Darren Criss reveals what ACS: Versace and Glee taught him about the gay experience

While viewers in the US have already been treated to the harrowing series finale of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, there are still two episodes left to air in the UK.

Darren Criss plays serial killer Andrew Cunanan in the Ryan Murphy-produced series, chronicling his murderous rampage back in 1997 which concluded with the fatal shooting of world-renowned fashion designer Gianni Versace.

The award-worthy performance sees Darren Criss at his finest, and is worlds away from the last gay character he played in one of Ryan Murphy’s television shows, Glee.

Gay Times sat down with Darren during his visit to London to find out what, as a heterosexual actor, he has learned about the gay experience having researched the characters.

“They are two very different roles,” he told us. “Glee was really an extraordinary beam of positivity – especially for primetime television with mass appeal for young people. It was a wonderful example to set on television, and to be a part of that was really a thrill.

“The Assassination of Versace is really the opposite end of that spectrum where you’re really displaying the turmoil of that gay American identity. Particularly through the navy and military and what people had to go through, and still have to go through.

“I think it’s cool that I’ve been able to be a part of telling both sides of that narrative, and see how far we’ve come and how far we have left to go.”

One of the main points Darren took away as a viewer of American Crime Story is the intense political and social climate around LGBTQ people serving in the US military back in the 1990s.

It was the era of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy being introduced, where LGBTQ recruits were expected to hide their sexual if they wanted to serve. Openly gay people were prohibited from enrolling completely.

“The great thing about this season of American Crime Story was really learning more about – and this is not about the character I played, but rather being a part of the show and watching it – the gays in the military episode,” Darren told us.

Jeffrey Trail – who was one of Cunanan’s five victims – did an anonymous television interview back in 1993 before the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy was introduced by the Clinton administration, revealing the struggles LGBTQ recruits faced.

That moment in history is featured in an episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, outlining the rife homophobia that existed around the time Cunanan committed these atrocious murders.

“It was really illuminating because it’s something that we know about and it’s still talked about in the United States. It still continues to be a divisive topic in our country,” Darren continued. “It’s sort of an abstract concept because most of my friends aren’t in the military, so I’m not as close to it as some people are.

“To me it seems very clear-cut, but when you get into the complexities of what it means to people, like how do you do marry an identity between two things that mean a lot to you. There was a lot of stuff that was explored that I necessarily wasn’t as familiar with, and I was thrilled that it was told on television. I’ve never really seen anything like that before.”

Darren added that although Andrew Cunanan’s sexual identity in part informed his actions, that inner conflict is something all humans can relate to on some level.

“I think even beyond it necessarily being a gay narrative, it’s a human narrative,” Darren told us. “Irregardless of anyone’s sexual identity they’re just fascinating human tales.

“You don’t have to be Chinese or African or any other race or identity to understand the triumph of certain historical events, or the struggle and conflict we’re all familiar with.

“Conflict is what makes drama. When you witness these conflicts within these young men and women in our show, you can’t help but relate to their resilience or their ability to get through it.

“It’s been a real privilege to be a part of that, because to me it’s less about gay identity and more about human identity.”

Darren Criss responds to Versace family’s reaction to American Crime Story

Darren Criss has responded to the Versace family’s anger about American Crime Story: The Assassination Of Gianni Versace, admitting he understands why they feel so negative towards the show.

The second series of Ryan Murphy’s crime anthology focuses on the killing spree of Andrew Cunanan, who murdered Gianni Versace and four other men in 1997.

The Versace family issued a statement calling ACS a ‘work of fiction’, saying: ‘The Versace family has neither authorised nor had any involvement whatsoever in the forthcoming TV series about the death of Mr. Gianni Versace. Since Versace did not authorise the book on which it is partly based nor has it taken part in the writing of the screenplay, this TV series should only be considered as a work of fiction.’

And Darren – who plays Cunanan in the drama – admits that if he was in their shoes, he would react in the same way.

The 31-year-old told Metro.co.uk: ‘If any of these things happened to somebody I loved, I’d be equally as vocal about it. And if I had the public platform the Versaces have, I’d do the exact same thing. They have every right and reason to feel the way they do. Who wouldn’t understand that?

‘Obviously, my heart goes out to them, regardless of us doing the show. I’m a fan of the Versace house, and it’s a horrible thing to try and bring to light. But I hope they understand we’re not exploiting the story for commercial value. There’s a larger story at play here – the landscape at the time, and of course the other victims who until now haven’t really had a lot of voice.

