‘It’s time for a blanket ban on naming pathetic, deluded sick killers’

I’ve just finished watching a series on the BBC which had the most misleading title since Bobby Davro: Rock With Laughter.

Just as mirth failed to rock anyone within wincing distance of Bobby’s show, so The Assassination of Gianni Versace had little to do with the murdered fashion designer.

It was basically a nine-hour glamorisation of his murderer, serial killer Andrew Cunanan .

The sad, not good-looking, attention-seeking, blood-lusting misfit was played by Darren Criss, the handsome, talented, empathetic star of the hit TV show Glee.

The Versace series effectively endowed star status on a man who brutally took five lives. It elevated a non-entity from being the killer of a celebrity to a celebrity killer.

If Cunanan, an extreme narcissist whose only aim in life was achieving fame, had watched this series he’d have been living out his ultimate wet dream.

Which is why I had this uneasy feeling throughout.

That in some bedsit, another inadequate saddo who couldn’t find a job or form a relationship and blamed his plight on a big, bad world that didn’t understand him, was seeing his own story unfold.

And when it came to the scene, after Versace’s murder, where Cunanan dances around a room howling with delight and swigging champagne as his face appears on every US TV news channel, that bedsit saddo’s mind was made up – it was his destiny to copy Cunanan by forcing the world to give him the recognition he was currently denied.

Then, on Monday, a van was driven onto a Toronto pavement claiming 10 lives , and the man accused of the murders, Alek Minassian, had his smiling face plastered all over our TV screens, as friends described him as a loner who struggled to hold down a relationship.

He’d been inspired, not by Cunanan, but by another misfit who’d achieved fame through a murder spree. Minassian belongs to an online group called Incel, which stands for Involuntary Celibate, a mysogynistic rabble who believe they’re being unfairly denied love and validation by women because they’re unattractive or socially awkward.

And who pledge violence as revenge.

In what is alleged to have been Minassian’s last Facebook post he paid tribute to the group’s hero, woman-hater Elliot Rodger, who had killed six people in a gun rampage near the University of California on his “day of retribution” in 2014.

Who knows, maybe the fame being showered on Minassian is now inspiring a similarly inadequate loser to follow in his path. And on it goes.

As we approach the anniversary of the Manchester terror attack, when 22 innocents were murdered, I only want to hear words about those lovely young people still deeply mourned by their shattered families.

I don’t want to see the face of their killer. I wish we’d never heard his name.

Indeed I wish the world’s major TV and publishing organisations would agree, for an experimental period, to a blanket ban on naming all terrorists, serial killers and mass-murderers.

Referring to them as Just Another Pathetic Non-Entity.

With the internet, it’s impossible for the names not to come out. But a global mass media ban would mean their faces weren’t plastered all over TV screens, their back stories weren’t told in papers, and all focus instead would be on the victims whose lives were stolen in their bid for recognition.

Because if it stopped even one deluded narcissist from killing due to there being no mass fame on offer, the experiment would have been worth it.

And might be made permanent.

Television Review – The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

The second season of television super-producer Ryan Murphy’s social-politics-minded true crime anthology series is neither as spectacularly star-studded or thematically wide-ranging as the first season, the Emmy-winning The People vs. O.J. Simpson. But The Assassination of Gianni Versace, written entirely by Tom Rob Smith (Maggie Cohn has a co-writer credit on the penultimate episode) with a premiere episode directed by Murphy, is a more focused and reflectively dichotomous work. Becoming ever-more intensely about the fascinatingly troubled young man who killed the famed Italian fashion designer in Miami in 1997 (and at least four other men as well), this American Crime Story is an absorbing, shocking, and nuanced meditation on the social and psychological costs of closeted homosexuality and the nature of capitalist success, on the image we wear like a mask and project to the world and the true, less presentable self that we can never really disguise.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace opens with its titular murder and tracks back to explore the path that led killer Andrew Cunanan (played by Darren Criss, in the season’s star-turn standout performance) to take the life of Versace (Édgar Ramírez), It also considers key moments in that life (often employed as sharply mirroring contrasts to Cunanan’s degenerating life and choices), as well as the grief-stricken tug-of-war over his memory and legacy after his death between his sister and design partner Donatella (Penélope Cruz) and his lover and life partner Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin; yes, that Ricky Martin, and he’s good, too). For a viewer unfamiliar with the details of Versace’s life and of the background of his killer, the narrative is full of surprises and revelations, illustrating details and remarkable visual metaphors. It will also work quite hard in its lesser moments to make you care about and believe in fashion design as a vibrant and meaningful art form. Unless you’re already of such a mind, you will leave unconvinced.

But after an establishing episode or two (the manhunt for Versace’s killer is teased in the opening episode and then deferred until the closing hour), the show really becomes The Disturbing Adventures of Andrew Cunanan. The central serial killer is a charming and fairly open homosexual, a sociopathic, self-aggrandizing pathological liar, and given more defined psychological contours as his narrative arc fills in innovatively backwards. He is forever making ambitious plans that he does not work hard enough to achieve, lavishly spending money he has not earned, seeking to impress others with fancifully exaggerated tales about his connections to wealth and fame, and bouncing between secretly-gay wealthy sugar daddies and potential younger paramours. A cossetted golden child of his Fillipino father (Jon Jon Briones), who flees the United States ahead of federal charges of embezzlement and leaves his abused wife (Joanna P. Adler) and the spoiled Andrew to fend for themselves, Andrew runs in gay community circles in his native San Diego and San Francisco, eventually drifts towards drug abuse and prostitution, and is exposed and rejected by several friends and lovers in quick succession, triggering the murder spree that ends with Versace.

