Tag: collider

Emmy Nominations 2018: Netflix Beats HBO For The First Time

Nominations for the 70th annual Emmy Awards were announced today. The list of nominees are varied with some standby shows and some love for some newer or freshman shows. Netflix beat HBO for the first time in the streaming service’s history with 112 nominations this year which is up from their 91 nominations last year. However, HBO’s Game of Thrones led the field of shows with 22 nominations overall followed by NBC’s SNL and HBO’s Westworld with 21 nominations and Hulu’s The Handmaid’s tale receiving 20 nominations. As for freshman series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel received 14 nominations and HBO’s Barry received 13 nominations. Some surprises included no acting nominations for Game of Thrones in any of the Lead categories, Twin Peaks not being nominated for Best Limited Series, YouTube Red’s Cobra Kai only getting one nomination, and NBC’s The Good Place being shut out in the Comedy categories. | 12 July 2018

*ACS Versace mention at 2:19

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Cody Fern on the Unique Career Path That Led Him to ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’

From executive producer Ryan Murphy, the FX limited series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story illustrates what happened when the cross-country path of destruction of spree-killer Andrew Cunanan (chillingly played by Darren Criss) landed on the steps of the 1997 South Beach residence of Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez), where the international fashion icon was murdered. Based on the book Vulgar Favors by Maureen Orth, the series examines how fame, wealth and failed ambition collided with homophobia and prejudice, and ultimately delayed law enforcement’s search for one of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Australian actor Cody Fern talked about the crazy career path he’s currently on, playing David Madson (spree killer Andrew Cunanan’s former lover and second victim) on Gianni Versace, the incredible experience of having Darren Criss and Finn Wittrock as scene partners, how working with Ryan Murphy changed him, as an actor, going from American Crime Story to House of Cards, the pressure of joining an acclaimed series in its final season, working on projects with a high level of secrecy, and why he’s already started writing and directing.

Collider: You were great in The Tribes of Palos Verdes and you’ve been a real stand-out in The Assassination of Gianni Versace. And next, you’re going to be in the final season of House of Cards, which is a very intense series. It seems like it must be a good time to be you, right now.

CODY FERN: Yeah, I’m enjoying my life, at the moment. But, it’s all just work. The thing that I’m grateful for is that I get to work.

When you think about what you thought your acting career might be, what’s it like to line up roles like this, working with the level of talent that you’ve been working with?

FERN: It’s crazy! All I can say is that I’m just so, so, so grateful. I think it all begins with great writing. You’re only as good as the writing, and I’ve had the great fortune of working on great writing, so that really, really helps. But, yeah, it’s wild. It’s really wild! I’m just taking it one day at a time, and putting my head down and doing the work. I’m trying to think of it less like a big role and look at it more like a microcosm of, “I’m just going to do this amount of work and this is what I’m going to do to prepare for it.” It’s so crazy to work with Ryan Murphy, and then work in the David Fincher world with Robin Wright. She’s so phenomenal. She’s just an incredible actress and an even better human being. I’m flippin’ out!

What’s it like to go from the set of Gianni Versace to the set of House of Cards? Is it nerve-wracking to be a part of the final season of a show?

FERN: I don’t think that it’s nerve-wracking, knowing that it’s the final season of the show. I think that it’s exhilarating, especially because I’ve watched House of Cards since Season 1 and I’ve been a genuine fan of the show. The most nerve-wracking part is the fact that I have so loved the show. It’s the same with Ryan Murphy. So, the nerves, for me, don’t come so much from being on set, but from being a fan, and that’s difficult to reconcile. I was on set for House of Cards, and we weren’t shooting, but I walked into the Oval Office and it was so overwhelming because it was something that I’d watched for the last five years. As an actor, it’s beyond a dream. You say, “I wanna be on House of Cards one day,” and you really hope and pray that you might get an audition, and then you might get in the room and, if you’re very fortunate, you might get a small role. I don’t think you ever think, “Oh, my god, I’m gonna be a new season regular on this show that I’ve loved for so long.” I guess I’m more nervous, as a fan of the show, than I am for any other reason. The reason I say that is that both sets are incredibly down to earth, supportive, creative, and all about the work. With House of Cards, Frank Pugliese has written an episode and Melissa Gibson has written an episode. Those are phenomenal writers, in their own right. With Versace, Tom Rob Smith wrote an episode, and I got to work with (director) Daniel Minahan. You’re so supported that any nerves go out the window because you know everyone is there to do their best work, and everybody is supporting you and rooting for you.

