Tag: darren criss

For ‘Versace’ actor Darren Criss, SF childhood still shines brightly

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Darren Criss is pleasant and dutiful during an interview on a recent Thursday afternoon, answering questions about his role as serial killer Andrew Cunanan in the new FX miniseries “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.”

But when the subject shifts to his childhood in San Francisco, the actor is downright joyous.

Criss happily remembers stories that have been buried for a while, including the time he called San Francisco actor Peter Coyote, whose son was a classmate of Criss’ brother, for advice about getting into acting. Criss was 7 years old.

“The synapses in my brain are suddenly awakening,” Criss says, talking faster. “I remember really, really nervously looking at the school roster, getting the number and going into the closet and shaking nervously, and saying, ‘Hi, is Mr. Coyote there?’ For a child to be talking to an adult on a level other than, ‘Can so-and-so come over to play video games?’ it was a nerve-racking experience.”

Criss says Coyote gave him a vote of confidence, and talked to him about enrolling in the Young Conservatory program at the American Conservatory Theater. Criss flourished there, and appeared in the musicals “Fanny” and “Do I Hear a Waltz” with 42nd Street Moon when he was 10.

The St. Ignatius College Prep graduate went on to University of Michigan, where he co-created “A Very Potter Musical” in 2009. It became a YouTube hit, and he has since glided effortlessly between film and stage, performing as openly gay singer Blaine on television’s “Glee” between 2010 and 2015, and in a “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” revival that started at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre in 2016.

But his most challenging performance — maybe anyone’s most challenging TV performance this year — is as Cunanan, the designer-obsessed serial killer in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace.”

Criss is onscreen more than anyone in the highly anticipated follow-up to “The People Vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” which won nine Emmy Awards in 2016. “Versace” co-stars Edgar Ramirez as Versace, who was shot by Cunanan in 1997. Penelope Cruz plays Donatella Versace, the designer’s sister.

Told in a challenging but rewarding reverse chronology, Cunanan comes off at first as a monster. But the pulpy exterior also gives its lead characters nuance; the series presents Cunanan and Versace as talented gay men with parents born outside the U.S.; with one finding the American dream and another becoming a living nightmare.

Speaking by phone from his Los Angeles home last week, Criss is reserved about his performance. While most reviewers have already seen all eight episodes, Criss had only seen four — and binged those the night before.

“It’s hard to watch anything you do objectively,” Criss says, when asked for his first impressions. “That sounds so unenthusiastic, but I promise you it’s not. I’m thrilled with how a lot of things turned out.”

One thing Criss insists is that he didn’t follow the dark character — there are scenes of physical and emotional torture by Cunanan, followed by an alarming lack of empathy — into the abyss.

On the worst days, Criss says, he would execute a pratfall down a stairway on set or provide other blooper reel material to lighten the mood. And he insists that while the victims of Cunanan both living and dead weighed on his mind, the most violent scenes were not as harrowing to perform as they look on screen.

“You have to remember that, (A) of course, it’s fake, (B) there’s not this creepy music looming in the background,” Criss says. “And there are 30 or 40 people around you who you can crack jokes with and grab a tea with, and give you the sort of necessary levity.”

Levity seems to be Criss’ default position, especially after the questions about Cunanan end and the San Francisco conversation begins again.

Criss and his musician brother, Chuck, who put out a pop album together last year under the band name Computer Games, took every advantage of the San Francisco art community. Criss says he hung out with theater performers in their 20s and 30s when he was a preteen; and their lessons were in the forefront of his mind as he created “A Very Potter Musical” and subsequent musicals.

But his parents recently moved out of San Francisco after 40 years, seeking a warmer climate in Southern California. When Young Conservatory director Craig Slaight retired after 29 years at ACT, Criss says, Slaight’s party doubled as Criss’ own goodbye.

“It was a nice time to get a couple of drinks, and say, ‘Fare thee well, San Francisco,’” Criss says. “When I go back, I’m a stranger in a strange land — I’m on Yelp, I’m on whatever hipster blogs. I treat it like a true tourist.”

There’s no bitterness for Criss about the changes in San Francisco or in any other part of the interview. Criss says that during the 1990s, there were probably a lot of natives from the 1950s and ’60s who were angry. That won’t be him.

“It’s always going to be different, everyone is going to hold their experience of a city higher than the people ahead of them,” says the 30-year-old actor and singer. “I try not to be a curmudgeon, because to me that’s the fastest way to be old.”

And that San Francisco childhood will always be with Criss, as long as the synapses are still firing. Asked if he remembers co-starring in “Fanny” when he was 10 years old, he provides a couple of warm stories, then sings a few bars from his 20-year-old performance. (“Be kind to your parents/ Though they don’t deserve it …”)

“ACT is such a huge part of my life, and I’m so forever grateful for them existing,” Criss says. “If I grew up in any other city in any other circumstance, I don’t know if I really would have had the support system in place to make this dream a reality.”

