‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Episode 8: Prince Andrew

Episode 8: ‘Creator/Destroyer’

The penultimate episode of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” is a remarkable hour of television. It is a parallel portrait of two childhoods: those of Versace, the renowned fashion designer, and Andrew Cunanan, the serial killer who shot him to death in 1997. It is a parallel portrait of a father and son: Modesto Cunanan and his darling youngest child, Andrew. And it is a rare, nuanced depiction of an Asian American family that finds heartbreak, not fulfillment, in its pursuit of the American dream.

The episode seems to offer some of the missing pieces of an explanation for Cunanan’s murderous pathology. It is such a masterly hour of drama that I’m tempted to say our patience has been rewarded. Yet, for reasons I’ll explain, I felt somewhat shortchanged: One hour of great television can only do so much to make up for hours of grisly and often hard-to-watch violence. This series has been told in reverse chronological order, putting tremendous weight on the final two episodes to explain the chaos and bloodshed we’ve experienced in the first seven.

The episode begins pleasantly enough. We learn that Versace, growing up in Calabria in austere postwar Italy, was encouraged by his mother, herself a dressmaker, to follow his dreams.

“I see you watching me work,” she gently little Gianni. “There is no need to hide.”

She explains that she wanted to be a doctor as a child, but that her father discouraged her. “You must do what you love, Gianni, what you feel inside here,” she tells her son, tapping his chest. With that encouragement — and in spite of homophobic mocking by a teacher — Gianni begins his rise, one grounded in technical virtuosity and boldness of vision.

Andrew Cunanan’s early years, we learn, were in most respects considerably more complicated.

It is 1980 and the Cunanan family — Modesto (played by a fantastic Jon Jon Briones), who is Filipino; his wife, Mary Ann; and their four children — are moving into a spacious new home in San Diego. Andrew turned 11 that summer. Modesto leads his youngest child — whom an older brother calls “Prince Andrew” — on a tour of the new house. He is given the master bedroom. It is clear that his parents have marked him as special, and not just in the way youngest children are often doted on.

As Andrew interviews for the Bishop’s School, an elite private academy, Modesto interviews at Merrill Lynch. Modesto’s charm is on full display. “Gentlemen, I’m aware that you have a long line of eager Ivy League-educated young men queuing up to be brokers at Merrill Lynch, but ask yourself, how many of them started from nothing?” he asks. When asked to discuss business, not his biography, he protests: “My life is a tale told in dollars,” he tells them, which started in a small village in the Philippines and wound up in an $80,000 home.

“Now is that biography or business?” he asks. “Because I will tell your investors that’s what I plan to do with their money. I will cross oceans with it. I will take it to new lands. I’m talking about growth they can’t imagine.” The monologue is notable because it is so much like the fantastic tales that Andrew will later tell to the many gay men he will try to impress. Modesto gets the job.

Young Andrew, meanwhile, is accepted to the Bishop’s School, after telling the interviewers that his one wish is “to be special.”

It is a high point for the father and son, whose lives start to go down from this point.

But first we learn about the family’s unusual and troubling dynamics. Modesto spoils Andrew to the point of buying a car for him, even though he is too young for a license. Even more troubling, Modesto is physically abusive to his wife, Mary Ann, whom he holds in contempt for her “weak mind.” And his obsession with Andrew is clearly unhealthy. In one particularly disturbing scene at bed time, there’s an intimation of possible sexual abuse. The scene goes dark, and we’re left to wonder. But the effect is unsettling regardless.

Flash forward a few years, to 1987: Andrew is 17 and finishing high school, and he has carved out an identity for himself: flamboyant, exuberant and carefree. Despite a homophobic taunt, he unbuttons his shirt for a school photo. He is determined not to conform. In his high school yearbook, he is voted “most likely to be remembered.” Under his photo is the slogan, “Après moi, le déluge.”

Modesto is meanwhile in serious trouble. Having left Merrill Lynch (presumably for underperforming, as is hinted at in earlier scenes), he now works for a smaller stockbroker, where he is accused of trying to fleece a 90-year-old woman of her life savings. F.B.I. agents arrive at his office; Modesto escapes out the back and races home. He runs upstairs, pries open a floorboard, grabs cash and passports and puts them in a bag. When Mary Ann asks what is happening, he violently shoves her aside. As agents enter the house from the front, Modesto again flees out the back, climbing over a wall … where he encounters Andrew.