Cunanan’s fractured, manipulative, sociopathic psyche is repeatedly contrasted with the varied group of gay men whom he meets, befriends, and, in many cases, kills, through whom The Assassination of Gianni Versace provides a notably multifaceted view of the experience of being gay in America in the still-unaccepting 1990s. Versace himself came out publically in an interview with The Advocate in 1995, despite the concerns of his sister; after his death, the deep grief of his partner D’Amico (Martin himself came out a few years ago, at age 39) is exacerbated by being denied any acknowledgement of their relationship or compensation for the loss by the Versace family and business, a common experience for same-sex partners without legal union rights.

Cunanan’s other lovers, acquaintances, and victims reflect other facets of the homosexual experience: Lee Miglin (Mike Farrell) is a Chicago real estate developer with a public marriage to infomercial perfume hawker Marilyn Miglin (a formidable Judith Light) and private secrets; Norman Blachford (Michael Nouri) is another wealthy older man who takes on Cunanan as a live-in lover/style consultant/assistant, but sees more readily through his web of lies; David Madson (Cody Fern) is a small-town Midwesterner who comes out to his traditionally conservative father in a scene that doesn’t entirely follow any predictable script; and the perspective of Jeff Trail (Finn Wittrock), a closeted Navy officer, provides a sharply political commentary on homophobia in the U.S. military and the contemporaneous bureaucratic injustice of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (which was only actually suspended in 2011).

But Andrew Cunanan himself, as characterized in Criss’s tremendous performance, is the key carrier of The Assassination of Gianni Versace‘s thematic meanings concerning the fraught performativity of identity in American capitalism. Andrew is not closeted like most of those other gay men, but he is nonetheless hiding his true self and projecting a falsified, grandiose image for the world. His father taught him to perform success at all times, even if it actually eludes him. Once he begins killing, Cunanan of course hides his murderous, monstrous nature from the world to remain at large. But he is always wearing a mask even before that, playing the role of a charming, worldly, confidently interesting young man with illustrious connections and swaths of wealth and privilege when the real Andrew Cunanan, at his core, is financially precarious, increasingly desperate, and inherently insecure, forever seeking love from others but cripplingly incapable of feeling it in return. Like all confidence men, there is a confidence-shaped hole at his centre.

Ever in contrast to the daring, visionary designer Gianni Versace, who poured his sensibility into his clothing, Andrew Cunanan dons outfits with handsome swagger but never can inhabit them, never seems at home in his own skin. The Assassination of Gianni Versace‘s brilliant leap is to delve more deeply and even encourage a perverse identification with the serial killer Cunanan rather than its titular figure, and to suggest that his obsession with surface appearance and his related disconnect from the truths of his own existence constitutes a typically American quagmire of identity formation, reflecting the dilemmas of our own time as well as of those of 20 years ago.

Television Review – The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

SNL’s “Weekend Update” Anchors Michael Che and Colin Jost to Host 2018 Emmys

It’s hard to predict this early who and what will receive nominations, but it strikes us as likely The Crown, Westworld, This Is Us and The Handmaid’s Tale will be among that number. Keep an eye out for Laura Dern’s performance in The Tale, in particular, to nab a nomination. In a perfect world, we’d love to see Darren Criss from The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story snag a nomination, as well, but only time will tell.

SNL’s “Weekend Update” Anchors Michael Che and Colin Jost to Host 2018 Emmys

UK TV review: American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace | VODzilla.co

Rating: 9.3
Darren Criss: 10
Writing: 10
Direction: 8

American Crime Story Season 2 boasts a star-making performance from Darren Criss.

American Crime Story could be titled American Dream Story. The country’s national myth, dating back more or less to the Declaration of Independence, is a paean to individualism in a fiercely competitive world, to equality of opportunity, that living well is theoretically available to all. Today, the American Dream is really about the pursuit of celebrity, notoriety, money, sex and power.

In both seasons to date, exploring the OJ Simpson trial and Andrew Cunanan’s killing spree, Ryan Murphy’s series gives us the American Dream turned to ashes. OJ Simpson’s entitlement became warped by accruement of wealth and fame. Cunanan’s was instilled in him almost from birth, his existence of lies constructed around make-believe riches, and fame is very much what he wanted. While tackling different themes – Season 1 is about race and Season 2 is focused on homophobia – both American Crime Story entries to date dovetail perfectly, because each represent specific 1990s real-crime sensations that changed the country’s approach to sensationalist, rolling content, the very type Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers (1994) keenly satirised. OJ Simpson’s trial cynically piggybacked on discussions about race relations in Los Angeles and social justice in America, while Cunanan’s crimes shone on a light on homophobic attitudes in society at all levels. The stories are national tragedies atop personal tragedies, reflecting uncomfortable facts and provoking soul-searching questions, yet simultaneously feeding our demand for juicy stories with monstrous men at the fore.

Class has emerged as a major ingredient in American Crime Story, too. From the projects of San Francisco, Simpson journeyed to the refined world of Brentwood, LA. He earned his way to the top by being genuinely gifted as an athlete, becoming a star and personality off the back of his footballing achievements. Behind the sunny persona and bonhomie, however, Simpson (aka. The Juice) was a man crippled by jealousies and slights, both real and imagined. He was a guy who thought he was so unique, so different, he had transcended his African-American roots. He once exclaimed in all seriousness: “I’m not black, I’m OJ.”

