‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Recap: Why Did Andrew Kill Jeff Trail?

For the fifth episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace, we learn about Jeff Trail. The last episode opened with the unknown young man being bludgeoned to death with a hammer by Andrew Cunanan. But who is he and why did Andrew kill him?

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” as the title suggests, also focuses on one of the major themes of the show, dealing with the shame of being a closeted homosexual. Jeff’s story is equal parts tragic and heroic in that respect, and it’s beautifully contrasted by the return of the titular fashion designer.

Versace Comes Out

The episode opens in June 1995 in Milan. Gianni Versace is back, informing his sister Donatella that he’s going to do an interview with The Advocate and publically come out as gay. She is skeptical of the idea, thinking that Antonio is behind this because he wants to be famous. She’s also worried that it may hurt their business, but Gianni is insistent.

Despite her warning, he wants to do it because the brand is all about bravery and he wants to show that he is brave. She’s a realist, recognizing that the world can be cruel, but after getting sick, Gianni simply wants to be himself. Given what we’ll see with Jeff Trail, it’s hard to ignore the fact that coming out is a luxury that Gianni Versace can afford because he’s a celebrity. It may cost him some money and business, but that’s nothing compared to the cost for Jeff.

Andrew Comes to Minnesota

Four days before Jeff’s murder we see Andrew in San Diego, doing drugs and sweet-talking a lady from the credit card company into extending his credit limit so he can buy a one-way plane ticket to Minneapolis. He’s obviously in deep debt and promises that he’ll be financially solvent and repay his debts thanks to his two friends, Jeff and David, in Minnesota.

Meanwhile, former Navy officer Jeff Trail is in Minnesota, working at a propane factory. When he learns that Andrew is flying in he meets David at the airport, explaining to him that everything Andrew says is a lie and he has no one. The only reason Jeff still puts up with him is because Andrew was there for him once, but he’s done with Andrew after this weekend and encourages David to do the same. David still feels sorry for Andrew. There isn’t much tension here since we already know how this weekend ends for both of them.

Andrew arrives and he’s his cheery, obviously fake self, acting like everything is wonderful. Jeff gets into it a bit about how Andrew “accidentally” sent a postcard to Jeff’s dad that almost outed Jeff to his family. Jeff is staying with his sister for the weekend so Andrew can crash at his place.

Andrew’s Proposal

When Andrew and David go back to his apartment, Andrew proposes and David tries to decline as politely as possible without hurting Andrew’s feelings. Andrew is throwing out about a million red flags and it should be clear to David that this guy is seriously mentally unstable.

Andrew and David go out to a polka club with David’s co-worker (the one who will discover Jeff’s body in a few days). David eventually declines Andrew’s proposal as forcefully as he can. Back at the apartment David tries to give back the expensive watch Andrew bought him, explaining that it’s OK to ask for help and Andrew doesn’t have to make up elaborate stories about how amazing his life is.

David sees the real Andrew and how unhappy he is, offering to help. But people seeing his true self seems to be Andrew’s primary trigger for his insanity.

Andrew then goes to Jeff’s apartment, suspicious that David and Jeff are dating. Andrew snoops through Jeff’s things and finds his Navy uniform, a video of a news report about gays in the military…and his gun. Andrew watches the video, in which Jeff was an anonymous gay officer in the Navy talking about how they would never accept he. He talks about how the military knows he’s gay because he saved a gay sailor who was being attacked, but now he regrets that moment.

The Tragic History of Jeff Trail

Jeff goes to his very pregnant sister’s house. She knows he’s gay and thinks he should stop letting Andrew have this sort of control over him and just come out to their parents.

We flash back to November 1995 to see the story Jeff was talking about, saving the gay sailor. This epitomizes my biggest problem with this season. Why show us a video of Jeff telling the story, then show us that same story in a flashback? It’s excessive and takes away the dramatic tension because we already know what’s going to happen, just like how we already know that Andrew is going to kill Jeff and David.

Jeff tries his best to protect the other gay sailor, but in the process he fears he may have outed himself. This leads to a brutal and graphic scene of Jeff trying to cut off his own tattoo so he can’t be identified by a captured gay soldier who may report him.

All of the fear and paranoia of being a closeted gay man in the military gets to Jeff, to the point where he tries to hang himself in the bathroom. It’s a tragic moment, but one that he doesn’t follow through on.

After his suicide attempt, Jeff goes out to a gay bar and meets Andrew. Andrew is accepting and encouraging, exactly what Jeff needs in this moment. It’s Jeff’s first time in a gay bar and Andrew helps him through it, explaining the debt Jeff owes Andrew. Andrew was a friendly face who met Jeff in his darkest hour.

The Two Coming Out Stories

Jeff tells Andrew about a reporter wanting to interview him for a news story that includes his side on the issue of gays in the military. In a brilliant bit of contrast, we see Jeff going to a seedy motel and being interviewed in the shadows while intercutting it with Gianni Versace doing his interview for The Advocate in a fancy hotel, being greeted warmly and asking Antonio to sit by his side and do the interview with him.

It’s a very effective way to show how different this experience is. For Jeff, it’s the hardest thing he’ll ever do, he regrets saving the gay sailor’s life and it will likely cost him his career. For Gianni, it’s an affirming, positive experience with a photo shoot, allowing him to live his life open and free.

It’s a heartbreaking juxtaposition. After these interviews, Jeff can’t live the life he wants anymore, being in the military, but Gianni gets to live his life exactly how he wants.

The Death of Jeff Trail (Again)

The show is back to the day Jeff dies, which we saw last week. Jeff returns to his apartment and sees that Andrew went through his stuff. Jeff gets angry and tells Andrew that the life he gave him with the bars and men wasn’t real. Jeff only ever wanted to be in the military and that’s what he wishes he had.

Jeff doesn’t care that the military doesn’t want him. He calls out Andrew for being a liar with no honor. Andrew claims he saved Jeff, but Jeff wishes he never walked into that bar and met him. Jeff gets a bit violent, yelling that “No one wants your love.”

Andrew is trigger and leaves to David’s place, with Jeff’s gun. That night Andrew calls Jeff and tells him that he took his gun because David’s stalker is back in town. Jeff agrees to come over to get it, but after that he’s done with him.

This leads to the moment we knew was coming, when Andrew kills Jeff with a hammer (which was definitely premeditated). In one final emotional punch to the gut, while Jeff is dead in David’s apartment, his family calls his home and leaves messages on his answering machine that his sister went into labor and had her baby, with his parents saying how much they love him and want him to meet his niece.

Did Jeff’s tragic story break your heart?