For ‘Versace’ actor Darren Criss, SF childhood still shines brightly

Andrew Cunanan’s Minnesota victims aren’t forgotten in ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’

LOS ANGELES – “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” references one of the most notorious murders of the past 25 years, but even crime buffs may be thrown by the miniseries’ twist.

It’s not really about Versace.

The focus is squarely on the famed designer’s killer, Andrew Cunanan. Which means executive producer Ryan Murphy and writer Tom Rob Smith spend more time on the jealous rages that led to the deaths of Minnesotans Jeffrey Trail and David Madson than they do on the fifth and final target of Cunanan’s 1997 killing spree.

“There’s a distinction between the victims,” Smith said. “When Andrew’s life was falling apart, he murdered his closest friend and lover. Once he crossed that line, he then started to kill to pursue ideas. Versace is the culmination of that.”

Two episodes are set in the Twin Cities — the fourth and fifth of the nine-part drama ­that begins Wednesday — but were filmed in and around Los Angeles.

They include visits to a rural Minnesota dive bar (where singer Aimee Mann tackles an acoustic version of the Cars’ “Drive”) and the late lamented Nye’s Polonaise Room, where friends dragged Cunanan one night. Fans of Nye’s will be disappointed to see the Minneapolis restaurant and bar portrayed as a second-story nightclub with a dance floor the size of an airport hangar.

The decision to explore the mind of a murderer gave the storytellers a chance to make a statement about homophobia in the 1990s. Because Cunanan’s first victims were gay, the show suggests that law enforcement responded initially with a shrug rather than shock until the killer gunned down a big name.

One episode is dedicated to Trail’s decision to leave the Navy after a suicide attempt, spurred by the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward gay troops. The Minneapolis Police Department comes across as particularly flat-footed and disinterested in diving deep. The series essentially argues that Versace’s murder outside his Miami Beach mansion could have been averted if investigators had pursued the Cunanan case more aggressively.

“Versace’s death is political,” said producer Nina Jacobson. “It was the neglect, the isolation, the sort of otherness in how the police handled the murder of gay men. This was ultimately a death that didn’t have to happen. Some of our anger informed us.”

The reverse-chronological approach of the series is bound to throw viewers, especially after a nearly wordless, expertly choreographed opening, directed by Murphy, that features Versace’s final moments following a morning stroll to retrieve fashion magazines from a Miami Beach newsstand.

There’s also a red herring in the casting of Penélope Cruz as Donatella Versace. Other than showing off a gruff Italian accent, the Oscar winner isn’t given much to do. The production team clearly spent megabucks re-creating Versace’s studios in Italy, but so little time is spent on the lavish set that it’s like stopping at a fancy restaurant for an appetizer.

“The obsession with Gianni Versace and the dance between the creator and the destroyer is the spine, the fabric, of what held this together,” said producer Brad Simpson, who also worked on the previous “Crime” installment, “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” which won the Emmy for best miniseries. “But we felt it was really important along this journey to not only tell this story of Versace and what he meant, but use that to tell the story of David Madson and Jeff Trail and the other victims.”

They considered putting Cunanan’s name in the title of the series, as Maureen Orth did in her book “Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History,” the primary source for the screenplay. “We decided that, ultimately, it was elevating him to a place we didn’t want to put him in,” Simpson said.

The emphasis on Cunanan over Versace (played by Edgar Ramírez, best known for portraying a terrorist leader in 2010’s “Carlos”) and his longtime lover Antonio D’Amico (pop star Ricky Martin) puts the pressure on actor Darren Criss, who made his name as a happy-go-lucky teen singer on the 2009-15 Murphy series “Glee.” His Broadway credentials are utilized in “Versace” only when Cunanan dances shirtless while torturing sexual partners during S&M sessions or sings along to “Pump Up the Jam” on the car radio while a deathly nervous Madson sweats in the passenger seat.

Criss didn’t take the role home with him. “I know a lot of people who jump into these things, and it really consumes their whole lives,” he said. “I think what saved me is that Andrew compartmentalized so many things in his life: emotions, people, experiences. He was able to dissociate and, likewise, I was able to dissociate. As an actor, it’s your job to find as many common denominators between you and the person you are playing, however good or bad. The differences are few in number, but high in content. Those differences made it OK for me to step away from it because I was doing things on set so far away from myself at home.”

While this “American Crime Story” decidedly emphasizes the criminal side, Murphy cautions viewers about reading too much into how future franchise installments might play out. The next show in the anthology will look at the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. The fourth season will deal with the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal.