As counterpoint to Simpson’s rags-to-riches tale, Andrew Cunanan went to a private school, lived well enough, until his father’s fraudulent career as a conman was exposed, and his special talent was for BS. Handsome, funny, well read, Cunanan turned into a pathological liar. Even when people knew he was talking crap, he did it in such charming fashion, so amusingly, friends forgave him or brushed it off as just one of his quirky insecurities. All the while, Cunanan was edging further and further towards murderous schemes. Cunanan, as depicted in The Assassination of Gianni Versace, is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great pretender, Jay Gatsby, crossed with American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. He’s like a great white shark prowling San Diego and San Francisco, posing as a harmless Nemo. He dreamed of living in the lap of luxury, but he didn’t want to work for it. Fortitude and hard graft were alien to him. Cunanan’s life disappointments eventually manifested as an obsessive fixation on Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace, who journeyed from relatively humble origins in a dirt-poor region of Italy (Calabria) to international superstardom.

Season 2 is a more intimate and experimentally plotted affair than its predecessor. American Crime Story creator Ryan Murphy and collaborator Tom Rob Smith used Maureen Orth’s investigative non-fiction book, Vulgar Favours (1998), as the text off which to springboard. Across nine episodes, we get Versace and Cunanan’s life stories played out on screen. But, like in an experimental film, it is plotted unexpectedly. There has been criticism of the show’s narrative structuring (chiefly: the plot is unnecessarily convoluted), yet it moves well and demonstrates how daring television is becoming, how it can borrow from cinema and literature to tell a captivating story out of chronological order and do so with fine results.

At the heart of The Assassination of Gianni Versace is a triumphant performance by Darren Criss. In snobbier times, critics might well have declared it ‘too good for television’, but in a veritable golden age of small screen entertainment, any such critique is a bust. As Cunanan, Criss delivers a magnetic and layered portrait of a psychopath far away from dog-tired movie clichés. Cunanan was a mercurial personality, jocular and kind or a moody, preening, spoilt brat at the flip of a mental switch. He breathlessly lied and stuck steadfastly to his made-up nonsense, as if by force of will he could change reality and manifest his fibs into being. The genius in the acting comes from Criss’s ability to make ‘Andy’ not only likeable, but in making us feel sympathy for a devil. It shouldn’t be transgressive to acknowledge monsters can love; it’s just they love monstrously, selfishly and destructively. The final couple of episodes are especially heart-wrenching. What Criss does so well is craft a performance based on a very complicated person and allows such complexity full rein before our eyes. The effect is astonishing.

Criss dominates proceedings so totally that it’s easy forget the cast includes Édgar Ramirez as Gianni Versace and Penelope Cruz as Donatella Versace. The script poignantly documents two people almost aloof from everyday reality, as well as a brother-and-sister dynamic made of love and fiery rivalry, of two artists sometimes forgetting they’re related, because the empire they’ve built is much bigger than either of them. Donatella emerged from under her brother’s shadow in the worst circumstances, and their interactions are peppered with a sense of competitiveness, the older brother telling his little sister to up her game, stop thinking so commercially and take more chances artistically. It doesn’t matter Cruz and Ramirez are Spanish-accented actors playing Calabrese, especially when the former gets Donatella’s distinct mumble down to a T. Presenting the pair as virtual demigods among mere mortals cleverly taps into our febrile celebrity culture and Cunanan’s own obsession with Gianni Versace and a world dripping with gaudy riches. Ramirez has the aura of a doomed saint, while Cruz’s Donatella is granite-hard, refusing to appear vulnerable, although she’s deeply wounded by her brother’s murder.

One of Season 2’s most powerful aspects is the examination of institutional homophobia (in police departments, the FBI, the media and the military). The Matt Bomer-directed episode (Ep 5 – Don’t Ask Don’t Tell) is set against the backdrop of the US army’s policy to portray the hideous experiences of Jeff Trail (Finn Wittrock), a former navy officer and one of Cunanan’s victims. But it’s also embedded in little scenes – a cop’s embarrassment of questioning Versace’s partner, Antonio (played by Ricky Martin), and clumsily insinuating the fashion designer was murdered because of his lifestyle choices. Another police officer wisecracks to a colleague she got the case to hunt down Cunanan because she’s a lesbian (inferring she can understand gay people). In its presentation of a world lacking all empathy towards the murder victims and their families, while the news coverage feasts on every scrap of info it can dig up, American Crime Story stings with horror and truth.

Both seasons make for essential viewing, with The Assassination of Gianni Versace taking the show into masterpiece territory. John Travolta’s comeback role as Robert Shapiro reminded us all a guy who has spent a decade or so coasting in a range of B-movies still could deliver the goods. Darren Criss, best known as a Glee cast member, presents the shock of the new. His powerhouse performance is unlikely to be forgotten in a hurry.

UK TV review: American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace | VODzilla.co

darren criss talks playing versace’s killer on this special episode of the i-D podcast

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Season two of Ryan Murphy’s true crime epic American Crime Story is, like season one, decidedly not-a-murder-mystery. There’s no process of deduction. No great whodunnit, at its heart. In fact, the series’ most famous killing happens in the opening few minutes, in broad daylight, as it did in real life, on the steps of the Casa Casuarina, that baking hot morning in July of 1997.

At the time, Gianni Versace was the most famous fashion designer in the world. His killer, 27-year-old Andrew Cunanan, by contrast, was not famous. At least not nearly as famous as he should have been, as someone on the run for the brutal murders of four other people.

And therein lies the part of the crux. You see, the “American Crime Story” of season two is not the murder of Gianni Versace alone. Rather, it is the failure to prevent the murder of Gianni Versace – a negligence, ignorance, lack of awareness or other that lead the book upon which the series is based [Maureen Orth’s Vulgar Favours] to be subtitled: The Largest Failed Manhunt in the US History.