‘I would hope they’d understand that. And I would like to think that if I had a chance to meet Gianni Versace, he would understand we’re trying to create some light out of this darkness.’

The actor continued: ‘So much of what Andrew did is shrouded in mystery. We don’t know what he did in that car or in that room. We’re not that moral authority on that. It’s not an expose of what really happened behind closed doors.

‘All we know is the facts that we do have, and the things we fill in are not for spectacle or show, I’m interested in the emotional truths, because we can’t paint the factual truth in the white space.’

Criss – who was best known before ACS for his role as Blaine in the hit series Glee – also insisted that they weren’t trying to glamourise the killings of Gianni Versace, Jeffrey Trail, David Madson, Lee Miglin and William Reese.

He said: ‘If someone perceives it as being glamourised, that’s out of our hands. I don’t think we do it. The nice thing about starting backwards is that we know what he’s done.

‘It’s so clear in my mind that it’s obviously deplorable, it’s pretty clear cut on the moral spectrum where we stand. We’re asking how did we get here, how did it happen.’

Darren Criss responds to Versace family’s reaction to American Crime Story

We need to talk about Darren Criss’s killer performance in The Assassination of Gianni Versace

There’s a bravura moment in The Assassination of Gianni Versace – American Crime Story when murderer Andrew Cunanan, resplendent in a red PVC jumpsuit, dances wildly on his own in front of a group of bemused partygoers.

It’s not quite up there with Cunanan dancing in only a tiny pair of orange pants to Philip Bailey and Phil Collins’s Easy Lover as one of his pick-ups, a closeted gay elderly gentlemen, writhes in terror, his face a mask of gaffer tape. But it’s close.

If you haven’t seen The Assassination of Gianni Versace yet, then please, run directly to iPlayer with your arms outstretched and feast on any episodes that remain there. It’s brilliantly written by British screenwriter Tom Rob Smith (who also wrote one of my all-time favourites, BBC2’s London Spy, in 2015) and has an astounding central performance from Darren Criss as Cunanan.

I’d never heard of Criss (he was in Glee, which passed me by) but as Cunanan, he delivers the performance of a lifetime. (Cunanan murdered fashion designer Gianni Versace in July 1997, the culmination of a serial killing spree that left five men dead. Cunanan later killed himself as police closed in.)

What Rob Smith and Criss have done is make a whole person, someone who exists outside of those few bare details. Versace hardly appears in the series, which belongs almost entirely to Cunanan/Criss, as we witness a damaged life spin slowly, then quickly, then completely, out of control.

Cunanan seems at first the quietest of whirlwinds, a handsome boy who drips with charm and affability. But – and this is what Criss and Rob Smith are so good at conveying – there’s something a bit off, something not quite right you can’t put your finger on. Like a photo that’s a little out of focus. And then the killing starts. Brutal, swift, out of nowhere. Yet you’ve been expecting it all along, and not just because this is an infamous story. It’s because Criss’s Cunanan trembles with murderous fury, even when he smiles. Particularly when he smiles.

Rob Smith, who is so adept at digging into the dark mud of broken lives, cleverly throws out any accepted version of narrative to play around with the timeline, and with Cunanan’s descent.

So it’s only in this week’s eighth, penultimate, episode that we learn of his twisted childhood as the “special” son of a narcissistic, fraudulent, abusive liar of a father and a fragile, emotionally vulnerable mother.

Criss’s Cunanan is terrifying. Good-looking, personable, but you don’t want him around. There was a point in one episode, when he rang the doorbell of the man who would become his next victim, when I shouted, “Don’t answer the door, don’t let him in!”

Despite all of those very generous outward charms, you know straightaway why people around him find him unsettling to be with and uncomfortable to know. He’s obsessive and forces his way into “friendships” with unwilling men who just wish he’d go away. Or he preys on older gay men who’ve never been able to come out.

Of course, none of this is easy to watch, which is just as it should be. Cunanan’s story was inescapably one of obsession and violence. But as a cautionary tale about someone who wants above all else to be famous, it’s very, horribly, modern.

We need to talk about Darren Criss’s killer performance in The Assassination of Gianni Versace

Two of this year’s most enjoyable TV shows are about gay serial killers

Somewhere in the middle of early 2018’s television season, a thought struck me: Two of the shows I’ve most enjoyed are about gay serial killers.

Then came the onslaught of questions. What does this say about me? What does this say about these shows? Are they, to use the well-worn but apt word, problematic?

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The shows in question are American Crime Story (ACS): The Assassination of Gianni Versace on FX and The Alienist on TNT.