Does it feel different when you walk onto a set where everyone is there for the first time, like with Gianni Versace, as opposed to walking onto a set with an established rhythm, like with House of Cards?

FERN: Yes, absolutely! There’s a lot of pressure. It’s a lot of pressure, but I feel supported and excited by it. I think nerves are part and parcel of working as an actor. You can either work against them, or you can embrace them, and I very much embrace them. The nerves are excitement, in a strange way. If you weren’t nervous than you’d be in trouble.

House of Cards seems like it’s the most secretive of the projects that you’ve worked on. What’s it like to be a part of something that’s so secretive?

FERN: It was the same with Versace. It was so highly under wraps. People only figured out that I was in the show when the show started airing. Ryan is very specific about what information he wants revealed and when. That was crazy because Versace had started airing and nobody even knew that I was in the show. I had signed an NDA contract. With House of Cards, it’s another ball game. I don’t mean another ball game, in terms of status because I think they’re both top shelf shows, but there’s so much attention surrounding this season of House of Cards and so much speculation. I’ve been sent articles about the show that have falsely reported what’s happening. Collectively, as a cast, we’re not denying any rumors and we’re not addressing any of them. We’re just saying, “Okay, people really have a thirst for what’s going to happen,” but we don’t even know yet, so there’s that.

You weren’t on a path to becoming an actor. You were on the path toward a very different career. Had you always wanted to be an actor and just didn’t pursue it, or was there something that sparked that desire and got you to take that chance?

FERN: It was impossible for me to pursue, to be honest. I grew up in a town with just under three hundred people in Western Australia. When you think about being six hours outside the second most isolated city in the world, which is Perth, and then you think about the town that I’m from, which is called Southern Cross, acting is not a possibility. University feels like a world away. I went to uni and I studied commerce on a scholarship, and that was crazy and wild, in and of itself. I was never exposed to acting. I think the first real play I saw was when I was 22, and the first time I ever acted, and it wasn’t professionally, was when I was in 24, and that was in acting class. The concept of acting wasn’t something that was possible, but I’ve always known that I wanted to do it because I’d watched so many films and I was so engaged with them. It was an internal driving force, but it wasn’t a possibility. The short version of the story, in terms of whether there was a moment, really came from seeing Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth. That was the moment, as a teenager, that I really understand that this was what I wanted to do. Whatever she was doing was what I wanted to do. I didn’t have a concept of how she was doing it, of the structure around it or what it meant, but I knew that that was what I wanted to do. And then, seeing her ten years later in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, the lightbulb went off. The switch was flipped and there was no going back. It stimulated something where I realized, looking ten years back and looking at where I was in my life, at that point in time, what I was doing, what my trajectory was and what I was going to become, I knew that I had to change something rapidly. If I was going to do the thing that I loved so much, than I needed to do it. It wasn’t about wishing and dreaming and hoping. I actually needed to do it. That’s what changed everything.

One of the things that’s always true about everything Ryan Murphy is a part of is that he pushes all of his actors in ways that even they might not realize they’re capable of and they all get a chance to shine. How did your experience on American Crime Story change you and make you grow, as an actor?

FERN: That’s a great question. So much is said about Ryan being a creative genius, which he absolutely is. The word “genius” is thrown around too much and too often, and it should be reserved for people like Ryan. But then you meet Ryan, and you realize that not enough is said about how kind, how generous and how down to earth he is. He’s this mythological figure. When you meet him and you get to work on one of his shows, you’re already bringing everything inside of you – all of your skill, all of your talent and all of your willpower – because you’re working with Ryan Murphy and you know he’s the very best. You know that he’s the real deal. And then, he gets the best writers and the best directors. Daniel Minahan, who directed Episode 4, “House by the Lake,” and Episode 5, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” is such a brilliant director, and that support structure was there. The thing that I’ve learned, working on this production, in terms of growth as an actor, is that it really is about risk. Ryan encourages you to risk everything. I don’t mean that just as one choice that you might make in a scene. It’s about everything.