As season two of American Crime Storyconcludes its run on UK television, we’re joined on the i-D podcast by Darren Criss – the former Glee actor behind the role of Versace’s murderer Andrew Cunanan. We discuss his preparation for the part – what he knew about the case and what he was surprised learn. And we find out more about the ascent and descent of a killer who, crucially, could have taken a very different path.

darren criss talks playing versace’s killer on this special episode of the i-D podcast

Exclusive Interview – Composer Mac Quayle on American Crime Story, working with Ryan Murphy, and more

So, how would you describe the sound style of The Assassination of Gianni Versace?

After working on pretty much all of it, which we’re ready to finish finally the last episode now, I feel like I can best describe the score as if Giorgio Moroder scored Silence of the Lambs in an Italian villa. It’s an electronic sound that helps to tell the story of this really creepy serial killer, with also elements of Italian classical music.

What was the starting point when you came to work on this?

Yeah, I mean, you know, those elements I just described were brought up in conversation about Andrew Cunanan, the serial killer, a super creepy guy, and we knew we needed something to help tell that part of the story. We needed something that would be unsettling, and Versace was an opera fan. And so that brought the Italian classical style into the mix. And I guess really kind of to reference the period, and also just Ryan is a big fan of Giorgio Moroder and electronic scores so that brought that element into the mix. And I found that all three things worked together really nicely and it’s been a great project to be able to sort of play in that sandbox for nine episodes.

Now I know that on Mr. Robot, another programme that you scored, you typically don’t read the scripts initially and then score from the episode. Is that something you’ve been doing with Versace?

It is, yeah. I haven’t read the scripts. I go totally based off of what they send me, whether it’s a full episode or just a few acts or scenes and then we speak about ideas of what the music should be doing and then I compose based on all of that.

Do you tend to score chronologically, or build around big moments and motifs first?

You know, I think most of the time no, actually – because it depends really what I’m sent. I mean, if I’ve sent the whole episode, I might work a little bit chronologically but often I’m being sent scenes. Maybe it’s scenes early in the episode, maybe it’s scenes at the end of the episode. So, I’m really just kind of writing as it comes in. Then we sort of shape it as it’s all coming together, the music is getting further developed and shaped until it does have the right sort of flow that it should have from beginning of the episode to the end.

Now, this is the latest in a long line of several collaborations with Ryan Murphy. How did that relationship between you two start?

Well, I worked on a film that he directed called The Normal Heart. Cliff Martinez was the composer on that film and I was working with Cliff as an additional composer. And I guess I just attracted the attention of Ryan and his team. Six months after that project was finished, I – just out of the blue – received a call from one of Ryan’s producers saying that they were going in a different direction on American Horror Story and would I be interested in writing some music for them? And then based on that they hired me and that began my work with Ryan.

Across that work with Ryan, on the various seasons of AHS and American Crime Story and so on, you’ve covered lots of different genres and styles. Do the different shows present different challenges particularly or is it a similar way of working each time?

I mean, they have provided different challenges with all these different sounds and styles. I mean, the Horror Story, Crime Story, Scream Queens, they’ve all been different stylistically but also you could say there is something common between them all – relatively modern, electronic elements if not totally electronic. You know, Scream Queens, very electronic, some of the seasons of Horror Story, very electronic.

So all of those kind of have, they’re not too far away from each other, but Feud was quite different from everything else being that it required an orchestral score that evoked the sound of like 1960s Hollywood, so that was quite different, stood out from the rest.

Do you think across the shows, even with their sort of varying styles, you can still pick up on your sort of distinctive ‘voice’, as it were?

You know, it’s hard for me to be able to recognise that myself. I’ve had people tell me that they think they hear this voice across the different genres, but I don’t know myself. I’m not sure I have the perspective to notice it.

Fair enough. I was speaking recently with another composer and she mentioned that early in her career she worried about having a singular voice but wasn’t so concerned about it now. Have you ever felt that way? Is it something that you’ve ever thought about particularly?

I mean, it’s something that is mentioned a lot and it’s mentioned a lot, more established composers mention this to up and coming composers saying it’s really important that you develop your own voice, it’s really important to have a singular voice. I heard it a lot and so I think maybe it’s a little bit of a, can be kind of a daunting target to hit.

And so it’s not something I’ve really set out to [do, thinking that] I need to develop this voice. Rather I just, I do the work that I’ve been asked to do and I try to be as creative as possible and try to do something unique if I can, and I’m making decisions while doing that that are inferred from my own experiences and my own tastes and life and all of that, and so hopefully the final product then does have this, some sort of stamp on it that you might able to identify as my voice. But yeah, I’m not really sure. A bit vague!

Yeah, I suppose it’s kind of an abstract question. Now, on another note, what would you say are your chief musical influences?

My chief musical influences. Well, I mean, it’s really varied over the years. I’ve been through many phases. I’ve been interested in electronic music for a long time, so I’ve certainly listened to a lot of electronic artists and then also film and television composers that are into electronics. But yeah, I mean, all kind of different bands, rock bands, and things that I’ve listened to over the years, I feel like have been pretty influential.

There was this internet radio station that I’ve listened to for quite a while that I’ve quoted, mentioned being an influence on the Feud: Bette and Joan score, which is called Secret Agent and it plays a lot of really interesting music, some of which sounds like it was made in the 60s and maybe was, the kind of groovy and jazzy. I used to just have that on in the background all the time when I wasn’t working, and I know a lot of that has sort of seeped into my subconscious.