Did Gianni Versace actually admit he was gay to “The Advocate?” Yes, and it’s something Ryan Murphy greatly admires

Throughout this season of American Crime Story, Ryan Murphy and FX have often been forced to use their imagination. As many of the real people depicted in the series are dead and the victims’ families have largely kept quiet, The Assassination of Gianni Versace has often had to take creative liberties when recreating the narrative. Using a plethora of source material, from Maureen Orth’s Vulgar Favors to newspaper articles and FBI reports, FX has had to imagine interactions between Andrew Cunanan and his victims — and even depict events never confirmed by the victims’ families.

In the opening moments of the fifth episode “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Gianni (Édgar Ramírez) tells his sister Donatella (Penelope Cruz) that, much to her chagrin, he’s going to publicly disclose his sexuality to The Advocate. Donatella derides Gianni’s decision and tries to dissuade him, concerned that coming out as gay could put their company in jeopardy but Gianni remains steadfast in his decision.

In a moving moment during “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Gianni interrupts his own interview with the Advocate to introduce his longtime partner Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin) to his profiler, Brendan Lemon, revealing that they’ve been together for 13 years. Often publicly relegated to the position of Gianni’s assistant, Antonio is visibly moved.

While Gianni’s decision to publicly come out was a big deal in and of itself, it had a lasting effect on him. During the Television Critics Association tour last summer, Murphy opened up about what Gianni coming out in the Advocate interview meant to him and what it was like to film the interview.

“I admired that and always did,” Murphy said. “I loved him and looked up to him, and was so proud and excited when he did that interview in the Advocate. At that time there weren’t a lot of people brave enough to live their lives in the open. So for me, I had a great passion for it, and I was very emotional shooting it.“

The scene was incredibly moving, especially interwoven with Jeff Trail’s (Finn Wittrock) anonymous CBS interview regarding being gay in the military, reminding viewers that while Gianni Versace was able to live a proud life as a gay man, many others were forced to remain in the closet for the sake of their lives.

Did Gianni Versace actually admit he was gay to “The Advocate?” Yes, and it’s something Ryan Murphy greatly admires

‘Versace’: Darren Criss Opens Up About the Revealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” Episode

Before the midpoint of FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, the narrative of serial killer Andrew Cunanan’s life has been told in reverse chronological order and devoted episodes to each of the murderer’s victims. But the fifth episode, titled “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” lives up to the promise creator Ryan Murphy made to shed a light on institutionalized homophobia in the 1990s, juxtaposing the coming out stories of two of Cunanan’s victims with the moment the killer unravels.

Darren Criss, who plays Cunanan, spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the pivotal episode, and how it helps fuse the past few episodes of the series — which have focused on Cunanan’s victims Lee Miglin, David Madson, Jeffrey Trail and William Reese — back with the titular fashion designer. “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” follows the struggle of military man Jeff Trail to come to terms with his own sexuality while Versace toys with the idea of publicly revealing his own relationship status. Their two very different experiences — one leading to Trail’s discharge from the service and the other leading to a high-profile piece in a national magazine — are both in conflict with Cunanan’s own spiral about his own identity and self-worth.

“At this point in the series you haven’t seen a lot from the Versaces, and so it’s nice to be juxtaposing someone like Jeff’s coming out story against Gianni coming out with The Advocate,” Criss tells THR. “Two different worlds are trying to face the same obstacles and being met with very different resistance is really interesting because you can see this very harrowing world that Jeff is in constant conflict with versus this very … glamorous side of the coin, which would be Gianni’s side. There’s a real heroism to both.”

Below, Criss discusses the series’ unique structure, building Cunanan’s back story and the lack of Versace in the series.

It’s interesting to see Andrew there for Jeff when he needs help accepting his identity as a gay man, but Andrew’s entire trip to Minneapolis to see David and Jeff is a cry for help and he won’t accept any from either of them.

Andrew has this savior complex, which is why I think he really thrived so much in a place as complex as San Diego in the ‘90s because you have a vibrant gay scene right on top of the vibrant military town. So it’s sort of built-in conflict within a lot of young men who Andrew meets. Andrew stands for everything that these men would find attractive — not in a sexual sense but in a personality and joie de vive sense, the guy that is now offering refuge and a place to celebrate what would otherwise be a source of conflict for them. It was a feeding ground for someone like Andrew to feel needed in a really fulfilling way.

[Andrew] has many tragedies, but one of his biggest tragedies is that I think he needs to be the purveyor of everything. He needs to be in control. He has to be the one that is buying the drinks, throwing the parties, introducing people. He needs to be the one that is giving the help, and as a result I think his output is so high that nothing goes in. And so his own help system, as far as gaining help, is manifested by only being able to help others. He just gives himself away to so many people to the point where he can sort of cover up his own shortcomings by being this constant giver.

Finding somebody like Jeff is sort of the gold mine Andrew gravitated toward. Even though he was really helping out Jeff — and he really does in a very earnest, beautiful way, I think — Jeff was also unconsciously there to help Andrew, just to give him some kind of purpose because he needed to feel love. So their meeting was very tragic.

Watching this episode from the perspective of someone who might not have really understood the nuances of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” military policy at the time, what can you say about how the episode might have enlightened you?

Even if you are of an age where this is something that you were aware of, unless you were gay and in the military at the time, I feel like there’s no way you’d have the same insight or experience as somebody like Jeff or his peers. You really can’t have a shot at working with what that actually means on a day-to-day basis. It’s a continuing question and struggle for our brothers and sisters in arms and people who serve our country. I think maybe hearing the specifics of Jeff’s particular story hopefully will make this more accessible to people and seem a little more real, and seeing the real struggle that it presents for a lot of young men and women.

Although the story is being told in reverse, the first four episodes have a very clear structure. This episode played with time a bit differently — what was filming it like?

Luckily and very thankfully, to the credit of Dan Minehan, who directed both four and five, we did something that I hadn’t done in a very long time, and it’s something that actors really thirst for — we had a table reading. We actually read through both episodes in chronological order, and we shot in chronological order as much as possible, those two episodes together, which is really an absurd luxury. I was thrilled that they took the diligence to really try and execute this in a more linear way. So, in that sense, it made these very much a two-parter. I watched two episodes together, so I actually would be curious to see how people experience it, having had a week or so in between. It’s a really interesting structure. Some people seem to take to it, others really don’t like it because there’s less of, I guess, a payoff — or it’s an inverse payoff, because you already made your decisions about the person.

Shooting out of sequence, to me, just means I get to have this kind of CSI map emotional trajectory on my wall and I have to kind of play emotion Tetris as far as what fits where, in order to get what yields this to get this. And how does point A have to connect to point B? I’m still curious because I still haven’t seen the very last episode. To me, that’s where it all comes together again.

In the next three episodes that you have seen, what did you learn about Andrew and what are you looking forward to audiences learning about him?

I was always interested in Andrew’s life as a teenager because it’s always easier to identify with a young person that has so much more time to go. I think, inevitably, when you know somebody has done something as terrible as Andrew did, you connect every moment of their life to those actions. Any little thing he did in high school, “Well that’s, you know…” Now you look at it differently because you know that they’ve committed murder. It’s interesting in looking at really gifted, young, talented kid and just really exploring how fun and charming he was. A lot of the grim atmosphere that he was breathing in towards the latter part of his life, I really, really wanted to make sure that we couldn’t connect that dot to the dots of his youth.

We shot a lot of stuff that I thought was really fun and showed just an honest-to-goodness, lovable teenager. I don’t know if that all made it into the show, but I remember those scenes and I really enjoyed being able to paint those colors of Andrew. I had to wait the entire shoot to be able to finally show these more affable colors. Earlier in the season where we know what he’s done, there’s sinister undertones of even his happier moments because we’re closer to the famous murders. We can’t help but question everything he’s doing. I couldn’t wait to get him as a teenager because I really wanted to confuse people’s senses of who and what you’re rooting for.

That was the first chance to really embrace the best parts of someone’s life … you may have not liked him, but you couldn’t say that he wasn’t the life of the party. [A high school classmate of Cunanan’s told Criss], “I just want you to know that Andrew was such a good friend. We really loved him. He was so much fun and he was just someone you could count on.” She said it with such — it was so heartbreaking to hear because you could tell the tone was totally mortified when she read the news 10, 15 years after the fact.

That’s the person that I was really hoping to create and that’s what makes this structure interesting. It’s like Merrily We Roll Along. You start with them at their worst, and how do you feel about them when you see them at their best? It’s pretty divisive. It’s either going to make you really mad, or its just going break your heart that there was such a loss of potential there. The memorable parts for me was just showing a kid that’s just trying to figure out his life like every other kid.

The end of this “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” episode saw Andrew and Jeff fighting about honor, which really seemed to be what set Andrew off on his killing spree.

I was speaking earlier about the metaphorical mapping out of Andrew, and as far as the big red circles, with the red pins on ‘em, that moment is a huge one. That comes back to a question a lot of people have who don’t know the story and this case very well: “What happened between San Diego and Minneapolis? What triggered Andrew to go AWOL? What happened between the two of them? They were inseparable.” Something must’ve happened between them for him to go to Minneapolis and carry out this action that you can’t help but assume is planned.

That’s a big question mark for a lot of people. We will never know what happened, and our show could never dare to say that this is truth by any means. But for our storytelling sake, it’s not necessarily about what really happened so much as it’s about the emotional arcs that had to have happened in order for these things take place. So in our case, we have this scene where there is a cathartic laying of cards on the table, where the ethos of both characters is kind of put on the line. You have, basically, Jeff calling Andrew out. Not too dissimilar from what had happened in the last episode, where the thing that set Andrew off on David was him finally calling him out for what he was and basically making Andrew live inside a world that is real and therefore not very pretty.

Any time Andrew forced to be exposed to the real world around him or the truth, it’s a very unpleasant thing for him. So that set him off in the last episode, and ultimately ended with a fight in the car and very rageful homicide. That was the second of the murders. So the first one — “no one wants your love” is the line that Jeff says. And that’s enough to turn a cog in Andrew’s brain. To hear that from the one person that he’s given everything to, you can’t help but feel bad for the guy, even though hopefully most people wouldn’t do what he did.

He’s giving so much of himself to people that they now have to feel beholden to holding him up. And so it’s sort of emotional hostage — you’re now feeling entitled to someone’s life because you’ve given them something that they didn’t ever really ask for. That’s a pretty big awakening point, for Jeff to realize that this guy is unconsciously using him. And he calls that out, the truth that Andrew’s not ready or emotionally prepared to hear or deal with. And if he can’t have something, he has to take it, and he has to destroy it.

He couldn’t have Jeff; he couldn’t have David; so he had to literally take it. He couldn’t have Versace’s fame, success, everything, so he to take it. Even to take someone’s car. So when Andrew is deprived something, the ultimate way to really take it back and be in control is to be more powerful, and to be the controller of that person’s life.

‘Versace’: Darren Criss Opens Up About the Revealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” Episode

In ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace,’ the Camera Stays on the Victims

When Jeff Trail (Finn Wittrock) and David Madson (Cody Fern) return to the latter’s sleek, minimalist apartment, something is immediately amiss. David’s dog is tied to a coffee table, and their mutual friend Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) is waiting unseen across the hallway. That’s when it happens: Andrew snaps. He bludgeons Jeff with a hammer, blood spraying everywhere. David (and his poor dog) can only look on in horror from the other side of the room; as most of this unfolds, the camera remains affixed to David’s terrified expression. Blood occasionally splashes on his face.

Gruesome scenes like this one at the start of “House by the Lake,” the fourth episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, are a familiar sight for a medium that’s been historically obsessed with killers. But each portrayal is different, and how a TV series depicts a murder tells you a lot about its intentions. Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal turned many of its deaths into baroque pieces of bloody art, relishing in the creative ways victims could be disposed (death by electric eel is definitely … different). On the opposite side of the spectrum was Dexter, whose eponymous serial killer would do just about the same thing every time — a calculated routine devised over decades that carried out like an everyday chore. As for Versace, Cunanan’s murder of Jeff Trail is the beginning of a violent, agenda-driven killing spree.

Because Versace plays out almost entirely in reverse chronology — beginning in the premiere with the fashion mogul’s death at the hands of Cunanan before the opening title comes into view — the audience knows we’re seeing is Cunanan’s first murder, despite it being the final one presented onscreen. The show continuously folds into itself, in the process delving into Cunanan, studying how and when the seeds were planted before they blossomed into this narcissistic, entitled, and dangerous personality.

However, what makes Versace a unique presence in an ever-crowded television landscape has less to do with its Nolanesque chronology or its insidious killer than it does how much attention the show dedicates to the people who were killed, the lives that were affected by these murders, and how a society plagued with systemic homophobia enabled Cunanan to claim five total victims — culminating in the death of Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramírez) on the steps of his opulent mansion. By devoting screentime to Versace and Cunanan’s lesser-known victims — with the exception of William Reese, whose death was the result of a man being in the wrong place at the wrong time — the show empathizes with the discrimination each faced as a gay man in ’90s America and the institutions that failed them. In Versace, there’s more than one killer.

The fifth episode of the season, which aired Wednesday night, flashes back to Trail’s first meeting with Cunanan, in addition to his time as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. The title of the episode, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” is self-evident, and Trail suffers from the Clintonian policy. When one gay soldier offers to out other gay military members who frequent a well-known hookup spot as part of a deal to avoid dishonorable discharge, Trail uses a knife to remove his biggest identifier, a tattoo on his leg. The closest Trail gets to coming out is agreeing to be interviewed by a news program for a “don’t ask, don’t tell” package. Trail’s experience in the episode is juxtaposed with that of Versace’s coming out in a magazine interview with The Advocate. As Versace is invited to a glitzy hotel suite to sit down for a cover story alongside his partner Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin), Trail meets his interviewer in an unbecoming motel room, his face is shrouded in darkness to avoid identification. It’s less of a coming out than an affirmation that he needs to stay in the closet — or leave the Navy entirely.

Versace makes his decision to come out in spite of his sister, Donatella (Penélope Cruz), who pleads with him to reconsider for the sake of the financial future of their business. The show paints this less as a success of the individual than an indictment on just how large you have to be to avoid public discrimination — coming out might be OK, so long as you’re a multimillion-dollar fashion designer. How the gay men of Versace react to societal homophobia affects them in wildly contrasting ways — Versace sits atop a fashion empire, while Cunanan, fixated and jealous of the designer’s rarified experience, becomes a con man and, eventually, a spree-killer targeting other gay men. Then there’s someone like Trail, suffocating from the effects of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” “I can’t help feeling that by talking to you it’s the end of my career,” he tells his motel room interviewer. “But maybe my career actually died a long time ago.”

Cunanan leverages this rampant homophobia against both Trail and Madson. He sends Trail’s family a letter addressed to him that heavily implies their son is gay while he’s still closeted, trying to force his hand. And after killing Trail in Madson’s apartment in “House by the Lake,” Cunanan convinces Madson that calling the cops is the worst possible idea — he’s a gay man with a dead body in his apartment, who are they going to believe? — and that they need to run off together. Cunanan preys upon these men’s insecurities, using society’s homophobia as a trap, while also seemingly lashing out because of it.

Trail, Madson, the Chicago real estate developer Lee Miglin (Mike Farrell) from Versace’s third episode — these are tragic figures, undone by shame brought upon by outdated norms. Seeing them broken down in reverse chronology, knowing they’ll fall victim to Cunanan, makes it all the more heartbreaking. That Versace devotes the time necessary to show how these characters were victims — specifically to a rage-filled spree killer and more broadly to a repressive society — speaks to what the series cares about. Versace could luxuriate in the violent, sociopathic tendencies of Cunanan, or, as more befitting of creator Ryan Murphy, envelope itself in Versace’s elegant, campy world of fashion, but it doesn’t. At times Versace might be more interesting to think about than to watch unfold onscreen, but the series’ intentions — much like its time-bending narrative — are a particularly unique sight on television, and especially among crime shows.

In ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace,’ the Camera Stays on the Victims

Ricky Martin on ACS: Versace, Coming Out, and ‘Normalizing’ Open Relationships

There are obvious parallels between Ricky Martin’s life as an international celebrity and Gianni Versace’s brand of glamour and hedonism. Both sold sex appeal as part of their brands while living as gay men. In the FX show American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Versace makes a conscious decision to publicly come out in 1995 during an interview with The Advocate. Martin came out in 2010, saying that the act made him feel free and liberated: “I could say I love myself completely,” he told Oprah afterward. In ACS, Martin plays Antonio D’Amico, the supportive, longtime partner of the late fashion designer.

“Unlike Darren [Criss, who plays serial killer Andrew Cunanan in the series] I brought all my emotions back home with me,” an exuberant Martin told a group of reporters after the TCA panel. In a brief but warm interview with Vulture beforehand, Martin discussed his conversations with Antonio D’Amico, the homophobia of the police interrogation, and how he wrestled with his own coming-out process.

Did you meet Antonio D’Amico, the person you’re portraying?
A couple of times we met. It was difficult for me to find him, but then I found him. It was like, “FBI, find Antonio!” Because I just wanted to do justice to his story, you know? I’m telling the story of someone who is alive, and I cannot jump in front of the camera without having an interaction with him. So we found him, and he was so open and so vulnerable. I told him, “Antonio, I just want to do justice to your love for Gianni. And I want you to tell me what your love was about, for the audience to see what it was about.”

I want to normalize relationships like this. It’s good for the world; it’s good for me as a gay man with kids. It’s important that we shed some light on power couples like this, even though he was quiet and behind the scenes and he was just there supporting his man for 15 years. I also believe there was a level of homophobia going around in his family where he was hiding, even though he says, “My relationship was very open and free with Gianni.” So I used that as well in front of the camera, and for that, I will always be very thankful.

What kind of insight did he give you into his relationship with Versace?
He told me about Gianni’s character, and he told me about how he would react when there were different situations that would arise in the day-to-day. “Gianni would not pick up his clothes from the floor. He would take a shower and he would leave his shirt there, so it was me after him, picking up,” and “He was extremely organized with everything that had to do with Gianni the Enterprise. Extremely organized, very focused and extremely on top of things with everything! But in his personal life, he had me picking up after him.”

The silent person behind the scenes.
The silent person behind the scenes, yeah. One of the toughest scenes that I shot [was] the first, the interrogation when the FBI is investigating Antonio. It was a very excruciating scene for me. I mean, this guy was opening every door that was a secret from Gianni’s and Antonio’s relationship. I’m talking about bringing men into our lives. I’m talking about bringing escorts. That exposure is very heavy, and it can be extremely uncomfortable for me, for the family, but I’m here doing a job, and the story, once again, needs to be told, for people to see the level of unity between these two. The level of commitment after 15 years. The level of security between them and trust between them is so solid. We want to normalize another kind of reality for open relationships. And that’s what we’re doing. There’s absolutely nothing wrong. We’re just two very self-secure men that are completely in love with each other, that trust each other to the maximum level, and here we are. But the scene was very intense and painful. Excruciating. It was a long day.

How much do you feel like homophobia was a part of that?
Ignorance! Oh my god, every question was so ignorant coming from this guy. And I’m like, “What are you talking about? He’s my boyfriend, my partner.” But even for me, in the ’90s, it was difficult to say the word “boyfriend.” I wish I could have said “my husband” back then, in order for people to understand. But before that interrogation, it’s still confusing, even now, if you have a boyfriend that brings escorts to you for you to have intimacy with. But that is the reality for many men and women, and I cannot say only in the gay world. There are many relationships that are open.

What’s your relationship like with Penélope Cruz? Because you have an adversarial relationship in the show, but I assume that’s not how it is in real life.
First of all, we’ve worked together many, many, many times, philanthropically. We’ve done fundraisers together. We were sponsors of a very beautiful orphanage in Calcutta, so we did fundraising galas, and we’ve known each other for a long time. It’s funny because as I am shooting the scene of the investigation, I hadn’t seen Penélope. She walks onto set already dressed up as Donatella, and of course, I am drained and I’m tired and it’s been hours of this excruciating interrogation, and all of a sudden she walks in and I just go like [Martin holds his hand out]. I want to hold you, but I want to hold my friend. But I go like that [holds his hand out again] and Ryan goes, “Great idea! We need this for the shot, so stay there, and you cannot hug him. You hate him.” She came back to me and goes, “Rick, I saw you devastated. Your eyes were swollen. I needed to give you a hug.” And I’m like, “And you didn’t.” “But I wasn’t allowed to!” “You didn’t.” “I wasn’t allowed! It was better for the acting.” I’m glad we didn’t hug because all that made even more of [an] impact for the series.

You used the actual emotion that you felt.
I wanted to hug you. I really wanted to. But Antonio, after being interrogated for nine hours, he’s filled with blood. The first person that he sees that he knows is her, and even though they don’t have a good relationship, he’s like, “Hug me, I need someone to hug me.” And it took it to the next level. And Penélope is amazing. I was very honored to work with her.

The scene where Gianni decides to come out to the interviewer and then he brings you with him was really emotional for me.
And for me. You have no idea.

What was it like to shoot it?
Well, you know, for many years I lived in the closet, and you will never know how easy it is to be out of the closet until you actually decide to come out of the closet. If I knew how easy everything was going to be afterward, I would have done it way before. So, I went to that moment and I went to the relationship, where I held my partners pretty much prisoners of my closet, so as an actor it was very easy for me to get somewhere emotionally. And I felt a joy, and I felt the love come from my partner. Honestly, I went to my real life where I was hiding them, and then the other side of the coin, my partner is exposing our truth, our reality, and it felt amazing and I cried. But it was joyful, and when I held Edgar — Gianni’s — hand, I wanted to kiss him, and we did. He was nervous. It’s one of the most beautiful scenes, I think.

It’s so joyful and empowering too.
And at the end of the day, I had no idea that he was going to bring me in, it just happened. I was like, “What’s going on here? Is this really happening? Oh my God!”

Because it’s not just “I’m a gay man,” but “This is the man who’s been with me for so long.”
It’s the love, and he needs to be recognized, acknowledged.

Gianni Versace has a line where he says, “Is the brand of Versace braver than the man?” when Donatella didn’t want him to come out. And I wondered if you wrestled with that question yourself in your life?
Yes. Everybody, people that I love, people that were really close to me told me, “You come out, this will be the end of your career.” You know, “Girls won’t buy your albums, they won’t buy your T-shirts, they won’t buy your concert tickets,” and that kept me from coming out many years. Because you work so hard to get to a place in the entertainment business and then they tell you if you talk about your nature everything’s gonna collapse. So you say, “Okay, no. Okay, let’s just not talk about it then.” But then there’s this emptiness; it doesn’t matter what you created. Living with this emptiness, it’s not how I want to live. And then one day you find the strength, you don’t know from where, and you just do it for yourself, you do it for your kids, and then with social media you realize the power and how important it is for us in the LGBTQ community to normalize families like mine, and then it wouldn’t be an issue. I mean, Harvey Milk said it many years ago, “Guys, you need to come out, ’cause then it’s normal.”

But I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a megacelebrity whose brand relied on sex appeal.
Yeah, you know, back then, Donatella or someone would say, “the board of directors advises not to…” and to me, it was “the record company advises not to,” which was b.s. Doesn’t matter. What’s important is what you need to do to become a better person, and with this — I go back to this scene — and how important it was to present this moment where you see this amazing fashion icon, a monster, strong, being vulnerable and afraid of sharing something as beautiful as your nature. You know, that scene where he holds me in the hallway before he walks into the room, that he gives me a kiss? He was trembling. And we all go through it at a certain point.

Did you ever meet Versace?
I never met Versace. I was invited to the house a hundred times to different events. I never met Donatella. I never met him personally. At the time I had a campaign with Giorgio Armani, so everything was Armani and Giorgio Armani outfitted two of my tours, but I was invited to the villa and I never went. So I used the fact that it’s my first time in this villa and it felt amazing.

Did you date back in the ’90s, early 2000s?
I was working like crazy in the ’90s. I had girlfriends, I had boyfriends, I had dog friends, I had cat friends. But my career never sabotaged my intimate life.

It didn’t?
It didn’t, it didn’t. Now, I think I could have lived more intensely and I could have had more experiences that the closet kept me from.

Did you have a partner?
No. I had my girlfriend, who was a woman that I dated on and off for nine years, and she’s like the Gala for Dalí. Dalí had Gala. And I had this woman who was amazing. Unfortunately, we don’t talk anymore, but she was amazing, and she was powerful and she knew about me. She knew I was gay, but we were together.

She knew?
Yeah, she knew. She knew and we were together. It was one of those things, but we broke up around ’97, ’98, and then I just worked. I worked so hard. I dated, but nothing as serious, as formal as Antonio and Gianni.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Ricky Martin on ACS: Versace, Coming Out, and ‘Normalizing’ Open Relationships

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Explores Andrew Cunanan & Jeff Trail’s Complicated Friendship

Last week’s episode of American Crime Story introduced Finn Wittrock as Jeffrey Trail—a sometime-close friend of Andrew Cunnan’s—just moments before a jealous Cunanan brutally murdered him. This week, as the show’s reverse chronology continues, Episode 5, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” delves into Trail’s backstory, his troubled time in the Navy, and how he first came to befriend Cunanan. We also return to Minneapolis to chronicle the last few days before Cunanan’s murder spree began. Spoiler alert: they are excruciating, and not for murder reasons.

And after two full weeks away from the Versaces, this episode reintroduces their storyline, paralleling Trail’s experience with the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy with Gianni’s groundbreaking decision to come out as gay in The Advocate—much to the consternation of Donatella, who’s concerned this will negatively impact the business.

Here are five talking points from The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Episode 5, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

1) Andrew Cunanan pre-murder spree is somehow more unsettling than actual murderer Andrew Cunanan.

Look, I know this might seem like a weird stance, but at least once Cunanan flipped into murder mode, there was no ambiguity about what we were dealing with. In the four episodes we’ve seen so far, he’s a murderer, but in “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” he is merely the most extreme Stage Five Clinger ever witnessed onscreen. His ability to completely ignore social cues and boundaries is breathtaking and deeply stressful. The portions of this episode that I spent hiding behind my hands were not the ones you’d expect; Trail trying to cut off his own tattoo is grisly, sure, but I’ll take that any day over Cunanan’s proposal of marriage to a horrified Madson, or his desperate attempts to insert himself into Madson’s life. When he yelled “Friend? I’m more than a friend!” I actually tried to crawl inside my chair. It became hard to tell the difference between Prints the dog’s whimpering and my own.

In any case, we learn that Cunanan winds up in Minneapolis because he’s run out of money in California and is living in a very creepy hovel injecting heroin between his toes. He goes to Trail because he knows Trail feels indebted to him, for reasons that become clear later in the episode. He’s also determined to lock down Madson, who he calls “the man I want to spend the rest of my life with,“ but Madson wants no part of him, for reasons that also become clear later in the episode.

Ultimately, Trail lets Cunanan stay at his apartment for one night of Cunanan’s Minneapolis trip, while Trail is out of town on "business"—i.e., avoiding Cunanan while staying with his sister. In a deeply disquieting scene that also leads us into a flashback to Trail’s days in the Navy, Cunanan sneaks into Trail’s bedroom, goes through his closet, finds his old uniform, and just puts it on. He also steals Trail’s gun, which he will ultimately use to kill Madson, Reese, Versace, and himself. Wearing Trail’s full regalia, Cunanan watches a videotape of an old CBS News documentary about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, in which a soldier—his face in shadow—describes a harrowing experience. He saved a “closeted gay sailor” from being beaten to death, but now regrets it, because it made his colleagues suspicious that he is gay.

2) The scenes depicting Trail’s time in the Navy are some of the show’s saddest and most brutal.

Cut to two years earlier, with the revelation that that soldier speaking in the video isTrail. The opening moments of this episode have already made it clear that Trail harbors a lot of anger about leaving the Navy; in a scene from 1997, he flips out at an unsuspecting co-worker when asked why he left the Navy. Later in the episode, we see Trail save the closeted soldier from being killed, then comfort him with a hug—a moment witnessed by a mustachioed, homophobic fellow soldier. From that moment on, it’s clear to Trail that he is a target.

After hearing that another gay officer was offered an honorable discharge on the condition that he give the Navy a list of identifying tattoos on the men he’d been involved with, Trail tries to cut his tattoo off his own leg. It’s a truly harrowing scene, matched by one shortly after, in which Trail tries to hang himself, but changes his mind at the last moment. It’s seemingly right after this awful moment that Trail takes a walk into town, and ends up at a gay bar—where he meets Andrew Cunanan.

3) This episode shows us, for the first time, a genuinely charming Andrew Cunanan.

Seeing Cunanan in the past also illustrates how far he’s fallen in the present. The only thing he ever had to offer was being entertaining and charismatic, and it got him a long way. Now that he’s making everyone around him deeply uncomfortable, there’s really no way back for him.

But in this bar, it’s completely clear why Trail would be drawn to Cunanan. He’s intriguing and fun and worldly without being intimidating, and he gently makes fun of Trail’s admission that this is his first time at a gay bar. Before they start talking, Trail is so overwhelmed that he almost walks right back out of the bar, but Cunanan makes this muscular, aggressively neon-lit world seem welcoming. When Trail thanks him for “stopping this night from being a humiliation,” Cunanan responds, “I feel like I’m part of your history. You’re going to remember this moment.” Not inaccurate.

4) Gianni Versace returns… but only as a framing device for the Trail/Cunanan storyline.

We’ve all pretty much accepted at this point that despite its title, this is not a show about Gianni Versace. And after two full weeks without a single Versace on screen, Gianni’s storyline is woven back into this episode, but only peripherally. After years of never having officially confirmed his sexuality, Gianni wants to come out as gay publicly in an interview with The Advocate. But Donatella is hostile to the idea, and initially blames Gianni’s partner, Antonio D’Amico, accusing him of being publicity-hungry. He claps back: “I know my place. Unlike you.”

Donatella tries to convince Gianni that coming out will impact their business both abroad—in countries where homosexuality is still illegal—and at home, where rock stars and royalty may no longer want to be associated with him. “At least we keep Elton, no?” Gianni responds, because everyone is really on their clapback game in this scene. “You live in isolation, surrounded by beauty and kindness,” Donatella tells him. “You have forgotten how ugly the world can be.”

But Gianni is determined, and so we see The Advocate interview intercut with Trail’s CBS interview; one as triumphant and moving as the other is unceremonious and bleak. Strange though it feels to agree with Cunanan on anything, he’s not wrong in what he says to Trail about his CBS interview. While the homophobic soldiers who don’t want gay people to serve in the military are in their uniforms, facing the camera proudly, Cunanan notes, the gay soldiers like Trail have to be interviewed “in the shadows, with your face distorted, like a criminal.” This is crushing because it’s clear Trail didn’t get the catharsis he hoped for from the interview. In fact, it likely made things worse for him.

5) Between this episode and Get Out, Froot Loops may now officially be the chosen cereal of villains.

Cunanan is just chilling with a bowl of Froot Loops while waiting for Trail to come home. He’s not eating the cereal separately from the milk, like Allison Williams’ truly deranged Get Out character, but nevertheless, this has been a rough year for Froot Loops onscreen. Do only sociopaths enjoy this beloved cereal?

6) Trail and Madson both have specific reasons for turning on Cunanan.

The fact that Cunanan is creepy and demanding and has no boundaries played a role, probably, but we also learn two new pieces of information this week, which shed light on why these relationships soured.

Madson is getting increasingly uncomfortable with Cunanan, who ultimately proposes to him in this episode—much to Madson’s discomfort.

Trail, meanwhile, is angry at Cunanan for sending a postcard to his father which effectively outed him—it was signed “Drew xx,” and while Cunanan claims it was an honest mistake, Trail’s not buying it. Given his lack of boundaries and desire to control Madson’s life, neither am I.

Additionally, Trail seems to blame Cunanan for the way his life has turned out, specifically the dissolution of his military career. The details of exactly why are vague—probably because there are a lot of gaps in the known facts about this relationship—but Trail tells Cunanan that he wants his life back and wants nothing to do with Cunanan. “When I found you that night at the bar, I was there for you. I saved you,” Cunanan yells, to which Trail responds: “You destroyed me. I wish I’d never met you.” But the real kicker is when Cunanan tries to declare his (past tense) love for Trail, and Trail spits: “No one wants your love!” This, more than anything, seems to be the line that tips Cunanan over the edge into violence. A few hours after this exchange, he shows up at Madson’s loft, coerces Trail into come over by revealing that he has the gun, and then waits behind the door, claw hammer in hand.

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Explores Andrew Cunanan & Jeff Trail’s Complicated Friendship

The Assassination of Gianni Versace Episode 5 Review: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

This episode gave a much-needed look into Jeff Trail, Finn Whitlock’s evocative character who we saw abruptly killed at the beginning of the previous episode. While this necessarily meant another look at David Madson, Jeff is the real focus here.

So far, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” makes the single best case for why the story of Cunanan’s spree killing belongs in the canon that Murphy suggests it for by including it in American Crime Story. There are many wrongs committed here long before Andrew Cunanan picks up a hammer. Episode by episode, Versace has turned its gaze onto various systems that marginalized LGBTQ folks in the 90s – many of which still do to this day. The military rightfully receives detailed, unflinching criticism.

If it weren’t a true story, so much about Jeff and this episode would seem completely unrealistic. Right off the bat, the inclusion of a member of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell-era military feels like a gift to the message Ryan Murphy wants to send with his story. The fact that he was an officer, from a military family, and well regarded makes him a perfect case study for why removing or banning gays from the military is so ridiculous. But the fact that Jeff gave an anonymous 48 Hours interview on the subject is mesmerizing.

The image of Jeff carefully putting on his dress whites before attempting to hang himself gives a deep portrait of this man: he saw little other way to resolve his dual identity as a gay man and an officer, a military man born to a military family. That our country gave him no other real option is clear. The fact that he and so many other men like him found a way to create a life for themselves anyway is a testament to their grit and courage.

The harsh reality of being gay in the 1990s is inescapable, from Jeff cutting off his own tattoo to keep from being identified to the way Andrew outted Jeff to his father, and then had the nerve to play it off like a mistake. Here, though, that move feels like a betrayal and a sick game, but not a preamble to murder. Perhaps the tallest order this show has written itself is to explain the unexplainable, who would do this and how. The first half of the installment has pretty successfully explained that, and the back half needs to explain how someone becomes that person.

Even more so in the previous two episodes, Andrew feels like a supporting player. He recedes in importance in the episode, and in Jeff and David’s lives, and he is painfully aware of it. Like with David (but thoroughly unlike with Lee, where it feels destined or at least predetermined), Andrew seems to tilt toward rage when he is called on his lies. Jeff skewers him neatly, calling out that Andrew has no honor, that he doesn’t even know what Andrew stands for. Neither does Andrew, other than being known and being memorable, it seems. Here again, as with Lee’s drawings, Cunanan pawing through Jeff’s uniform feels like a violation.

His fixation on those memorable moments – real or imagined – and being remembered, continues. Andrew says Jeff will remember their first meeting (he does, and without it Jeff would’ve cut him off long ago), and he tries to force a feeling of unforgettable on David during their night at the Polka place two years later. When Jeff talks about being interviewed, Andrew dismisses him saying he isn’t famous, so no one will care what he says. The moral fiber of the two men, and their fundamental guiding principles, is stark, even at a point when their lives aren’t so different.

It’s jarring, in a way, to see Andrew come upon Jeff nervous and uncertain after going into his first gay bar. The kindness and camaraderie Andrew showed Jeff is consistent with many accounts of those who knew him, particularly when he was younger. It isn’t until the episode loops back around to Andrew’s Minneapolis trip that the sneering, pretentious pretender we know reemerges. The Andrew who makes Jeff feel at home is someone who could be more easily seen as a lonely, self-conscious kid in over his head with his lies and looking for a friend. The challenge – and the strength – of the remaining episodes is how well they convince us of the transition from one man into the other.

Gianni’s story comes back, in a rather useful parallel between his “coming out” interview with The Advocate and Jeff’s interview with 48 Hours. It can be hard to remember just how risky this move really was, though I wish the show had tried. Gianni name drops Elton and only Elton, and in truth there were few other living, publicly out celebrities at the time. Donatella mostly speaks to how it will affect the business, and it’s clear that while she sees this as a company decision for Versace, Gianni sees it as a personal one.

While there’s certainly bravery in Gianni’s choice, the juxtaposition with Jeff’s story is a stark reminder of the way Gianni’s wealth, control of his company, insulated him from feeling the full force of his decision. As Donatella reminded him, not everyone lived as surrounded by beauty and kindness as he did. Jeff, too, had other privileges in his favor, like his race and the fact that he wasn’t visibly queer.

Many episodes of this installment of ACS have been disturbing, but this one falls more on the side of heartbreaking. The final image of Jeff’s sparse apartment as his mother leaves message after message on his answering machine is haunting. It’s made all the worse by the content of her messages, which remind us how excited Jeff was to be an uncle.

★★★★½

The Assassination of Gianni Versace Episode 5 Review: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

Versace: Watch Jeff Trail’s Real-Life Interview About Being Gay in the Military

Wednesday night’s episode of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace features two very different coming-out scenes. In one, set in 1995, Gianni Versace openly discusses his sexuality with a reporter from The Advocate, even introducing his longtime boyfriend Antonio D’Amico during the interview. This refreshing, meaningful moment is intercut with a scene during which Jeff Trail—an ensign and a Gulf War veteran who was later murdered by Andrew Cunanan—risks his career to participate in a segment for CBS news magazine 48 Hours called “Gays in the Military.”

Reporter Richard Schlesinger, who interviewed the real Trail in 1993, later recalled that the U.S. Naval Academy graduate “chose to speak to us because he thought it was the right thing to do.”

The segment coincided with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and a change in the policy on gay people serving in the military.

“He did the interview in silhouette but he was still taking a tremendous risk with his career,” said Schlesinger. “He had absolutely nothing to gain by doing the interview. Yet he took the risk and spoke out.”

Trail warned Schlesinger, “You’re going to weaken our national defense if you remove gays from the military. And you’ll never be able to do it 100 percent, it’s just whether or not you’ll continue to hunt us and force us to fear.”

Asked whether he felt comfortable speaking from the literal shadows to protect his identity, Trail said, “There is nothing I would like more than to be lit up [here] and tell you who I am and show you who I am. But I am not allowed to do that… It’s [only] comfortable for me because I know I will be able to continue to serve my country and do my job and do it right. That’s what I care about most.”

To prepare to play Trail on American Crime Story, actor Finn Wittrock told Vanity Fair’s Still Watching podcast that he watched footage from the 48 Hoursspecial on repeat: “That was my bible. I would watch that and listen to that every day.”

Wittrock said that when he first read the scripts for the series in the summer of 2017, he thought that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was such a “dated” concept.

“‘I don’t know if people are going to be able to relate to that,’’’ Wittrock remembered thinking. “Then a week later there was the transgender military Trump ban…Suddenly I thought, ‘Oh wow. How many steps we take forward and how many we take back.’ So suddenly I was examining the whole story in that way. How relevant is this still? Sadly, so much of it is still relevant.”

Wittrock, who is not gay himself, said that he prepared for the role by speaking to gay men who were “in their 40s or 50s and lived through this period when they weren’t [out].” Ultimately though, Wittrock was struck by how much he had in common with Trail: “Besides my sexuality, I could be Jeff Trail. There’s very little, I found, that separates us in that way.”

Versace: Watch Jeff Trail’s Real-Life Interview About Being Gay in the Military

American Crime Story: Versace: How Penelope Cruz Became Donatella

One of the biggest joys of watching a Ryan Murphy series—at least, the ones based on real life—is seeing exactly how it physically transforms stars into the characters they play. On The People vs. O.J. Simpson, impeccably dowdy wigs morphed Sarah Paulson into Marcia Clark. On Feud, perfectly defined brows and a careful swipe of eyeliner turned Jessica Lange into a dead ringer for Joan Crawford. And on The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Penelope Cruz has pulled off one of the most drastic transformations yet, taking on the role of her friend Donatella Versace.