“Don’t believe a word they say,” Modesto tells Andrew as he takes his son’s car and flees to the Philippines.

Convinced that Modesto must have stored money away somewhere, Andrew flies to Manila, and — in the most stunning scene of this series so far — confronts his father in what is essentially a tree-canopy-covered shack in the village where Modesto is living.

The father puts down the newspaper he is reading and offers his son another in a long line of fraudulent smiles. “I knew you’d come,” he tells Andrew, as if selling him a used car.

Asked where the money is, Modesto spins again, insisting that there are “millions” but “out of reach.” Later in the night, Andrew wakes up and confronts his father. He knows that there is no money. “My father’s a thief,” he laments. Modesto lashes back:

Andrew is crushed. “You were everything to me, dad,” he says. “But if you’re a lie, then I’m a lie, and I can’t be a lie.” He bursts into tears, but Modesto won’t have it. “Weak, just like your mother,” he sneers. “The two of you talk about honesty, but she never cared that I was stealing as long as there was money.”

He slaps Andrew, spits in his face. Andrew grabs a knife, but he can’t use it. Instead he cuts himself, as he agonizes and holds himself back.

Back in California, Andrew applies for a job a drugstore. When the owner — a Filipino immigrant like Modesto — asks Andrew what his father does, he replies: “He owns multiple pineapple plantations. As far as the eye can see.” And so begins the big lie.

It’s remarkable television, evoking everything from the Madoff scandal (which also destroyed a son) to the dashed aspirations of “Death of a Salesman.” It reveals the dark side of the 1980s, when greed and fraud operated under the veneer of pastels and sunshine. It exposes, to an extent, the myth of the “model minority” that has hobbled Asian-Americans, and of the notion that hard work is all the American dream requires.

It is not, however, an entirely plausible explanation for how Andrew Cunanan became a mass murderer. I’m looking to the season finale to see if this series means to give us one.

Versace: How Andrew Cunanan’s Father Figured Into the Murderer’s “Breaking Point”

Was Andrew Cunanan born or made a serial killer? This is the question that American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace poses with Wednesday’s episode, “Creator/Destroyer,” when it flashes back to Cunanan’s childhood and his relationship with father Modesto “Pete” Cunanan—a stockbroker who abandoned the family after allegedly “misappropriating” $106,000 when Andrew was a college freshman. (The episode contrasts Cunanan’s youth with Gianni Versace’s childhood, showing how the fashion designer was raised by a dressmaker mother in Reggio Calabria, Italy, who—because her parents had quashed her own childhood ambition of becoming a doctor—was determined to nurture her son’s professional dreams.)

Up until this episode, Cunanan has been a confounding character study—equally proud and lazy, a pathological liar who was capable of occasional generosity before his descent into drug use and murder. According to series writer and executive producer Tom Rob Smith, though, the key to understanding Cunanan’s trajectory is his father, who provided the template.

“I don’t think you can understand Andrew without understanding his dad,” Smith told Vanity Fair earlier this year. “His mom is a key figure, too, but his dad really offers the template for Andrew’s life. His dad had this spectacular rise—he came to America from the Philippines and served in the U.S. Navy. I think he worked through night college to get his trader’s license and got this extraordinary job working at Merrill Lynch in San Diego. It was this amazing ascent, and then he burnt out.”

According to Vanity Fair contributor Maureen Orth, whose book Vulgar Favors: the Assassination of Gianni Versace is the basis for American Crime Story, Pete had a special relationship with the youngest of his four children.

“Of all the children Pete has, he put so much attention toward Andrew, maybe because he thought Andrew was so good-looking,” Andrew’s godfather Delfin Labao told Orth. “It was not healthy. His father spoiled Andrew, made him feel he’s got to be somebody and, maybe that rang a bell in his uncertain mind, that that was what life was about.”

In addition to instilling that expectation, Pete embedded his son with bravado, materialism, and, even if Andrew didn’t realize it at the time, the compulsion of a pathological liar.