I performed in my really early days, in high school band and orchestra so I have a lot of experience with various classical composers and music. There’s definitely some influence there. So yeah, I think there’s quite a soup of things that have seeped in over the years.

Picking up on what you were saying there, how did you first start out, first get into composing for screen?

Prior to composing I had a career in the music business. I was in New York City and I found myself sort of involved in dance music. And I worked for many years there as a musician, producer, dance remixer. And when the music industry started to show signs of struggle in the early 2000s, I started thinking it was time to see what the next phase of my career would be. And I set my sights on moving to Los Angeles with kind of a vague idea of getting into scoring. In 2004 [I] moved out here and eventually met a composer by the name of Michael Levine and he hired me to work with him as an additional composer on the television show Cold Case, and that was kind of my first real job. [I gained] some very valuable experience there, and from there met Cliff Martinez and ended up working with him on twelve films over a period of about eight years. And that’s what led me to Ryan Murphy.

On another note, is there anything you can tell us about any projects that you’re working on at the minute? Have you started work on the next series of Feud, or is it still a little early for that?

Little early for that, I’m not sure exactly when it’s gonna start – but that will be coming up. I’m currently working on another new show of Ryan’s called 911. And you know, like I’ve mentioned, just finishing The Assassination of Gianni Versace and just getting started on another show of Ryan’s called Pose, which I believe is set to premier this summer.

Is it quite common for you to still be working on a show this close to transmission?

It is quite common. Yeah, it can be very hectic and really tight deadlines, coming right down to the wire, and what’s somewhat unusual with Versace is that we actually started, and I think I wrote the first music on it back last May, last April or May? So, we were really far ahead and eight of the nine episodes have been complete for the last several months. And then this last episode has just been kind of moving a little slower and is just getting finished now, I think it airs in a few more weeks? So it’s been definitely a different type of schedule than what happens on most of the shows where we’re pretty much right there, getting it finished like the week before it goes on the air.

Do you think that having more time for the score shapes how you write it?

I mean, I guess it hasn’t in a way because my schedule has unfolded in that, especially with this last episode, that I’ve wrote the first music for it back in December and here we are approaching the end of February, so just kind of happened in these little spurts. I would get asked to write music, I would write something over like a week and then I wouldn’t do anything on it for the next like couple of weeks – and then they would come back to me and ask for more music, I’d work on it for like a week. So, I wasn’t spending all the time working on it and developing the music, I would just do these little bursts, but it just happens to be spread out over a longer period of time, so… yeah, quite different. It’s usually much more compressed.

You’re working on quite a few different projects at the moment, and have done that often in the past – do you ever find that they start to influence one another?

I do my best to try to keep them in separate musical worlds. A sound for a particular show gets developed right in the beginning, it will evolve over the season, but the basic parameters get developed in the beginning. I really do my best to keep the certain types of sounds and the certain types of harmonies and feelings that are unique for one show – those are off limits for me to use on another show.

That hopefully helps each one have its own identity. You know, there’s… I’m not perfect, so there’ll be some times where I’ll write something, especially in the Ryan Murphy camp, where I’ll be working with the same producer that is on a couple of the shows, and I’ll turn in a piece of music and I’ll turn it in for, say, Crime Story and they’ll say, “You know, this sounds a little bit too much like Horror Story.” And then I go, oh yeah, you’re right, it actually does so I’ll re-write it. I think a couple of times something will slip through the cracks and it’ll be too influenced from the other show but then someone else on the team will help me steer back into the place it needs to be.

Finally, then, what’s the most important thing that you’d like someone to take away from listening to both your work in general and also your score on Versace?

My goal is to help the storytellers tell their story. Ryan I think is a really amazing storyteller and he loves music and he loves to use it to be effective in getting the feeling of the story across. So, I just hope that the viewer is able to just feel what is happening without being too distracted by the music – but maybe will notice it here and there and enjoy it as one separate element that’s mixed in with everything else.

Mac Quayle, thank you very much!

Exclusive Interview – Composer Mac Quayle on American Crime Story, working with Ryan Murphy, and more

Attitude.co.uk | Darren Criss on American Crime Story and the role of homophobia in Gianni Versace’s death

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story airs on BBC Two tonight (April 25) as the story of US serial killer Andrew Cunanan comes to a bloody conclusion.

Ryan Murphy’s nine-part drama series has won critical acclaim for its riveting exploration of wealth, sexuality and power in ‘90s America, and Darren Criss’s mezmerising, haunting portrayal of Cunanan is generating plent of awards buzz – and rightly so.

We caught up with the former Glee star ahead of the finale to find out how he how he got inside the mind of one of America’s most notorious spree killers, what he’s learnt from playing gay roles on two of Murphy’s most memorable shows, and what he makes of the Versace family’s criticism of the show…

Obviously The Assassination of Gianni Versace is a true story but there are bits people may not have known before: Were you completed clued in before you got the role or did you have a lot to learn about it too?

I knew about as much as I think most people tuning in knew. I think unless you were living in Miami in the 1990s or very active in the gay community I don’t think you’d know a whole lot about [Andrew Cunanan] other that what he was most famous for, which is of course the Versace murder. So that’s all I kind of knew. I think the number one surprising thing for everybody is ‘oh my God, I didn’t know he’d killed all these people and Versace was actually the last of five’. And yeah there was a scale to it that I wasn’t familiar with until I got involved, the same as most people tuning in.

How did you go about researching Andrew?