The first is based on real-life events and follows the first season of Ryan Murphy’s wildly successful series, The People v. O.J. Simpson. It stars the likes of Darren Criss, Penelope Cruz, and Ricky Martin.

The second, meanwhile, is a period piece based on the fiction novel of the same name by Caleb Carr. This series stars Luke Evans, Daniel Brühl, and Dakota Fanning.

Examining gay serial killers

The shows are very different, but in their common thread, men who kill and disrupt the LGBTQ community, albeit in different times and ways, there is something fascinating at work. And potentially alarming, given the very real, alleged gay serial killer who recently put Toronto through heartbreaking trauma.

Set primarily in the 1990s, ACS examines the serial killer Andrew Cunan (Criss) who claimed Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace (Édgar Ramírez) as his fifth and final victim in 1997.

As series, Murphy paints ACS with deliberate and analytical strokes. It is a show whose every decision, every beat is carefully thought about and completed. While emotions run deep in each episode, supported by phenomenal performances from its entire cast, there is something eerie and cold about it as well.

The Alienist is a messier series, but one that is just as emotional. It’s character-driven, as opposed to adhering strictly to its plot.

It takes place in mid-1890s New York City and follows a small group hunting down a serial killer plaguing the city. While the killer himself may not be gay, he targets young and teen boys who dress as girls and prostitute themselves to men, largely due to forced circumstances.

This series looks less at the commentaries of gender and sexuality, and cares more about what it means to kill. Brühl’s character, Kreizler, is an alienist, an archaic term for a psychiatrist or psychologist. Inter-personal relationships, prejudice, and classism are all explored in the show. It cares more about its narrative and characters, up against the all-at-once grimy and decadent backdrop of New York City.

Both series care about their tones and aesthetic. They are committed to them. They do, however, beg questions of representation and whether or not it should be good or bad.

Enjoying problematic things

Developing a TV show about a gay serial killer in and of itself is not wrong. After all, neither of these shows want you to root for the serial killers. While ACS gives a more fully-developed look at Cunan than the killer in the Alienist (done deliberately), their crimes are presented honestly and without sympathy.

And in the case of ACS, it tells a true story, one that cannot be erased from history.

The Alienist makes more mistakes than ACS, even if it is just following the book. Not only is it about the murder of children, some of whom are figuring out their gender expression and others forced into horrible situations out of desperation, but it makes other questionable choices, especially with characters of colors.

Yet despite these facts, both shows are immensely enjoyable.

But in a time where the Bury Your Gays trope is alive and well, and dangerous, should we be advocating for shows like these? After all, there’s a reason the benign nature and happy ending of Love, Simon is being discussed and lauded so much.

Does representation have to be positive for it to matter? Do these shows count as representation if some of the material is negative?

Navigating the maze

There’s typically a simple answer: It’s okay to enjoy problematic things, as long as you understand why they’re problematic.

But the guilt can be real. Week after week, my roommate and I planted ourselves on the couch for the new episode of The Alienist. We cooed and gushed over it, despite its subject matter — and knowing this very dark, real world.

Separating art from reality can be a difficult thing. Luckily with these two pieces, it is not a matter of the people behind the camera being controversial, making it difficult to support any work they do. While both killers in the two shows are in the wrong, wholly and completely, it is important to understand they exist in the world of their shows. It is not about the creators behind the camera harboring homophobic attitudes — which can, and has happened.

It is a matter, however, of acknowledging their subject matters, and the weariness of queer stories constantly being about struggles and horror and pain, and assessing how the products address them.

I’ll be the first to admit it: I’m tired of queer stories constantly being about prejudice or death or ostracization. For once, I want a romantic comedy with all the tropes of the classics, but with two queer leads. I don’t want the ar I constume to constantly remind me of a world that can be cruel. I see that in the news enough.

But I couldn’t help liking these shows. Maybe it was simply because they were well-made. Maybe some things, even if they are depressing, are worth it. The answer can be both of these and more. Though they occasionally made my stomach churn, and forced me to examine my own enjoyment of them, ultimately I simply had to accept that it is possible to feel a myriad of things for a piece of pop culture and not wade too deep into the murky waters.