“By seventh grade, Andrew had developed a line of patter and a penchant for telling stories based on what he had read, and embellished for effect,” reported Orth. “The disturbing grandiosity that would mark his personality had already begun to take hold.”

Andrew was a precocious child and his parents spoiled him—even giving him the family’s master bedroom in high school. (Pete, who had a fraught relationship with his wife, MaryAnn, slept on the couch.) When Andrew was a freshman in high school, Pete even bought Andrew a brand-new sports car after his son was forced to miss an anticipated field trip—to the opera—because he was sick. Andrew was only 14 years old and did not have a driver’s license.

“Andrew, always the con man at school, was himself being conned at home,” wrote Orth. Ronald Johnston, who worked with Pete at four different firms, explained, “Pete always wore expensive suits, would buy expensive cars and expensive homes, and I think Andrew believed that was all for real. Andrew was led to believe by his father that he would attain anything he wanted to attain. And I know his father spoiled him rotten and gave him everything that he could possibly want.”

By the time that Cunanan graduated high school, though, Pete was cycling through a series of jobs and reportedly shady deals to combat his growing debt.

Explained American Crime Story writer Tom Rob Smith: “[Pete] committed what looked to be fraudulent trading activity. He moved down through various trading houses—smaller and smaller ones until he was finally caught. He had all of this fraud that was just circling him, and finally he runs to Manila.”

In 1988, when Cunanan was a freshman in college, Modesto took his cut of a deal that he was putting together, sold his cars and the family’s two “heavily mortgaged homes, and disappeared.” Per Orth, “Their family had literally had their home sold out from under them. MaryAnn was reportedly left with $700… . The experience was clearly shattering for Andrew, whose image of his dad as a powerful and reliable protector was smashed.”

Afterward, Andrew flew to the Philippines and tracked down his father—where he found the person he once believed to be a mythic figure living in squalor.

“When Andrew saw the crude poverty in which his father was living, a driving madness took over his mind,” one of Andrew’s teachers told Orth. Smith also believes that Andrew’s trip to the Philippines was a critical turning point.

“I think at that point, if Andrew had accepted that his dad was a fraud, embraced it on some level, and said, ‘This is what life is … complicated,’ he’d come back to the States having learned from the experience,” said Smith. “He could’ve done something interesting with his life. Instead, he comes back and continues his lies, telling people, ‘My dad is rich,’ and keeping up that pretense. To me, though, that was the break[ing] point in his brain. At that point there’s no going back.”

“Andrew goes through the exact same trajectory as his dad,” explained Smith. “He had his own rise—finding these wealthy affluent-older men that he’s living with. He ended up in a multi-million-dollar condo in La Jolla, this beautiful paradise, [living with Norman Blachford, a man who loved him.] He’s given an allowance. Traveling to the South of France. And he throws it all away because he can’t tolerate the notion that he is a kept man … he leaves and moves into a small place in Hillcrest, and descends through crystal-meth until he’s lost everything.”

Pointing out the similarity of father and son’s arcs, Smith explained, “His dad flees to Manila and restarts his life, but Andrew has nowhere left to go. So he goes to Minneapolis and has a breakdown. When you look at the shapes of their lives, that was absolutely the key of Andrew.”

So how, then, did Cunanan’s father Pete process the news that his son had not only mirrored his descent—he had done so in deadly fashion?

By shopping a documentary that would serve as a star vehicle for himself. Two months after the murders and his son’s suicide, the Los Angeles Times reported that Cunanan’s father Pete had already recruited a Philippines filmmaker, relocated to Los Angeles, and apparently alerted press of the project. Director Amable “Tikoy” Aguiluz VI made it clear that, in spite of Andrew being the focus of the media interest because of the murders, Pete still narcissistically saw himself as the star of the story. “I’m telling [the film] from the father’s point of view—a father who knew Andrew until he was 19—and his discovery of his son all over again,” Aguiluz told the L.A. Times.