Everybody wonders ‘how did I now know this?!’ and I think the show does a good job of explaining why we didn’t know this. The cool thing about American Crime Story as a series is that we’re exploring crimes that surround a crime. [The People vs. OJ Simpson] wasn’t about OJ’s trial so much as it was about the sort of social and political climate around the OJ trial and how that climate affected the trial itself. So for us obviously there’s this homicide and this very public, very tragic spree killing that has happened during a very specific time for homophobia in the United States in the 1990s. Because yes, somebody like Versace being killed would make the news, but these other men may not have been world news at the time, or even local news. It’s a Shakespearean tragedy; this fall from grace of somebody with enormous potential. Other than the obvious heart-breaking things about the tragedy of these homicides, the tragedy to me is the complete and utter loss of promise and potential. Someone who was clearly gifted and could really have used said gifts to create something, decided to use it to destroy. And that’s the real heartbreak and the ‘American Crime’ really, and how that was allowed by a series of circumstances.

One of the dangers with this sort of project is glamorising a killer. Is that something you talked about, and how to avoid it?

If that is ever the way someone perceives it that’s sort of out of our hands. In my mind it’s obviously deplorable – it’s pretty obvious on the moral spectrum where we stand – and I don’t think it glamorises. If anything, it begs the question of ‘how did we get here? How did this happen?’ What’s interesting about it going in reverse is that it’s almost an unintentional redemption story, in the sense that you’ve seen somebody at their worst, and as you go back we’re really hoping to find a reason to sympathise. I think, or I hope, that people tuning in are holding on for some sort of humanity and praying that you find something that can somehow make sense of all this stuff. In that sense I don’t think it’s glamorising so much as investigating and doing what I think in storytelling is so important: you know how the story goes, but it’s the how and the why that really makes us rethink what’s in front of us.

Did you empathise with Andrew at all?

Well it’s my job, yeah. But that’s my job, it’s not the audience’s job. There’s no need to exonerate or forgive – these are horrible things that just break my heart, and people are still alive today that are still very much affected by the echoes of something 20 years ago. The thing about our show is I’m not just playing a killer: we see him at his best, and he was loved, and he had lovely moments with people. The minutes that Andrew spent doing terrible, terrible things are in the minority of his entire life. And he didn’t follow the typical prerequisites of the ‘American serial killer’. You know , if you think of people like Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, these people had clear-cut behavioural patterns that pointed towards what they would eventually be known for, whereas the year before Andrew went on this killing spree he was living in a beautiful house on the beach, and the people that found out about this were mortified – this was their friend. So the things I latch on to are the common denominators we can all relate to: wanting to be liked, wanting to take care of your friends, knowing what it’s like to want to rise above your station, unrequited love. So yeah I do, and I did, empathise with him, because you have to.

Did you speak to any people that knew him?

You know, they came to me. He had this very ubiquitous presence. Everybody has an Andrew story. And I will say the majority of them are quite lovely. The majority are like ‘I went to high school with Andrew and he was so good to me, and you just go ‘Oh my god, I don’t want to hear that’. I mean, I do, but it’s just so sad. But [as for] research, unlike the OJ trial where there’s an overwhelming amount of media records and things that are just public knowledge, there’s no video, there’s, like, nothing on Andrew, which in a way is nice as an actor because you’re not playing the impersonation game. I had that variable eliminated, which was nice – you just have to look at what has happened and try and fill in the emotional gaps.

Obviously Andrew has this chameleon identity, but when you were tackling the role did you see him as someone who was conflicted about his sexuality?

I mean I think he was constantly at war with himself. I think he utilised his homosexuality where it was convenient and where it gave him any kind of status, whether that was in the gay community or in the world at large. If it made him fun and different and interesting in certain circles he would abuse that power, but where it was frowned upon or subversive he would shy away from it where convenient. And whatever sexuality you identify with, to have that kind of dichotomy of you own identity is a pretty [destructive] thing, to never really be sure or when you can be yourself or not, or even what your self is. But what’s so interesting about the time and place in which the show happened, I feel like he world he was in almost inadvertently encouraged his behaviour. I think especially at that time, you know, right in the middle but after the AIDS scare in the United States, you have a lot of men who are, even if they’re out, struggling with where they stand on their gay identity. And when you have someone like Andrew caught in the middle of this i in a world where a lot of closeted men are living behind closed doors. And so Andrew compartmentalising different parts of himself to different people… if you saw how different he was acting, maybe you would sort of understand this if you were doing this in your own life. There was this understanding that compartmentalising your identity was the way you could survive at this sort of time.

Do I think he was conflicted? Yeah. But unfortunately, that conflict was kind of supported unconsciously at the time. It’s a crime of the times. I mean, this the largest failed manhunt in FBI history, ever. And it has a lot to do with this disconnect between government bodies and this fear and misunderstanding of gay communities. [Andrew] was out in the open, in broad daylight, and they couldn’t find him. That has to do less with the genius of Andrew – although hat’s a big part of it – but also the disconnect of government bodies like the FBI.

Having played gay roles in two major shows from Ryan Murphy. As a heterosexual actor, what have you learnt about the gay experience?

Well they’re two very different ones. Glee was really an extraordinary – especially for primetime television with mass appeal for young people – beam of positivity and a wonderful example to set, and to be a part of that was really a thrill. This is really the opposite end of the spectrum in displaying the turmoil of the gay male identity, especially in the navy and the military. I think it’s really cool that I’ve been able to be a part of both sides of that narrative; to see how far we’ve come and how far we have to go.

At the point at which the series gets quite violent, what sort of headspace did you have to get into?