Two of this year’s most enjoyable TV shows are about gay serial killers

New Hollywood Podcast: Darren Criss Talks ‘Versace’ And Connecting To His Filipino Culture

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Darren Criss looks and acts like a stand-up guy with a good head on his shoulders. When he stopped by the New Hollywood Podcast, he was nice, approachable, and is personable — much like Blaine, his character on Glee. But in FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Criss does a 180 from his good guy roles by playing the real-life Andrew Cunanan, the man who murdered at least five people, including titular fashion designer. Obviously, Criss is not a serial killer, but his casting in the role is an advancement for authentic representation in Hollywood. Criss, like Cunanan, is half-Filipino — a detail about the actor that many people are surprised to hear.

A San Francisco Bay Area native, his role in Versace marks another collaboration with TV maestro Ryan Murphy, who created Glee as well as American Horror Story, which Criss also appears in. But Versace is a much more dramatic turn for Criss. It’s also a series which he is the lead — and as an Asian, it’s kind of a big deal. In the episode (with a new theme song courtesy of Pete Blyth), we talked to Criss about tackling the nuanced role of Cunanan, his cultural identity, his love for musical theater, and how his new bar has a clever drink special called “The Moesha.” Listen to the episode below.

New Hollywood Podcast: Darren Criss Talks ‘Versace’ And Connecting To His Filipino Culture

Gianni Versace And Andrew Cunanan, Linked By Identities

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the first episode of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” and feel that the tone was set from the beginning of the series. The director laid out identity as the theme of the entire series when revealing many details of each main character in the first episode.

Gianni Versace was a prominent public figure, and his sexual identity was unable to be protected due to the hyper-presence of the media and paparazzi in his life. Versace’s passion for fashion is evident when he references designing his sister’s clothing in his youth, and his Italian background is noticeable in his voice, speech pattern, and presentation. Versace is a seemingly wealthy individual, which is visible when he overlooks the beach from his mansion. A phallic symbol is included in this section to show male dominance.

However, his murderer, Andrew Cunanan is portrayed as impecunious when he is sitting on the beach. The two men are close together in geographical proximity; thus, this paradox creates juxtapose. The duo are placed close together to demonstrate the contrasts between their statuses in terms of their identities. Clearly, Cunanan despises Versace’s male superiority and influence in the limelight because he envies his fame and seeks to be well-known himself.

More specifically than identity, sexual identity is a societal normative that appears thematically throughout the first episode. Cunanan is uncomfortable with being gay, and he attempts to mask his identity in front of heterosexual individuals. However, he is more open in front of people of the same sexual orientation as him. He fears that society and those in his life will not be empathetic toward his lifestyle.

His insecurities with his identity potentially produce jealousy and viciousness that are factors leading to his numerous murder accounts. In opposition, Versace is more prideful in his sexuality than Cunanan. The miniseries is intense and powerful but the accuracy of the figures is questionable due to the show being merely an adaptation of real-life events.

Gianni Versace And Andrew Cunanan, Linked By Identities

‘Atlanta’ Is the Best TV Show of 2018 (So Far)

2. THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY

The first season of American Crime Story set an impossibly high bar for later editions of Ryan Murphy’s latest anthology series. While The Assassination of Gianni Versace seemed like the perfect follow up to The People v. O.J. Simpson, the former never quite lived up the hype of the latter. That is essentially a shame—and perhaps its misleading title is to blame. While the 1997 murder of the Italian fashion designer does kick off the season, it’s hardly its focus; instead, serial killer Andrew Cunanan is the leading player as the show follows him on his three-month murder spree across the United States. Darren Criss delivers a phenomenally unhinged performance as Cunanan, bringing humanity to the sociopathic character who left behind little explanation of his motives. —Tyler Coates

‘Atlanta’ Is the Best TV Show of 2018 (So Far)

Gentrification May Be Killing The Gay Bar. But The Way The LGBTQ Community Communes Today Is Changing.

From coast to coast, gay bars seem to be disappearing.

In recent years, San Francisco has lost The Gangway, the city’s oldest continuously running gay establishment and Latino staple Esta Noche in the Mission, as well as Lion Pub, The Lexington Club and Marlena’s.

In New York, legendary leather bar The Rawhide, open since 1979, ‘90s power club Splash, and Chelsea’s G Lounge, have all shuttered, not to mention Urge Lounge, Escuelita, and once-throbbing parties such as Westgay, Pretty Ugly, and JB Saturday’s.

In Los Angeles, The Palms, one of the city’s last remaining lesbian bars, WeHo’s diverse mega-club Circus Disco, and Silver Lake’s The Other Side have all gone — and the list seems to keep growing.