As for whether Pete thought his son was guilty of the murders, he told papers, “This was a deep cover-up.” Rather than share sympathy for the victims and their families, he teased a potential F.B.I. conspiracy—“Hopefully, we’ll come up with some plausible explanations when we run the movie.” When speaking to Orth, Pete further revealed that he was asking for $500,000 for the rights to a film and book deal; thought it could make over $100 million at the box office; and even had an actor in mind to play his son.

John F. Kennedy, Jr.

“Their mannerisms are very, very close, almost the same,” Pete explained. “I watch John Junior very carefully. The guy has a lot of moxie in him—that dignity.”

In comparison and retrospect, Cunanan’s oft-told delusion of knowing Gianni Versace suddenly doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

Versace: How Andrew Cunanan’s Father Figured Into the Murderer’s “Breaking Point”

The Assassination of Gianni Versace, episode 3, review – a deft parable of sunlight and darkness

★★★★☆

In The Assassination of Gianni Versace (BBC Two), scriptwriter Tom Rob Smith has set himself quite a task to keep up interest in a story short of redemptive good cheer. The first episodewent off like a glorious gaudy firework. The second delved into the less riveting anxieties of the Versace siblings. Seven more episodes of Gianni and Donatella squabbling might be quite a trial. So in this cheerless parable of sunlight and darkness, a lot rests on the shoulders of the itinerant psychopath Andrew Cunanan, played by the extraordinary Darren Criss.

Last time around we watched him in action as a creepy S&M escort whose specialism was suffocating closeted elderly clients with duct-tape. (Don’t shoot the messenger: I merely report the facts.) The third episode took a holiday from the Versaces to deliver to a well-shaped, self-contained episode from Cunanan’s serial-killing back story. In the words of Blue Peter, it was a case of “here’s a murder I did earlier. Two, in fact.”

The victim was Lee Miglin, a real estate tycoon prone to furtive gay encounters but still devoted to his wife Marilyn, a shopping-network perfume saleswoman. Deftly portrayed by guest actors Mike Farrell and Judith Light, theirs was a lavender marriage based on loving friendship and rigid denial. The denial continued for the unshocked wife even after her husband’s body was found taped and stabbed in the garage. The murder, she ferociously insisted, must be reported as a random robbery gone wrong.

This was a story about appearances. While Marilyn was fixated on keeping up hers (and her dead husband’s), Cunanan was all for exposing ugly realities under polished surfaces. Miglin was ruthlessly taunted for romanticising their sexual transaction. Then his killer ripped off his mask and announced his true identity: “Here I am,” he boasted. “This is me.”

Watching Cunanan enact rituals of sexual humiliation is not a pleasant experience. Later, he also chucked in another more pragmatic, cold-blooded execution on the run. As Cunanan, Darren Criss is horribly convincing, though I’m starting to doubt if he can convince me to spend six more episodes in his company. There are still two more murders to sit through. Come back, Gianni and Donatella. All is forgiven.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace, episode 3, review – a deft parable of sunlight and darkness

Matt Bomer on Making His Directorial Debut in American Crime Story: Versace: ‘Can We Sympathize With a Monster?’

Wednesday’s episode of American Crime Story: Versace marks the directorial debut of actor Matt Bomer, who — at the risk of sounding “so 2018” — says he was “truly blessed” to get to work on the FX drama.

“When Ryan Murphy called and asked me to do this — after I passed out, regained consciousness and said yes — I knew that it was a serious responsibility,” the actor tells TVLine. “I’d been offered directing jobs before, but they were jobs I was also acting in, and I wanted my first directing experience to be the full-meal deal. I wanted to really do it, to be on the location scouts and design meetings and castings and really have the full experience.”

Before stepping behind the camera for his episode’s three-week shoot, Bomer says he read “more than 3,000 pages of material on directing,” met with film and TV directors for guidance, did an intensive at the Director’s Guild of America and shadowed two different directors on three episodes of Versace. To say that he did his homework would be an understatement.

“I wanted the producers to know I was taking this seriously, that they weren’t just putting the camera in the hands of somebody who was just hoping to cruise by,” he says. “I called my representatives who were talking about acting jobs, and I told them, ‘Put everything on hold. This is what I’m doing, this is it.‘”

Bomer’s episode — which airs tonight at 10/9c — chronicles Gianni Versace and Andrew Cunanan’s radically different upbringings, showing how “success brought out the worst in Andrew and the best in Gianni.”