This is a very bizarre comparison but things like intimate, sexual scenes or violent things, these are actually very simply human emotions: Rage, passion, these are things that we have fast-tracked access to. Those aren’t’ as difficult to do as things that are much more psychologically complex. I think the hardest scenes for me were the bits of psychological warfare between two people. Those are things where after ‘cut’ I go ‘ugh’, and I feel like I have to sit down and wipe myself clean of this awful thing I just said to somebody. The violence is very technical, it’s fake, and you don’t really feel the trauma of it until you see it on screen with the effects and the sound put in. That’s when you go ‘oh my God this is horrible’. The thing that stuck with me was within the first two weeks of shooting, there we were in Miami in front of the steps recreating this infamous murder – and this isn’t on a sound stage, this in broad daylight, in a very public place in the exact same spot. That was tsunami of weight, and it really gave me pause. Yes, you’re telling a story and there’s cameras on, but it really felt bizarre to be doing this where it happened.

The Versace family and others involved have had a lot to say about seeing this tragedy dramatised, and perhaps not being particularly happy about it. What kind of position does that put you in as an actor?

Gosh, I mean if any of these things had happened to somebody I loved, I would be equally as vocal about it, and if I had the public platform the Versaces did I would say the exact same thing. I think they have every right and every reason to feel the way they do, who doesn’t understand that. My heart goes out to them regardless of whether [or not] we made a show. What I hope they understand is that we’re not exploiting a story for commercial value: there’s a larger story at play here which isn’t about this one horrible thing, which is the Versace murder, but the investigation, the exploration of a time, and of course the other victims which until now haven’t had a lot of voice, at least in popular culture. I hope they would understand, and I’d like to think that if I’d ever had the chance to meet Gianni Versace I would have hoped he’d understand that we’re trying to create some light out of this darkness.

Ricky Martin has said that homophobia killed Versace. Coming at the show from Andrew’s perspective, I wondered what you take is on that statement.

I think there’s a lot to that. It’s not just that, but I think that’s not an incorrect statement at all. It’s a huge part of it, especially when it comes to the investigation. When we use the word homophobia I don’t think it necessarily involves the extreme end of what that means – hate crimes and violence – but it exists in smaller, systematic ways. A lot of these investigative bodies not wanting to go into gay clubs to post flyers, not because they’re afraid of gay people but because they weren’t sure that was something they could do or they were sacred of the way it would be perceived. The media exposure on Andrwe Cunanan in geneal before Gianni Versace was killed probably had a lot to do with the media’s fear of exposing ‘gay murders’, especially after Aids, [which was] a very hot-button topic; [Andrew’s] own fear of himself and not wanting to be this thing, or maybe he did, but not in certain circles. It manifested itself in so many different ways, in so many different bodies, that yeah, I think the amalgam of that did probably kill him. But it’s a very complex thing. There’s a history of mental health [issues] in [Andrew’s] family, the social-economic situation – which has nothing to do with his identity. It’s really a cocktail of unhealthy things that were already in place, that thing like homophobia in the world around him was the right, wrong catalyst to make it blow up.

Attitude.co.uk | Darren Criss on American Crime Story and the role of homophobia in Gianni Versace’s death

American Crime Story fans shocked Versace’s funeral music is Vicar Of Dibley tune

Viewers noticed that the music to accompany one of the most emotional scenes in the series – where Andrew Cunanan can be seen mouthing the lyrics as he watches the service on TV while in hiding – was the same as the famous soundtrack to the British sitcom.

Fans took to Twitter to ponder why the piece of classical music had been chosen for, what was intended to be, a very sad moment in the series.

One wrote: “Good idea to stick on #TheVicarOfDibley at Versace’s funeral, cheer things up a bit. #AmericanCrimeStory.”

Another commented: “He was a fan of The Vicar Of Dibley? #AmericanCrimeStory”

A third shared: “who knew the versaces were such big vicar of dibley fans #ACSVersace.”

However, the piece of music is in fact very famous in its own right.

It is known as The Lord Is My Shepherd or Psalm 23, and it was originally written around 1000BC.

One viewer correctly identified it: “That glorious rendition of Psalm 23 with the sick killer Andrew Cunanan watching on was TV genius.#ACSVersace #AmericanCrimeStory #gianniversace #andrewcunanan #assassinationofgianniversace”

The final episode of the series saw a dramatic end as Andrew Cunanan, played by Darren Criss, kills himself with a gun as he is corned by police in the Miami house boat he is hiding in.

In a flashback scene that follows, Gianni refuses to take him on as an apprentice and swerves his kiss.

One fan wrote about the tragic end to the episode: “I know he was mad, bad, narcissist, evil killer but can’t help feeling sad for him.”

On the performance of actor Darren Criss, another commented: “Anyone not watching #ACSVersace is missing one of the TV events of recent years: @DarrenCriss is utterly extraordinary.”

The TV show told the story of Gianni’s murder on 15 July 1997, at the age of 50, on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion.

It showed his killer Andrew, who had already murdered four men in the US, go on the run.

Nine days later he committed suicide, as the series shows, on a house boat, and took with him any clues as to why he did what he did.

The famous Italian’s funeral was held in Milan Cathedral and attended by over 2,000 people including Princess Diana and Elton John.

He was cremated and his ashes returned to the family’s estate near Cernobbio, Italy.

American Crime Story fans shocked Versace’s funeral music is Vicar Of Dibley tune

The Assassination of Gianni Versace episode 9 review – Dead Good

The ninth and final episode of the second series of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace was a tidy if somewhat underwhelming 55 minutes of television. Slowly, over the past eight-odd hours, this true crime tale has built and built, peaking over its last few instalments as it benefits from a reverse storytelling plot device. As such, it was always going to be difficult to wring too much tension out of the story’s crescendo, given that it’s an ending that the viewing public is mostly familiar with.