It’s a state of mind, in acting. You have to risk being in a dangerous place, emotionally. You have to risk everything for the person that you’re in the scene with and you have to give everything up to the story. You’re working with a real person, on Versace. This is a person who was really murdered and whose story needs to be told. Viola Davis said that you exhume the body and tell those stories because they’re the stories that we need to hear, and you feel a responsibility to that. The thing Ryan does is trust you. He employs the very best people. Having somebody like Ryan put his faith in you, you bring your very best. I don’t think you’d last a day on set, if you weren’t bringing your best. Working on Versace, I learned to risk everything, to risk looking stupid and to risk everything, and to not leave anything behind. I learned to give everything over. You may fall and you may fail, but if you fail, he’s gonna be there to catch you and the material is gonna be there to catch you. You can’t fall very far. You’re not falling into concrete.

You had Darren Criss and Finn Wittrock to go through this with, and the work that the three of you did together is truly remarkable. How did you find the experience of working with them?

FERN: They’re so incredible. They’re such incredible people. Darren’s work is phenomenal. The thing about working with Darren is that he’s so off-the-cuff and improvisational within the material. I don’t mean that he’s making things up. Darren can give you 500 choices for delivering one line, and each of them can be true, so you really have to be on your toes with him. He keeps you alive, in the moment, because you don’t know how where he’s gonna go or how it’s gonna be played. That’s thrilling, as an actor. You can’t fall into the place of just giving a response that you’ve rehearsed. You don’t have that luxury, working with Darren. You’ve gotta be alive, in the moment. That is a real gift. And we just got along so well. It was the same with Finn. Finn is a very specific actor and he’s incredibly grounded in his work. The three of us knew the relationship between these three men. We start with the death, so we’re at the most intense point of the story, and then we get to unravel it backwards. We were all discovering it together. To build back, to a time and place where they were friends, they were lovers, and the times were golden, was great because we got to build that relationship as friends and chemistry is everything.

Since Ryan Murphy has a knack for getting his hooks into actors and not letting them go. Are you game to jump into any other world that he might have a role for you in?

FERN: I would work with Ryan, again and again and again and again, until the end of time. I know that that’s the way that everybody feels, working with Ryan. To work with Ryan again, I would jump into whatever world he wants me to. When you see the work that Sarah Paulson, Kathy Bates, Jessica Lange and Evan Peters have done, it’s incredible to see the roles that they’ve gotten to play. Denis O’Hare is one of the most underrated actors of his generation. I loved what he did in Hotel. There’s no way that I wouldn’t work with Ryan again. I mean, it always depends on the role and the script, but at the end of the day, I would work with Ryan again.

You’re still pretty new in your acting career, but you’re already also dipping your toe into writing and directing. What made you also want to get behind the camera and not just work in front of it?

FERN: I think that came from the fact that I’ve always known that I would eventually write and direct. That’s something that I’ve always wanted for myself. I just didn’t think it would happen so fast. The actual path towards the short film (Pisces), which was produced by Nancy Grant and Xavier Dolan, was because I was very frustrated, at the time. I had moved out to L.A. and I was always close to getting the roles, but just wasn’t getting them. I was working at such a high level that I was missing out on roles to people, like Dane DeHaan and Miles Teller. I’ve never met Joe Cole, but we’ve had this strange thing, where it’s always been down to myself, Joe and one other person. I was frustrated, so I was writing, at the time, and I thought, “Well, if I don’t get to do what I want to be doing and what I love doing, than I’m gonna make it happen for myself, and I’m gonna write, I’m gonna direct and I’m gonna act.” That propelled me in that direction. All of the skills informed each of the others. They’re not mutually exclusive. Writing really helps you, as an actor, directing really helps you, as an actor, and acting really helps you, as a director. I’ll be directing my first feature film in 2019. I’ve got a pretty full-on year, this year, but I’ll be going ahead with the feature, which will be produced by Nancy Grant. I can’t talk too much about what it will be, since I’ve gotta wait for the announcement, but I’m excited about directing my first feature. I really enjoy collaborating. Writing and directing was born out of a frustration of not being given the opportunities that I would have killed for, and that was taking me on one path, until Versace came along and House of Cards came along. Now, I’m being pulled on a different path, and that’s exhilarating.

Cody Fern on the Unique Career Path That Led Him to ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’

Why ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Is Not the Show You Think

When FX announced a new anthology series American Crime Story, from prolific writer/producer/director Ryan Murphy, there was skepticism aplenty. That doubled when we learned that the initial season would revolve around the trial of O.J. Simpson. But to almost everyone’s surprise, The People v. O.J. Simpson was excellent. It was enthralling, wonderfully crafted, and most importantly insightful—the series brought new layers to a well-known event, highlighting the misogyny, bias, and racism that hung over the entire trial like a heavy cloud.

Because of that success, any skepticism went out the window for the second season, The Assassination of Gianni Versace. But while the show had a heavy marketing campaign from FX and debuted a month ago, the series has failed to capture the zeitgeist the same way O.J. did. Ratings are down sharply from the previous season, as there simply didn’t seem to be much interest in a retelling of the murder of the titular fashion designer. However, those that are actually watching Versace know that the show Murphy and writer Tom Rob Smith (who penned every episode) have crafted is something wildly different from what the promos would lead you to believe.

Indeed, while the marketing for Versace revolved around the glamorous life of Gianni Versace (played by Edgar Ramirez in the series) and his sister Donatella (Penelope Cruz), the series is something of a bait-and-switch. It opens by showing us a slice of Versace’s life, and the first episode ends with his murder. From then on, the story works backwards, tracing the steps that led to this devastating event. But Versace isn’t the show’s focus—his killer, Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) is. Indeed, Versace barely even appears in the show’s third and fourth episodes, as the series puts its focus squarely on Cunanan.

Versace was actually the fourth person Cunanan killed, and the show is now taking its time in providing context to those first few killings, which put Cunanan on the path towards taking Versace’s life. In the process, Murphy and Smith are offering a terrifying portrait of a killer in the vein of American Psycho. The show’s tonal touchstones have far more in common with that film or Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic Psycho than they do with any kind of wealth porn or hagiographic story of celebrity.

The series is also really zeroing in on Cunanan’s struggles with his homosexuality, and how that contrasts and compares with Versace’s experience as a gay man—albeit one of wealth and fame. Cunanan was clearly mentally ill from the get-go, constantly lying about things big and small and living in his own fantasyland. He worked as an escort for older, oftentimes wealthy men living in the closet, and the show posits that his jealousy and disgust may have been motivating factors in what led him to kill.

Indeed, the mid to late 1990s were still rife with stigma for homosexuals, especially in the wake of the AIDS crisis, and Cunanan had zero empathy or sympathy for closeted men who were ashamed of their sexuality. Was this his sole motivation for killing? Probably not, but American Crime Story makes a compelling case for it to have been a factor nevertheless.

The show’s third and fourth episodes are largely contained, playing out almost like mini horror movies—especially Episode 3, in which we stick with Cunanan in real-time through his first two murders. Given that the individuals involved in these attacks are all dead, the show is obviously dramatizing the exact conversations that went on, but again it’s making an intriguing argument about Cunanan’s motive, which has eluded many for the last few decades.

All of that said, Versace still hasn’t reached the heights of The People v. O.J. The fractured/Memento-esque narrative is compelling at times, but it can also be frustrating, and to be quite honest the Versace-centric portions—at least thus far—lack a certain “oomph” that the rest of the show seems to have. The very best reason to be watching Versace is Darren Criss, who delivers an absolutely phenomenal and terrifying performance as Cunanan. This is a multi-dimensional, complicated, and bold performance as Criss can turn Cunanan’s personality on a dime, in a manner that’ll send chills down your spine.