“We want to see [Andrew] as a three-dimensional human being,” Bomer says, “but the real challenge of this episode is: Can we sympathize with a monster and see that he was also a victim? We’re all ultimately responsible for the decisions we make and the actions we take, but this is someone who was near to violence at a very young age, who was treated like a spouse by both his mother and his father. The central question of this episode is: What makes one person a creator and one person a killer?”

Location proved to be another challenge, as the characters’ parallel stories take place in “three different countries and five different cities,” all of which had to be recreated in the Los Angeles area. “And I had two child protagonists for the first half of the episode,” Bomer notes. “I was thrown a lot of the challenges you could have as a director, which I’m actually grateful for, because now I can check those off. When someone says I have to work with a kid, I can say, ‘Been there, done that.’”

Bomer adds, “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to be present for everything. It was very clear in the room when I was casting that Edouard Holdener was the right person to play young Andrew.”

He also praises the work of Jon Jon Briones, the actor playing Andrew’s father, who was first brought to his attention by star Darren Criss and EP/writer Tom Rob Smith. “They’d seen him on Broadway in Miss Saigon,” he recalls. This was a guy who had been doing that show for over 20 years, but he was ready for this experience, and his audition was phenomenal. It’s a testament to Ryan Murphy that he’s willing to take a chance on new people who are ready for the experience and ready to serve the story in the best way possible.”

Speaking of exceptional performances, Bomer says he feels “spoiled” that he had a front-row seat to Criss’ take on Andrew almost from the very beginning. “I knew Darren was a brilliant actor and a great artist, but there were times where I would watch him on camera and it was like he just suddenly was this person,” Bomer recalls. “It was bone-chilling to watch.”

Still, it takes a village to put even a single episode of television together, and Bomer has a laundry list of people to thank: “The director of photography, Simon Dennis, was incredible; Jamie Walker McCall designed that incredible plantation set; Alexis Martin Woodall, what she does in the post department is phenomenal; and Shelly Westerman, who edited the episode, is one of my all-time editing heroes.”

“I was really so lucky to work with Ryan’s people,” Bomer adds. “I’d worked with him for so long [on projects like Glee, American Horror Story and The Normal Heart] that I knew most of the camera crew from other jobs. But the level of professionals you work with in his world are top notch.”

Matt Bomer on Making His Directorial Debut in American Crime Story: Versace: ‘Can We Sympathize With a Monster?’

‘American Crime Story: Versace’ recap: ‘Ascent’ – TheCelebrityCafe.com

It’s kind of funny how Andrew keeps saying he’s going to be rich and powerful, when all he really does is end up killing people who are far richer and powerful than he is — something that was made pretty evident in the latest episode of American Crime Story: Versace.

This new episode of Versace, entitled “Ascent,” spends some much needed time examining the power dynamic between Gianni Versace and his sister, Donatella. Guess what folks, Versace wasn’t always the nicest guy after all.

In fact, he had quite the temper, which is why he blows up at his sibling when he doesn’t feel like she’s pushing herself hard enough in the world of fashion. He later apologizes, telling her that she’s his true legacy and all, but it’s not the last time we see him rage.

This initial episode does, however, inspire Donatella to really step out on her own. Working together with Gianni, the two design an erotic looking dress that Donatella then wears to a red carpet. Crowds of cameras swarm to her, as it indicates she has officially made her mark.

A mark that is sadly short-lived, as the Versace’s quickly learn people don’t necessarily want to buy or wear a fancy looking dress that they see someone else look beautiful in. Donatella suggests a second dress based on the same design, but that’s where Gianni’s anger comes back and he just decides to destroy the whole thing instead.

Because, you know, that’s what made the most sense.

That’s when it hits though — Gianni’s ear cancer. He loses his ability to hear right at that very moment and is quickly sent over to Miami to recover. That means, you guessed it, Donatella is now running the business.

All of that has nothing to do with Andrew’s storyline, of course, because this season of American Crime Story is determined to keep the two main characters as separate as possible.