How much hair and make-up did that take—and what, exactly, is going on with her plump upper lip? We spoke with the show’s costume designers and hair and make-up team to find out.

THE CLOTHES

The costume team for Versace consistently worked at breakneck speed due to production constraints, yet their work perfectly captures the Versace era—both the world of high fashion and the grungier elements of the 90s, through the parallel story of Versace murderer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss). This was no small feat, considering the team had no help from the Versace family.

When it came to capturing Donatella’s iconic look, costume designers Lou Eyrichand Allison Leach started with the basics—specifically, that tiny waist.

“I feel that a big part of the silhouette for Donatella was the corset, to get that really structured waist,” Eyrich said. “That tiny-waist look was a big part of it, and then the bodycon… And Penelope has a rocking figure as well, so as far as getting that same silhouette, that was easy. And then once Ana and Massimo added the wig and the makeup, Penelope would just magically transform.”

One of the signature Versace looks the two were most excited—and nervous—to recreate was that notorious bondage dress, which Donatella famously wore to the Met Gala in 1996. Leach said recreating that memorable look was both “very exciting and harrowing.”

“It is such an iconic dress, and it it was scripted that it definitely needed to be that dress to tell the story of her coming into her of her own stardom,” Leach continued, describing a scene the series depicts in episode 7. “Just from a construction standpoint and materials, it was such beautiful leather dress that had to fit perfectly—and all these different angles that the neck and the you know skirt had to swath just, just right.” That dress, Leach said, was one of the most challenging items on the show’s list—but also the most rewarding.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Donatella on Versace is how her appearance changes after her brother’s death. Each department made its own contribution to that effort. For costumes, it meant keeping things somber. Though Leach and her team kept the character’s clothes fitted–and of course designer—they also avoided low-cut necklines, and kept Cruz a little more covered up in scenes set after the murder. “I would think that she would feel, you know, maybe safer in those layers,” Leach explained. “And, you know, there’s always elements of jewelry and stuff, but sometimes we downplayed it a little bit to make it more appropriate for the tone of the scene.”

THE FACE

Perhaps the biggest challenge in turning Cruz into Donatella was morphing her face—an effort spearheaded by Cruz’s make-up artist, Ana Lozano.

Lozano said thatshe and Cruz did a lot of their make-up tests back in Spain, before they even got on the plane to film. Together, they sifted through photos of Donatella’s looks, calibrating smokey eyes and contouring to get just the right balance. And if you’ve been wondering what, exactly, is making Cruz’s upper lip so plump on the series, the answer is more obvious than you’d think: it’s an instrument literally called “Plumper.”

“It’s a kind of dental prosthetic to make her lips bigger,” Lozano said. The effect also gives Cruz a slightly different-looking face. “Penelope has enough lips in reality,” Lozano clarified, but in real life, they are a different shape than those of the woman she plays. Lozano also used contouring to finish the look and further define Cruz’s lips—as well as to lightly massage the rest of her features into a more Donatella-like illusion.

Lozano tried using prosthetics for Cruz’s eyebrows, but in the end, it was simpler and more natural-looking to simply bleach them and give them a thinner shape. Then came the eyes—those smoky, smoky eyes. As Lozano notes, smokey eyes have changed over time; in the 90s, they had a rounder look, rather than the more cat-like approach that’s become popular now.

Like the costume team, Lozano worked to make sure Cruz’s “Donatella” physically changed after her brother’s death. She made her skin a little paler, and made her eye make-up just slightly less perfect—“just to make the impression that she was crying and she was not sleeping.” (Lozano adds that she particularly likes Cruz in slightly destroyed make-up, as it “gives more importance to the look.”) For the scenes set after Gianni’s death, Lozano also contoured Cruz a little more aggressively, making her features just a little sunken.

Cruz, Lozano said, was constantly practicing, working to get her portrayal just right; sometimes, Lozano even recorded the actress so she could review her facial expressions, or the way she gestured. “At the end,” Lozano said, “it’s like you press a button; it’s like, Wow. She is Donatella.”

THAT HAIR

Like Lozano, Cruz’s hair stylist Massimo Gattabrussi started working with Cruz in Madrid before making the final wigs for the series. When Cruz called Gattabrussi about the project, the stylist recalls he “remained silent for a few seconds.” Once his excitement for the challenge took over, he said, “I understood that it would be brilliant.” He used a photo book Donatella produced in 2016—Versace—to become more acquainted with the icon’s past.

Gattabrussi and Cruz tested color, hair quality, and style with about nine prototypes to ensure they got the right balance of characteristics. The stylist has long collaborated with the historical Italian studio Rocchetti-Rome, which allows him to participate in the construction and finalization of the wigs—which, he said, “is very important for me because of my close knowledge of Penelope and its physical and gestural characteristics.” In the end, they narrowed down their choice to three pieces, all of which made it on the series—two with bangs, one golden and the other platinum, and the third without bangs, with longer hair to give the illusion of extensions. As Gattabrussi put it, he’s “always looking in a line between real and fiction.”

How did Gattabrussi help the show’s Donatella express her grief after losing her brother? That’s what the third, bangs-less wig was for. 1997, he said, “was a sad year to represent.” In addition to tailoring the wig to fit the time’s fashion trends—longer, heavier hair without bangs—Gattabrussi said he “paid attention to detail like having increased the regrowth of dark hair to the root.” That, he said, helped the wig offer a more realistic image, and slightly lowered “the flash of platinum” that’s always been associated with Donatella’s powerful and iconic image.

American Crime Story: Versace: How Penelope Cruz Became Donatella

Behind the Title: Encore (and Ryan Murphy) Colorist Kevin Kirwan – Randi Altman’s postPerspective

HOW HAS THE VISUAL STYLE EVOLVED OVER THE YEARS AS YOU AND RYAN HAVE WORKED TOGETHER?
It’s a show-by-show thing. Shows like Glee, or something like the new series that we just started, 911, are pretty straightforward, nothing stylized, good contrast, nice poppy colors, don’t go too dark, feature the performance, make sure you can see into the actors’ expressions… that sort of thing.

American Horror Story is a different creature each season. These anthology series are fun because even though it’s technically the same show each time, the seasons all have their own theme. The look is much more tailored to fit the individual story. Season 2, which was called Asylum, was my favorite in terms of look. Very desaturated, dark and moody. It was a grungy, forbidding vibe that I really had fun with.

We just finished the second season of American Crime. This one was The Assassination of Gianni Versace. It’s very warm and colorful, especially when we were in Miami, but as we descended into Andrew Cunanan’s world it got a bit dirty, and we got to play a bit.

The first season of American Crime, The People Vs. OJ Simpson, was pretty gritty. It had a really tight look and a nice period feel.

Behind the Title: Encore (and Ryan Murphy) Colorist Kevin Kirwan – Randi Altman’s postPerspective