So if you saw the promotional materials for Versace and thought this would be a series about wealth and glamor and life in the spotlight, it is very much not that show. The series certainly touches on some of these issues, but Cunanan is undoubtedly the protagonist here, and Ramirez’s Versace is but a minor player in the overall story that Murphy and Smith are telling. And thus far, it’s a fascinating and downright disturbing one.

Why ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Is Not the Show You Think

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Episode 2 “Manhunt” Review

Episode 2, “Manhunt”, of FX’s ‘American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ from creator Ryan Murphy aired last night starring Edgar Ramirez, Penelope Cruz, Darren Criss and Ricky Martin. This is Murphy’s second foray into a true crime story fresh on the heels of the success of ‘American Crime Story: The People vs O.J. Simpson’. The show focuses on the murder of Gianni Versace as it turns the eyes of the world onto Miami Beach. | 25 January 2018

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Edgar Ramirez on ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’

From executive producer Ryan Murphy, the FX limited series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story illustrates what happened when the cross-country path of destruction of spree-killer Andrew Cunanan (chillingly played by Darren Criss) landed on the steps of the 1997 South Beach residence of Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez), where the international fashion icon was murdered. Based on the book Vulgar Favors by Maureen Orth, the series examines how fame, wealth and failed ambition collided with homophobia and prejudice, which ultimately delayed law enforcement’s search for one of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted.

While at the TCA Press Tour presentation for FX, Collider got the opportunity to sit down with Edgar Ramirez for this 1-on-1 interview about the appeal of playing Gianni Versace, why he needed some convincing that he was right for the role, the relationship between Gianni and Donatella (Penelope Cruz), the homophobia that clouded the manhunt, whether he spoke to anyone in the Versace family, working with this incredible cast, and why he’d collaborate with Ryan Murphy again.

Collider: Really fantastic work in this!

EDGAR RAMIREZ: Thank you very much!

What was the appeal of signing on for something like this?

RAMIREZ: Gianni was a disrupter. I have a very strong attraction to characters that somehow consciously or unconsciously change history, and that was the case with Gianni. He changed the time that he lived in and had a huge impact on culture. The culture of fame and celebrity and the obsession with bling and fashion was something that he basically created. We’re living in a time that was partially forged by Gianni. That was very appealing to me.

Gianni Versace also seemed very aware of just how much he was changing things, as he was doing it.

RAMIREZ: Yeah. He didn’t have any choice because he was an outsider and he always lived as an outsider. He had no other choice but to change things because he was always looking in from the outside and he had to force his way in. That was something that had marked him, since he was a kid. He was always ready to fight and to change things because nothing was gonna be given to him or handed to him, and that’s something he had experienced since he was a kid.

It’s interesting that Donatella did seem to initially be as driven as Gianni, and he had to push her out there a little bit.

RAMIREZ: They were a dynamic duo. Donatella was Gianni’s soundboard. And then, later on, she became the force that she is today. At the time, she was his little sister, but she was very important to him.

Did you get to talk to Donatella Versace, at all, or do you know what she thought of you taking on this role?

RAMIREZ: No. I wanted to be as respectful as possible with her and with the family, in general. This is a family that went through a horrible tragedy. I speak on behalf of all of us, that we wanted to be as respectful and compassionate as possible, so we took on this project with the utmost respect for the family and for their loss. Deep inside, I think that one of our greatest hopes is to get some facts right for people. Even today, people who you would think would be informed aren’t informed. People have a lot of facts wrong, based on the prejudice and all of the stigma that surrounded this case. With Gianni, there was victim blaming, at the time. There are still people today that suggest that he had it coming because he invited his killer into his house, and it wasn’t that way. That speaks about a greater subject that I actually think is the theme of the whole series, which is homophobia. Gianni was basically killed because of homophobia. Something that comes back, over and over, when you look into this investigation is the don’t ask, don’t tell element. This is an investigation that was dusted over because all of the victims were gay men. A guy who was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list, and who was on national television every night for months and months, was never caught. At the time, which was only 20 years ago, he didn’t represent a public threat because he was only killing gay guys. Even the title of the series, The Assassination, has a political overtone, which is very important because he was targeted. For me, it was very interesting to be a part of that. One of Ryan Murphy’s biggest and most precious talents is the fact that he’s always sensitive enough and sharp enough to find and identify stories that are dramatically gripping, and at the same time, they speak about greater subjects that are going on in society.

What was it like to work with this incredible cast, including Penelope Cruz, Ricky Martin and Darren Criss?

RAMIREZ: Everyone was very committed and very respectful. We just wanted to do the story in the most respectful way possible because we all feel a lot of admiration for what Versace did and for what the family overcame, after his assassination. We had a sense of clarity and a sense of compassion that really played into the story. It’s a love story and a family story.

Even though this is, at times, dark material, you must have had so much fun making it.

RAMIREZ: Yes, very much!

Ryan Murphy seems like someone who, once he gets his hooks in you, you never get out of his ensemble of actors. Are you game to work with him again, in one of his wild worlds?

RAMIREZ: Absolutely! Anytime! It’s great, what he’s been able to accomplish. He’s basically created a studio where people are empowered to come up with ideas and let their obsessions be free. Ryan is very faithful to his obsessions. He’s alluring and seductive enough to make you participate with his obsessions, and that is an amazing talent. I’ve worked with amazing people in this series, not only with my cast, who’s a dream cast, but everyone on the crew. Honestly, I’m not just trying to be nice. I’m just excited about it. Everyone, from the props people to the production designers to my make-up and hair people, is so in command of what they’re doing. That is a beautiful culture to work in. It’s not a fear-based culture.

He also seems to see things in his actors that they don’t even necessarily think or know that they can do.

RAMIREZ: He was the one who convinced me to become Versace. I didn’t see it, myself. It took a bit of convincing for me to decide to gamble on this. He was the one who saw it. I didn’t see it. I never imagined that I would be invited to play Versace. It’s something that didn’t cross my mind, and now I’m so happy.

When did you finally feel that you’d gotten why you should be playing Gianni Versace?

RAMIREZ: There were two moments. There was one when we were doing a photo shoot for the series, before we started, and I suddenly felt the physicality. Gianni was a strong guy, but he didn’t come off strong. His shoulders were a little bit forward. Those things are very delicate. I was always cautious and I wanted to be as respectful to his persona as possible. So, during that photo shoot, I played some music that Gianni liked and we were taking pictures with the models, and then I felt like something was coming alive. I felt like maybe his physicality wasn’t that far off. I was channeling him somehow. And then, there was a beautiful scene with Penelope [Cruz], where I felt that his heart was there. It was a process, but in that photo shoot, I felt that he was coming to life. It was a creative moment. We were taking pictures for real, and I felt like maybe that’s how Gianni felt when he was doing publicity pictures for his company. It was that moment where I felt like, “Okay, I think this is gonna be fun. I think this is clicking.” It was very fashionable.

Edgar Ramirez on ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Premiere Review: Can it Compare to OJ?

FX’s ‘American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ from creator Ryan Murphy premiered last night starring Edgar Ramirez, Penelope Cruz, Darren Criss and Ricky Martin. This is Murphy’s second foray into a true crime story fresh on the heels of the success of ‘American Crime Story: The People vs O.J. Simpson’. The show focuses on the murder of Gianni Versace as it turns the eyes of the world onto Miami Beach.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Review: A Mild Second Helping of ‘American Crime Story’

Early on into the second season of American Crime Story, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, the titular victim, portrayed by Edgar Ramirez, is outfitting an opera singer with a dress and gives away his secret. He makes a number of final alterations and explains to her that the way he can tell if a piece is done is when the model looks happy in it, not when he’s happy with it. It’s the pleasure, trust, and comfort of others that gives him satisfaction, even as he follows his own unique track of taste when envisioning his latest lines of clothing.