We kick off with the eponymous murder. As it’s pretty well detailed and shown in the first episode, we quickly skip to the aftermath of events. But instead of focusing on the manhunt and how police captured Versace’s killer, Andrew Cunanan, we again end up dwelling on the man himself. And when he spends the entire post-Versace slaying part of his life holed in an apartment watching television before blowing his brains out, it doesn’t exactly make for gripping television.

We see minor glimpses of the cops’ efforts, including an interview with the criminally underused Max Greenfield. His character Ronnie may not have been pivotal to the story these past nine weeks, but the New Girl star lit up the screen every time he popped up with his handlebar moustache and baggy vests.

It was good to see a return for Judith Light to this final slice of The Assassination of Gianni Versace too. Along with Jon Jon Briones as Modesto Cunanan, Light – as Marilyn Miglin – came very close to stealing the entire series away from the main players of the piece. Almost, but not quite…

Whether he’s preppy and cocky, sad and alone, angry and gun-toting or shaven-headed and suicidal, Darren Criss, as Andrew Cunanan, utterly convinces at all times. Anyone hoping for a Gianni Versace biopic will have been disappointed by this series, but anyone hoping for a fascinating portrait of a social-climbing serial killer who’s equal parts sociopathic and vulnerable will have been elated. Criss runs away with the series and surely has Hollywood at his fingertips after this incredible performance.

So this last episode may have disappointed us a little. But that’s really only because of the high standard set by the rest of the series. All in all this follow-up to The People Vs O J Simpson was excellent. Gripping, intelligent, gorgeous looking, fantastically acted and subtle and mature in its subtexts and allegory, we’d be extremely surprised to see The Assassination of Gianni Versace not walk off with at least a few Emmys or Golden Globes come awards season.

The jewel in this anthology’s crown – and what we hope will lend it some real longevity as a television drama – is that it’s about more than just its story. Sure, we learned about the murder of Versace here – but we discovered more about the man responsible and his twisted motives. And even better? This was about more than Cunanan and his gun. It was about the 1990s. It was about the struggles of the gay community. It was about HIV. It was about conflict. Family. Parenting. The weight of parental expectation and how twisted the ‘American Dream’ can get.

It’s not often a TV crime drama ends and we immediately think about the next series – but with this, we can’t help ourselves. Which famous US crime can they use as a framework for the follow-up series…? We can’t wait to find out.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace episode 9 review – Dead Good

Five reasons why ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ is so compelling

I’m hooked on crime series on television, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I shamelessly analyze each crime and its evidence as if I’m a qualified crime scene investigator. I love the suspense created in the courtroom as a wise-looking actor playing a judge announces the fate of the allegedly guilty party. And, of course, I enjoy seeing justice being served.

Unfortunately, most of crime shows coming out these days are rather one dimensional as they combine flat, stereotypical characters with bleak plotlines and dull set design. Thankfully, “American Crime Story” kicked off in 2016 with “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” giving audiences a refreshing new take on crime television. This season of “American Crime Story” focuses on Gianni Versace’s murder. It dives into the minds and personal lives of Andrew Cunanan (played by the exceptional actor Darren Criss), Donatella and Gianni Versace, among many others involved in Cunanan’s murder spree.

If you haven’t begun watching the show yet, let me persuade you. Here are five reasons why “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” is so compelling:

It highlights the complexities of each of its characters

This season of “American Crime Story” explores the psychology of the characters on screen, and allows the viewers to actually feel empathy for Cunanan. How is this possible? How could viewers actually relate and feel sympathetic towards a murderer? It’s because the show highlights Cunanan’s childhood and adolescence, which were full of pitfalls and chaos. Viewers also have a look at the Cunanan family as a whole, and the complex relationships between his mother, father, and siblings.

It makes a commentary on the social climate of the 1990s

This show delves into the social climate of the 1990s, particularly the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the LGBTQ community. It emphasizes the turmoil that gay men in America faced in this decade, as well as the nightlife that accepted them and made them feel at home. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the show focuses on Versace’s AIDS diagnosis, as well as his longtime partner Antonio D’Amico. It shows how much America has changed within the past two decades, while also (and unfortunately) focusing on how it has remained the same. I definitely think that executive producer Ryan Murphy’s making important social commentary here.

The production design draws you into the world

I am a huge fan of the set design in all of Murphy’s productions, but this one has to be my favorite. The sets and locations take the viewers on journeys to Miami, Minnesota, Chicago and New Jersey. The production filmed many of its scenes at Casa Casuarina, the Miami mansion where Gianni Versace lived for most of his life. It’s also where Versace was assassinated. The beautiful site juxtaposes the turmoil of Donatella and D’Amico as well as the complete chaos that Cunanan created.

It thoroughly illustrates Gianni Versace’s love of fashion and feminism

The show captures the special relationship between Gianni and his sister Donatella, who later takes on the role as the chief designer of his brand. After being diagnosed with AIDS, Gianni began teaching Donatella how to design clothes, and put her in the spotlight long before his death. His passion for creating clothes for all women shines through the entire series, and his support of Donatella is special. The theme of feminism is stronger than the more dramatic moments of the season.

It tells a real story

While FX admits that many of the scenes between the characters (private conversations, etc.) are fictionalized, the majority of the series is based on the actual evidence and events that took place during this time. Cunanan’s murders are visualized exactly how they happened, and details about Versace’s life ring true. I am fascinating by stories about real people, and when the series ended, I felt like I understood the social climate, characters and the horrible murders that occurred. This story emphasizes the fragility of life, and how important it is to live and love to the fullest extent each and every day.

Five reasons why ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ is so compelling