We all know the drill, that familiar story of gentrification once again running its course: Gays move in to downtrodden neighborhoods, open and other establishments, turn them into hip enclaves that quickly attract the developers and the upwardly-mobile straight families who then price them out of the very places they were at the forefront of revitalizing. (Race also, obviously, is an enormous factor in this.)

While we celebrate the meteoric expansion of LGBTQ rights, we still need places where we can celebrate our otherness.

We need look only to Miami Beach to see just how extreme this trend can become. Watching “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” on FX these past few months, I’m reminded of all the places I hung out in during my frequent visits to South Beach in the mid-‘90s: Warsaw. Amnesia. Salvation. Twist. Kremlin. Les Bains. A city that housed dozens of gay bars has been left with only a handful.

The condos go up and the gays move away, off to find more affordable digs that they can then spruce up and claim as their own. A walk through the West Village, Chelsea, or the Castro only serves to reinforce just how much has changed: Neighborhoods that were once thought of as gay “ghettos” have gotten complete makeovers, complete with expensive bistros, real estate offices, outposts of large corporate chains, bank branches, and probably a Whole Foods.

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Gentrification May Be Killing The Gay Bar. But The Way The LGBTQ Community Communes Today Is Changing.

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, ‘A Random Killing’: You Make It Seem So Real

Episode three of The Assassination of Gianni Versace made me think about something that, inexplicably, I hadn’t consciously appraised until this point — just how good the acting is in this show. The fully-realized portrayals of the various parties had so fully lulled me into acceptance of the characters, that I didn’t even think of the skill on display. This hour, taking place roughly two months before the death of Versace (Edgar Ramiréz), focuses on another of Andrew’s (Darren Criss) victims, and the seismic ripples his crimes create for a victim’s family. The various stages of realization, grief, anger and everything else that accompanies Andrew Cunanan’s crimes are brilliantly realized by all involved.

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“A Random Killing” focuses on the Miglin family, mainly Lee (Mike Farrell) and his wife Marilyn (Judith Light), and the repercussions of long-held secrets when violently exposed. We begin with Marilyn, who is filming an infomercial for her line of perfumes. We cut from the warm tones of the pitch itself — seen through the home shopping networks cameras — and the colder reality of a stark studio. We see the presented reality, and the truth. Finished with her pitch, Marilyn arrives at the airport, waiting for her husband to pick her up, but he never arrives. Taking a cab home instead, she wears a worried, edgy countenance. Arriving home to silence and melted, unattended ice-cream on a kitchen counter, she intuitively knows something is terribly amiss. With two neighbours happening by and helping search the home, the deathly silence and out of place items — side of roast beef with a large knife jammed into it sitting on a coffee table — create a strange, unsettling scene. It is not long before the police arrive and find Lee Miglin dead in the house’s attached garage. All the while, Marilyn is oddly prosaic, as if she knows what the outcome will be. When the officer does find Lee’s body and Marilyn’s neighbour rushes to tell her, Marilyn simply responds, ‘I knew it.’

We then zip back in time to see Marilyn introducing her husband at a charity luncheon, extolling the great works of Lee Miglin, the two playing the parts of perfect husband and wife. Sitting before a mirror, Marilyn removes her make-up and false eyelashes, regarding herself for a lingering moment. This episode revolves heavily around the themes of artifice and reality; the false faces we wear for strangers and sometimes those close to us — and underneath, our more hidden selves. As Marilyn is preparing for bed, Andrew calls Lee and tells him he will be in Chicago for a couple of days. Lee quietly closes his office door and makes a date. When they lie together in bed, Lee and Marilyn clasp hands as they fall asleep. They are two people who really do love each other, but also hold secrets that outsiders would never suspect, or probably understand.

Lee, waiting to see Marilyn off for her infomercial appointment we see at the start of the episode, slumps to the stairs and shows he is tired and somewhat discontent with his work. Marilyn asks if he is in one of his ”blue moods”. She is not callous in asking, but has the air of someone who is perhaps not always sure how to face up to her husband’s depressive moods. Marilyn gone, Andrew Cunanan arrives and again we are privy to accompanying someone in extreme danger and their total unawareness of that fact.