The importance and danger of carefully tailored aesthetics is at the heart of Ryan Murphy‘s latest, in which he serves as executive producer and directs the first episode. Just as Versace tailored his works to suit the humans who wore them, Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), the man who killed Versace, tailored everything from his outfit to the way he spoke to blend in, to not be noticed unless he specifically wanted to be. He is the inverse of Versace, whose creations bore a boldness that initially hid his homosexuality and HIV-positive status. The show harps on the contrasting forces of Versace’s awakening as an out gay man with money, vision, and a dedicated partner (Ricky Martin) and Cunanan’s expertise at creating a pleasant, seemingly thoughtful exterior to hide an eternal emptiness. It’s interesting material but not long in, you wonder if that’s all Murphy and his creative team have on their mind.

In truth, the style of exteriors that Versace and Cunanan glom onto respectively feeds into one of Murphy’s chief obsessions: the art of storytelling. Where Versace uses stories to open up others and connect with them, Cunanan is written as a nimble yet desperate creator of his own history and personal experience. In an early scene, he’s confronted by a would-be lover about his constant lying, and eventually icily tell his friend that he just does what he has to fit in. It’s why he prepares a story about his mother’s time in Italy for Versace, who seemingly constantly ached for the days of his youth and his mother’s home in Calabria. In Murphy and company’s estimation, what both of these men understand is how personality and experience grip people, whether they happen to be illusory or not.

It would be unfair to say that Murphy’s series, as written by Tom Rob Smith, is as empty as Cunanan comes off as in the first few episodes, but there is a certain feeling of coasting here. The variety of personalities and levels of intimate detail that powered the first season of American Crime Story has been narrowed here to largely focus just on murderer and victim. Murphy and Smith add a number of characters to fill out the story, most notably Penelope Cruz‘s Donatella Versace, Gianni’s little sister and inheritor of his empire, but there’s a beguiling hesitancy to dig into their own interior lives in the same manner as Versace, Cunanan, and, to a far lesser extent, Martin’s Antonio D’Amico. The series’ one potent thematic idea is worn down to a nub by the time the third episode begins.

What’s left is all plot, a wildly interesting and entertaining story filmed and told competently with exuberant performances, but without much to say about what Versace’s death or Cunanan’s murder spree meant to Smith and Murphy. The only scenes that really pop are those in which Cunanan is trying to figure people out and, in response, attempts to figure his own sense of performance out. There’s a hypnotic sequence in which he nearly suffocates a potential victim with duct tape as he dances around in bikini briefs to Philip Bailey and Phil Collins’ “Easy Lover.” In moments like these, there’s a feeling that the show is trying to retread a similar path as American Psycho in critiquing an obsession with veneers and frivolous culture over the interior and personal mettle but it’s developed haphazardly and there’s no attempt to dig into the politics of the 1990s with any seriousness.

Most of all, The Assassination of Gianni Versace feels like Murphy’s victory lap after The People vs. O.J. Simpson did so well, both critically and amongst audiences. For all its weightlessness, Smith’s writing is propulsive and not without its flourishes of wit, and the cast elevates the more monotonous passages with physical vigor and an unwaveringly attentive sense of timing and delivery. Versace and Antonio’s relationship is delicately and convincingly rendered, which initially gives off the sense that Murphy is also attempting to discuss and critique the perception of AIDS, the fashion world, celebrities, and gay relationships in the 90s. If that’s so, none of it hits home beyond a base fascination, and the show’s creators seem a bit apprehensive of getting into the messy details, as much as their depiction of a working artist as with the meticulous planning of a serial killer or the building of a celebrity’s public persona and subsequent personal repression.

For those who have a fascination with serial killers, there’s bound to be something here that will exhilarate, even in its flippant treatment of sociopathic behavior and obsession. There’s even a notable reference to Tom Noonan‘s Red Dragon in Michael Mann‘s Manhunter that makes Murphy’s fondness for serial-killer dramas of the 1980s and 1990s palpable, but the style that he and his creative team fashion here is neither as dazzling and captivating as Versace’s nor as deceptive and studied as Cunanan’s. What might have been a furious reflection on the worth of style and aesthetic as compared to the humanity encased within such frames and settings is boiled down to an extensive Wikipedia page, more interested in the facts of the case than why the case was so important and shocking to the zeitgeist in the first place.

Rating: ★★ – Fair; Only for the dedicated.

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Review: A Mild Second Helping of ‘American Crime Story’