This time, we’re following Andrew shortly after he met Jeff, but before he meets David. Cunanan is working a dead-end job, repeatedly being lectured to by his boss about ‘applying himself’ and all that. Andrew, obviously, couldn’t care less. He just makes up some more lies to escape the situation, then returns home to his mother’s apartment, miserable.

It’s at the bar where his luck begins to change. While Jeff lands an attractive young companion for the night and Andrew thinks he’s initially going home empty-handed, it’s then that an older man begins to make his move. “Either there’s money in your wallet, or there isn’t,” the man says after seeing Andrew can’t pay his tab, and things between the two of them go on from there.

Obviously, this interaction made something click for Andrew — he likes older men. Better yet, older men like him. Like, REALLY like him. Why not try to do something with this?

That’s what leads him to try to get hired by a male escort service — an interview that doesn’t go all too well. Andrew proves he’s willing to work hard and that he certainly has the, ahem, assets to please, but the woman working there informs him that it’s not how hard you work. It’s what people want. And, frankly, people don’t want Andrew.

Instead of dwelling on the truth, Andrew instead decides that they’re wrong and he doesn’t need an agency. He’ll just go around, selling himself. His first target: Norman, the man we saw him living within the previous episode.

At least, that was the original idea. After slyly getting himself invited to dinner with Norman and a couple of his friends, he winds up being bought by one of those companions — a man named Lincoln Aston (Todd Waring).

It’s a simple deal. Andrew gets a weekly allowance and, in return, he keeps Lincoln company for a time and makes sure that his house is always full of like-minded people.

At least, it should be simple. That’s when a little something called love gets in the way. It’s in San Francisco that Andrew sees David sitting alone at a bar. His attraction to him is instant, as he immediately sends him a drink. David is flattered, as no one has ever even bought him a drink before, and the two end up spending the night together.

Lincoln, who sees Andrew’s hotel expenses, doesn’t like this. He instantly knows what’s going on and breaks things off with Andrew. Angry, Andrew returns home to his mother and, in a moment of anger, shoves her and accidentally breaks her shoulder blade.

It’s Lincoln, though, who gets the real blunt end of the stick. Lincoln goes to a gay bar to try and pick up another younger man, only to have the guy he chooses to freak out on him and beat him to death with a nearby statue. Tough break.

Andrew just so happened to see the whole thing go down. He doesn’t feel particularly inclined to say anything to the police and is more surprised that no one is really going to do anything about it. Turns out, you can kill a gay man and no one will bat an eye — something Andrew is going to remember further down the line.

The episode then ends with Andrew reuniting with Norman and moving in with him. Andrew has the wealth he’s dreamed of for so long, while holding the idea of love — with David — still in his heart.

‘American Crime Story: Versace’ recap: ‘Ascent’ – TheCelebrityCafe.com

Matt Bomer Discusses Directorial Debut on ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’

Unlike many actors who decide to add directing to their resumes, Matt Bomer did not start with an episode of a television show on which he was already starring.

“I had the opportunity to direct in the past — projects I had been working as an actor in. But I really wanted my first [one] to be the real thing where I was doing all of the prep, doing all of the location scouting, doing all of the casting — having the full experience, not just trying to fit it in,” Bomer tells Variety.

Instead, his first foray behind-the-scenes was with “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.” And not just any episode but the penultimate one (entitled “Creator/Destroyer”), in which the show finally goes far back enough in the timeline to see both Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez) and Andrew Cunanan’s (Darren Criss) childhoods to show how similar they were at the start of their lives — but how, when, and why their paths so greatly diverged.

“I had forgotten, really, just how difficult it was to be gay in the ’90s,” Bomer says. “That’s something this series does a great job exploring. Someone who’s at the height of success with Gianni and the courage it took at that time to come out — that was incredibly brave and incredibly forward-thinking. And then Andrew, who’s at the bottom of the heap, and wants fame and success and fortune but wasn’t going to get it living in a day and age as who he was.”

Ahead of his directorial debut, Bomer talks with Variety about developing his process, the unique challenges with which this “origin story” episode came, and what scene he was most sad to leave on the cutting room floor.

What made “Versace” the right first project for you to direct?

I had worked with Ryan [Murphy] many times in the past, and he knew I was very fastidious about my preparation and research and would often come in with reams and binders of homework. He mentioned to me that I should direct, and I was grateful that he said it, but I didn’t really think much of it. But then I got a call in December, and he said, “So I want you to direct.” He knew I needed a way to engage with my creativity, and like the generous soul that he has been to so many in the past, he offered me a job on “Versace” and I said yes.

How did you get attached to the eighth episode, specifically?

Ryan knew what was going to be the best opportunity for me. There was a time when it was almost [episode 7] but then it became this one, and I just rolled with it. I was there on set, shadowing other directors, and I knew when my time comes Ryan would choose the right one for me to do.

What were the most important aspects of your prep work?

I read books, I worked with the DGA, I had friends in film and TV give me advice and walk me through some things. I shadowed two of the great directors on “Versace.” I saw the level of talent there, and I wanted to be of that level when I stepped up to the plate.

How did you balance setting a visual tone and working with the actors on performances?

It was a lot about performance. We had some fancy shots in the show, for sure, but it didn’t require a ton of that. It wasn’t a shooter episode. It was for somebody to be there in the trenches with the actors, hashing these relationships out. And that was what I was most excited to do.

The story thus far has focused more on Andrew than Gianni. Was it a challenge to find new layers to peel back this far into the season?

The real challenge of this episode is can we get a more holistic vision of who Andrew is and what he endured as a kid and why he became what he became — so that when we are with him in those moments in Miami, post-everything, can we get a more three-dimensional idea of who he is? This episode also had a huge challenge of, how do we have sympathy for a monster? You really boil it down to the central question of the episode, and that is what makes one person a creator and one person a killer? The answer is hard work. One person believed the world owed him success, that he was special, that he was the chosen one, that fame and fortune should just come to him. The other had a mother who taught him that he had to work hard for it, that fashion is a craft. So you have this central theme of ambition, but Andrew’s ambition and Gianni’s ambition had different results. The shots you choose and the frame that you choose and the setting you choose, they all have to relate to that theme.

The producers have said they believe Andrew was made a killer, not born that way. What did you want to focus on in fleshing out that idea and showing the times in Andrew’s life when those violent seeds were planted?

I think we all have to be held accountable for the choices we make. We’re all dealt specific circumstances in our life. Some people could be dealt a circumstance and grow up to be fine, functioning adults. For Andrew it didn’t work out that way. He was somebody who was lured to a great deal of violence at a very young age. He was espoused by both of his parents, he was given the master bedroom, he was taught that it isn’t enough to be smart but you also can’t let them see you’re an outsider for even a minute — that’s what [his father] Modesto says to him. And he’s caught up in something bigger than himself, ultimately, with his father that he doesn’t have the freedom to react or to respond to. And we see his father’s influence on him over the course of the episode. What I wanted to create with that last scene — their confrontation, that sort of “Heart of Darkness” scene with all of the sweat and the shadows and the heat — I wanted that to give you the sense that if Andrew could’ve just killed his dad, he wouldn’t have killed anybody else. That was a big part of the dynamic I was trying to create in the story.

What was the biggest thing you learned about directing by working on “Versace”?

I think I learned my process — or at least the beginnings of my process, which is a huge thing. Now I know I can do it. The first cut was 90 minutes, which we shot in 12 days, which is a lot — a lot! We had to cut it down to 60 minutes. But I think a huge part of it is just getting it done that first time, and I’m so lucky that I was able to rely on the DGA, to rely on professionals in the industry who were generous enough to say, “Here’s how to do it.” I read all of these books, and I kind of created my own way to approach a scene. A lot of it is the script you’re given, and you have to develop a technique, and this was a safe environment in which to do [that] because I had worked with so many of these people before, and I knew the talent they had.

With a 90-minute director’s cut of the episode, was there anything you wish you could have left in?

There was a scene with older Gianni and his mother, and it was really beautiful, but it kind of came in toward the end after we hadn’t seen him for two or three acts. All of a sudden he was there, and it sort of took us out of the story we were so invested in with Andrew getting to Manila and getting to his father. And at a certain point you have to whittle down to what serves the theme the most.