Lee shows Andrew his plans for what would be the tallest skyscraper in the world and Andrew is initially impressed. When Lee confides he hasn’t secured financing or broken ground yet, Andrew changes. He takes the chance to belittle Lee for trying to impress him, for showing him something grand that may never even exist — the exact things Andrew does to people every day. In that moment, Cunanan has a chance to belittle someone more important and successful than himself. He knows he holds the power here — he is the desirable object of Lee’s affection, and he can behave as he wants. When Andrew kisses him, Lee confides that he feels ‘alive’, he says, “I know it’s not real, Andrew. But you make it seem so real.” Miglin is someone who clearly exercises control in his life and business, accruing success and great wealth. But underlying the whole, brilliant portrayal is a lingering sadness. He is a loving husband and father, but he is also someone else. And he cannot be that someone else as part of his everyday life, and so he is massively conflicted and riddled with guilt. He knows he is committing infidelity, but these moments with Andrew are an explosion of colour in what has become a rote performance of life. As an older, respected businessman, Lee must find avenues of release in using the services of men, putting himself in potential danger. In Andrew, he has come across someone terribly unsafe. Moving to the garage, Cunanan ensures that Lee cannot fight back ,and takes the time to belittle him again before killing him. As we have seen in prior episodes, this is one of Andrew’s main motivations — bringing down those more accomplished than he and attempting to destroy them totally in life and death. He takes the time to rip and burn Lee’s plans for his skyscraper, bringing his victim’s perceived abasement and destruction to fulfillment.

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Marilyn, now a widow and able to mobilize the upper echelons of the police due to her family’s social status, goes into a mode of control. She is similar to Donatella Versace (Penélope Cruz) in this respect — women who feel they must protect and preserve the legacies of men close to them, without allowing salacious details to become public. Marilyn seems cold, but only in the sense that she is hyper-alert to what she needs to do. She is fiercely protective of Lee and her family and, by extension, public perception. Because of this, she will not allow herself to crumble under the grief, she will present a strong public face and, if that means appearing uncaring, then so be it. When she does finally lose control and weep for her lost husband, it comes from a place of memory. She recounts to a family lawyer the adventures she and Lee and shared — hot air balloon rides, becoming lost in a desert and Lee becoming her saviour — and through her tears, cries, “I loved him, I loved him very much… There, is that better? Am I a real wife now?” Marilyn shows that love can take many forms, can tolerate and accommodate much, can exists beyond what many assume constitutes ‘real love’ and ‘a real marriage’. Collecting herself, she tells the lawyer that this was, “… a robbery and a random killing.” Marilyn, like Donatella, now sees her duty as one of protection and mitigation, echoing Donatella’s sentiments of not allowing her beloved brother to be murdered a second time in the court of public opinion.

*

We then cut to Andrew ditching the car he has stolen from the Miglin house and finding his way to a cemetery. There, he accosts a grounds worker, and forces him into the basement of the sepulchre. The man confides that he has a family and children and would very much like to see them again. Without hesitation, Andrew kills the man and takes his truck. Cunanan has no attachment to human life, to emotional pleas; he simply takes what he wants, a truck or a life. He knows full well what he is and the path he is on. In his twisted world, in his ongoing descent, one more murder doesn’t change a thing.

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, ‘A Random Killing’: You Make It Seem So Real

5 REASONS YOU SHOULD WATCH AMERICAN CRIME STORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE

The new season of American Crime Story, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, premiered in January this year and recently concluded its short nine-episode course.

It received mostly favourable reviews for its portrayal of the 1997 assassination of Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace and the course that led Andrew Cunanan, the 27-year old serial killer, to commit it. If you haven’t already seen it then here are five reasons to add it to your watchlist.

1) The miniseries has been tremendously cast, with Emmy nominee Édgar Ramirez as title-character Gianni Versace, Academy Award winner Penélope Cruz as Donatella Versace (Gianni’s younger sister), Ricky Martin as Antonio D’Amico (Gianni’s partner), and Darren Criss as Andrew Cunanan (Gianni’s killer) in what has been widely considered to be a breakthrough performance in his career.

2) It’s Ryan Murphy’s second ACS instalment after The People v. O.J. Simpson, which won the 2016 Emmy for Outstanding Limited Series.

3) While it does cover the murder of the legendary fashion designer, it goes beyond that to explore the background of Andrew Cunanan and his previous victims, along with his relationship with them.

4) The show was based on Maureen Orth’s Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History, a book that chronicled Cunanan’s crimes. It led to some off-show drama as the Versace house distanced itself from the show terming it to be fictitious, while the network firmly stood by it and Orth’s reporting.

5) Gianni Versace was killed on the front steps of his Miami Beach mansion in 1997, which now exists as Casa Casuarina, a hotel, and a lot of what is seen in the show is as real as it gets as certain scenes were shot at the mansion itself, such as the entire opening of the show.

5 REASONS YOU SHOULD WATCH AMERICAN CRIME STORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE