Tag: darren criss

Darren Criss was concerned about playing serial killer Andrew Cunanan

Darren Criss first rose to fame as gay teenager Blaine Anderson on musical series Glee. Since the show finished in 2015, Criss has tried his hand at Broadway – appearing in Hedwig and the Angry Inch in the same year – as well as releasing music alongside his brother Chuck with their project Computer Games. Now, the 31-year-old has stepped into the shoes of Andrew Cunanan, the serial killer responsible for gunning down legendary fashion designer Gianni Versace in 1997, for the new nine-episode series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. Criss sat down with WHO whilst in Australia to chat all things Versace, his future plans and his upcoming tour with former Glee co-star Lea Michele.

WHO: How much did you know about Andrew Cunanan’s role in Versace death?

About as much as I think most people [knew] unless you were working in fashion in the ‘90s or living in Miami. I knew that he was shot and I vaguely remember that he was shot by someone who was half Filipino, that was about it, I only would have clocked that in because I’m half Filipino but other than that, I didn’t know a whole lot so like most people when you start to realise that he had a much larger history, not only personally but as far as how many more homicides there were, you just go ‘Oh my god how did I not know about this?’ and then the answer to that question is in the show, like ‘How did we not know about this?’ well X, Y and Z.

WHO: Did you feel any pressure in how you represented Andrew in the series?

I didn’t feel any more pressure than I feel for any role, which is to say that I treat all roles with the same sort of TLC, I’m really making sure that everyone’s taken care of. Now Andrew’s tricky because he was a real person and so I think there was less pressure and more… there was a great deal of concern that I had in that this was a real person that destroyed the lives of people who are still very much alive 20 years later and in the immediate aftermath of everything that happened in 1997, the family and friends of these people were bombarded with media.

Darren Criss was concerned about playing serial killer Andrew Cunanan

The role Darren Criss was born to play

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While Darren Criss’ most famous character saw him favouring bow-ties, cardigans and being an unabashedly good guy, his latest role calls on him to repeatedly drive a claw hammer into one of his victims, blood spluttering all over the walls of a downtown warehouse conversion.

Andrew Cunanan is most famous for gunning down Gianni Versace as he stood outside his beachside Miami mansion in 1997. But before he drew his weapon at the designer’s head, Cunanan had wreaked havoc with four other killings.

Even though American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace — with an A-list cast that includes Penelope Cruz, Edgar Ramirez and Ricky Martin — appears to be a drama about the famed design house, Cunanan’s story makes up something like 80 per cent of the time.

By structuring the series in reverse linearity and opening with the Versace murder before each subsequent episode takes a step backwards, to the other killings and back to Cunanan’s adolescence and childhood, it seeks to explain how someone as charismatic as him could end up where he did.

With the weight of almost the entire nine episodes on his shoulders, Criss gives a nuanced and powerful performance that’s been talked about in terms of how many statues he’ll nab come awards season.

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The role Darren Criss was born to play

Darren Criss talks about the emotional complexity needed to play the man who murdered Gianni Versace

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Darren Criss’ role as a real-life mass murderer could not be further from the job that made him famous.

In The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story – the nine-part series about the murder of the fashion designer, which also stars Édgar Ramírezas Versace, Penélope Cruz as his sister, Donatella Versace, and Ricky Martin as Versace’s lover, Antonio D’Amico – the 31-year-old actor, singer and songwriter portrays Andrew Cunanan, the man who became famous for killing fashion designer Gianni Versace in July 1997 after murdering at least four other people. It’s a far cry from Blaine Anderson, the singing and dancing ‘Warbler’ character Criss played on Gleefor five years.

That said, The Assassination of Gianni Versace and Glee have more in common than just Criss as a star, and that’s how he got involved in the first place. Both series are executively produced by Ryan Murphy, who was also behind Nip/Tuck, The New Normal and the American Horror Story.

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Darren Criss talks about the emotional complexity needed to play the man who murdered Gianni Versace

Versace: Glee actor in a killer role

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Pick of the day: Versace: American Crime Story, 8.30pm, Showcase.

It’s not hard to guess why, but Versace: American Crime Story arguably is mistitled to the degree it focuses not on Italian designer Gianni Versace but on the man who gunned him down at his Miami Beach mansion in 1997, Andrew Cunanan.

But by the end of this nine-episode series, Darren Criss’s depiction of the twisted fantasist and killer — his performance is being spoken of as an award contender — will sear into the memory.

Criss — best known for his role in Glee, created by Ryan Murphy, who also executive produces on Versace — tells The Australian his character begins the series mired in the lies he tells about himself.

“Cunanan exists in a larger-than-life headspace,” he says. “He is a classic narcissist in that he is somebody who can say something and ipso facto believe it is true.” Making him relatable, rather than alienating or appalling, was Criss’s focus.

“I latch on to the common denominators we can all relate to, and Cunanan’s flamboyant dishonesty comes from a sadly endearing place of wanting to impress people,” he says. “It’s less about lying; he’s a storyteller, this is how he survives.”

A key scene occurs in the first episode where Cunanan tells Versace (Edgar Ramirez) his largely fabricated life story.

“Edgar and I barely have any scenes together, but that is a key one in setting up the parallel between destroyer and creator, two very different but brilliant minds,” Criss says.

He says it was a “twisted providence” that Cunanan committed terrible crimes, which nonetheless has given the actor a career-defining role in a series he clearly is proud of.

“I’d like to think that if I’d done Cunanan first, I would have gone on to do something like Glee — I like taking as many twists in my career as possible,” he says. “We are all a million different people; I don’t want audiences to feel like they 100 per cent understand what my deal is.”

Versace: Glee actor in a killer role