nel mondo come allora, non c’è mai stato così tanto desiderio di lusso, lui ha creato gli abiti che rappresentavano lo spirito del tempo. Ha liberato la moda dagli atelier, contaminandola con il cinema e il rock’n’roll. Era un artista che si esprimeva disegnando vestiti, ma tutto lo ispirava. Credo sia stato anche il primo a mettere un pezzo d’opera – “Vincerò”, dalla Turandot di Puccini – come colonna sonora di una sfilata».
Fisicamente, come ha lavorato sul personaggio?
«Il trucco mi invecchia di dieci anni e sono ingrassato una dozzina di chili, cosa facilissima. Il difficile adesso è perderli! Ho girato in inglese, con accento italiano, cercando di riprodurre la voce di Gianni quando parlava inglese. Mi è già capitato di portare sullo schermo persone realmente esistite (oltre a Carlos, il pugile Roberto Duràn, ndr) e mi sento di dire che un’interpretazione non è un’imitazione. È un dipinto che cerca di restituire un’anima, non di fotocopiare una faccia».
Part of what did Norma in was Hollywood’s misogyny. Obviously, men get sidelined too when they got older, but it’s worse for women.
Close: Mm-hmm. To be honest, all those great roles I got were, what, 30 years ago? And then I entered the age where you’re struck by ageism. The thing I think is really exciting now is what’s happening with television. I went to see The Assassination of Gianni Versace, which Ryan Murphy is doing, and it was stunning! And there’s Penélope Cruz in a miniseries, and it’s the same level as the best filmmaking. There’s so much need for content, and now with the revolution that’s going on—hopefully the evolution that’s going on—there will hopefully be more women that will give women jobs. And there’s real trendsetters like Ryan Murphy. He’s remarkable. I think if you really are a craftsman in what we do, you only get better. I’ve never felt more full of life, more on my game than I do now. You hope good roles will come up.
Emmy-winning producer Ryan Murphy describes recreating the murder of fashion icon Gianni Versace for FX’s “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” as “one of the most emotional, profound and moving experiences” of his career.
“I never had a situation with anything I shot like this,” Murphy said recently, addressing a New York audience at a screening of the upcoming miniseries first episode. “The day we shot that the crew was crying, the actors were crying. It was very intense.”
The nine-episode miniseries premieres Jan. 17 as the next installment of FX’s “American Crime Story” anthology, and it’s already creating a lot of buzz in telling the tragic story of Versace’s 1997 murder at the hands of serial killer Andrew Cunan — who gunned Versace down on the steps outside his mansion in Miami Beach (and later killed himself).
Murphy was joined on a panel with his stars: Edgar Ramirez, who plays Versace; Darren Criss, cast as Cunanan; and Ricky Martin as Versace’s companion, Antonio D’Amico — who cradled the fallen fashion giant as he bled out from a fatal head wound in the glaring Miami sun.
Murphy filmed in front of and inside Versace’s former Miami villa, capturing the chaos and perversity of the scene: the desperation of D’Amico as he waits for help; the almost pornographic fascination of the onlookers — one of whom dips a photo of Versace in the blood left on the steps to his home — and the bewilderment of the Miami police, who have no idea what they’re getting into. Watching the scene play out on the screen at Manhattan’s Metrograph theatre had a disorienting effect on Criss.
“I was hit extremely hard by it because unlike a lot of other recreations on television it was not done on a soundstage,” he says. “Those were the stairs [of his actual house], that was the gate. It’s public access. You can walk right up to it. They have such weight, especially in the context of our story. Being dressed as Andrew was, being a beautiful Miami day.
“And then I got to walk though the damn gates and go sit in an air-conditioned room. And that hit me really hard. Andrew never got to go inside. I almost had guilt. Living with Andrew for so long, him reaching desperately for everything he couldn’t have. And there I was just walking in.”
The Versace villa is now a bed-and-breakfast. Murphy told The Post he was shocked when he received the permit to shoot there — but that the actors “were obviously delighted.”
“I don’t think I could have made the show if I couldn’t have gotten that house,” he says. “There was no way you could build [a set] of it. Two of the rooms were made out of seashells. [Gianni Versace’s sister] Donatella [Versace] took all the furniture and the art when she sold the house, but through pictures we were able to recreate them.
“It adds something to the performance.” he says. “When Edgar Ramirez goes to those Biedermeier closets [in Versace’s bedroom], they were the same closets Versace spent a year building and they’ve been lovingly maintained. They were extraordinary.”
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