Matt Bomer Discusses Directorial Debut on ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’

Organs Go Missing on ‘X-Files’ and ‘SVU,’ ‘American Crime Story: Versace’ Nears End

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace (10/9c, FX): The penultimate episode of the gripping psychological crime drama offers insights into the formative years of future designer Versace, nurtured in a homophobic Italian culture by a mother who advises, “Success only comes with hard work—and it’s never easy.” This is contrasted with the coddled, spoiled upbringing of Versace’s future murderer, Andrew Cunanan, whose conman dad coddles the boy to believe he’s special until the family’s delusional house of cards collapses. By then it’s too late. Living a lie comes way too naturally to Andrew (Darren Criss). When his BFF Lizzie (Annaleigh Ashford) confesses, “I’m an imposter,” Andrew responds, “All the best people are.” Also the worst.

Organs Go Missing on ‘X-Files’ and ‘SVU,’ ‘American Crime Story: Versace’ Nears End

TV Guy: ‘Versace’ returns to the roots of a killer’s troubles

The sins of the father emerge in the powerful penultimate episode of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” (10 p.m., FX, TV-MA).

This emotionally draining series has unfolded one flashback at a time, with characters’ stories emerging in seemingly random order.

Tonight’s episode focuses on Modesto “Pete” Cunanan (Jon Jon Briones), the con man father of serial killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss).

Pete projects a brash belief in the American dream, enlisting in the military so he can arrive as a new citizen from his native Philippines.

His peculiar notion of family values is to lavish all his attention and much of his fortune on Andrew, while his other children languish in a state of emotional starvation.

It’s clear Andrew gets his sense of entitlement (as well as his contempt for his mother) from his old man, who follows a downward trajectory as a financial adviser.

A parallel plot about young Gianni Versace’s choice to defy gender roles and follow his mother’s steps as a seamstress is pretty much overshadowed by the Cunanan backstory.

I was shocked when I read that members of the Versace family complained “American Crime Story” had defamed the designer’s legend.

TV Guy: ‘Versace’ returns to the roots of a killer’s troubles

What’s on TV tonight

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace
BBC Two, 9pm
Before murdering Gianni Versace, Andrew Cunanan had already killed four men, and the third episode of Ryan Murphy’s “true crime” drama focuses on his third and fourth victims — the Chicago property tycoon Lee Miglin and William Reese, a caretaker. Miglin (Mike Farrell from M*A*S*H) is portrayed as a closeted gay client of Cunanan (his family deny this) and is murdered in a sadistic scene, while Reese is killed for his lorry. If Murphy’s motivation with this Versace-free episode was to add depth to Cunanan (Darren Criss), it fails — we still know very little about why he embarked on his murder spree, other than the fact that he’s a sociopath.

What’s on TV tonight

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story episode 8, Creator/Destroyer

Tonight, American Crime Story Season 2 will take us back further than it has before — Gianni and Andrew’s childhood days! But while the scene with Versace is unfairly short, we’ll get an extended look at Cunanan’s upbringing as we meet his family.

So what can you expect to see this Wednesday? We’ve screened the first eight episodes of the season to bring you an advanced preview each week of what you’ll see! Avoiding all spoilers? This is your last chance to turn away now!

Here’s the official synopsis for episode eight “Creator/Destroyer” from FX:

A young Andrew Cunanan struggles with his oppressive father as a young Gianni Versace becomes a designer.

The episode was written by Tom Rob Smith and Maggie Cohn; Directed by Matt Bomer.

While Versace is learning all about working hard, Cunanan is being taught that he deserves it all, simply because he’s “special.” We’ll see where Cunanan learned to be so good at coming up with tall tales, but we’ll also see that not everything Cunanan has shared with others is a lie as we initially thought.

“Creator/Destroyer” also shows the first time Cunanan met Lizzie, and, as it turns out, Cunanan has been into older man for a long while — and Versace!

Lines to look out for. Can you guess who delivers them?

Every morning when you wake up, and every evening when you go to sleep, I want you to remember that you’re special.

When you feel special, success will follow.

Can we only ever speak in secrets?

A man has accused you of tricking his grandmother to transfer her life savings.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story episode 8, Creator/Destroyer