“One of the joys for me about this show is that every season will have a different tonality,” Murphy said. “The first season was very much a courtroom potboiler. The second season is a manhunt thriller. The third season really looks at the medical conditions in our country, and global warming, and who decides who gets to live and die. So every season will be different from anything we’ve done before.”

Andrew Cunanan’s Minnesota victims aren’t forgotten in ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’

Darren Criss Plays the Happy-Go-Lucky Killer in the Versace TV Drama

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Miami — At 6:30 in the morning, Darren Criss was bright-eyed and perky as he bounded out of his South Beach hotel and into a black car. It was the last day of shooting for “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” Ryan Murphy’s nine-episode follow-up to “The People v. O. J. Simpson.”

Mr. Criss plays the assassin and, the night before, he had been up late shooting a manhunt scene that blocked off a stretch of Collins Avenue, to the chagrin of nightclubbers and Uber drivers.

“That was a very cool rock-star moment,” Mr. Criss said in the car, wearing a ball cap and jeans. He flashed an easygoing grin, the kind that endeared him to legions of young fans of “Glee,” on which he played Blaine Anderson, the preppy, harmonizing love interest of Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel.

His new role on “American Crime Story” (which has its premiere on FX on Jan. 17) couldn’t be less gleeful: Andrew Cunanan, the gay gigolo turned serial killer who shot Mr. Versace in 1997, after killing four other men.

Mr. Criss, 30, leaned over and pointed out the window. “See that?” he said. “That’s the houseboat, perfectly recreated.” In Indian Creek, the crew had built a replica of Mr. Cunanan’s final hide-out, where he met his demise after a frenzied eight-day manhunt. The series makes use of several real locations in Miami Beach, most notably the Versace Mansion, the site of the murder, now a boutique hotel.

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Darren Criss Plays the Happy-Go-Lucky Killer in the Versace TV Drama

Darren Criss, far from ‘Glee,’ takes darker turn as Gianni Versace’s killer

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Darren Criss doesn’t have to worry that he’ll be forever typecast as that cute, preppy singer from Glee.

FX’s limited series, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (Wednesday, 10 ET/PT) roughs up that wholesome image.

Versace, a follow-up to last year’s Emmy-winning O.J. Simpson courtroom saga, recounts Cunanan’s 1997 murder spree, which claimed five lives as the 27-year-old traversed the country, ending with the iconic fashion designer outside  his mansion in Miami Beach.

Criss, 30, best known as Warblers singer and Kurt’s lover (and eventual husband) Blaine Anderson on Glee, reunites with executive producer Ryan Murphy on a darker story with a bigger, weightier role.

“I had a great time doing Blaine, (but he) is part of a more ensemble piece,” he says.  “It was nice to be on a bigger playing field with Ryan and to get our hands dirty.”

Murphy said Criss was the first actor he cast for the pivotal role in Versace, based on Maureen Orth’s book, Vulgar Favors. The high-powered cast also includes Oscar winner Penelope Cruz as Versace’s sister, Donatella, and Ricky Martin as his partner, Antonio D’Amico.

Criss acting against his Glee image works well in Versace, executive producer Nina Jacobson says.

People might ask, “How could that (Glee) guy be this guy? (just as) the people who knew Andrew said, ‘How can that guy be this guy?’ “ she says.

Criss has a likability but also an ability to go darker, Jacobson says. “Andrew was not your garden-variety psychopath, torturing animals as a child. He was well-liked, warm, connected to people. To watch his descent and see his humanity but still never excuse his actions, I thought Darren just had that: the glibness, on one hand, and the depth.”

Criss, a San Francisco native who has been playing musical instruments since childhood, likens being part of the troupe Murphy calls on for his various projects to the repertory nature of the American Conservatory Theater, where he was accepted to a youth program.  

Criss says Murphy first mentioned the Cunanan role to him three years ago. 

“Lady Gaga had just been announced to do American Horror Story, and so I remember jokingly saying to him, ‘Well, let me know if you need a wily bellhop to run around.’ I was kind of joking — but not,” says Criss, who appeared in two episodes of that season’s AHS: Hotel. “He said, ‘I’m doing this O.J. (story). It’s more of a courtroom drama and I really want to do a manhunt. I want to do this Versace-Cunanan story. How much do you know about him?‘ ”

Criss felt an obligation to understand the well-educated gay man, whom the series portrays as initially killing out of personal passion but later adopting more political motives. Versace, one of the most prominent openly gay men of that time, was his final victim before he took his own life on a houseboat, a week later.

“It’s my job to be empathetic. If I set out to paint him as a monster, then there’s no point in telling the story. This isn’t a Bond villain,” he says.

Criss shares some surface similarities with Cunanan: Each is from California, has a parent from the Philippines and is college educated. 

With an education, friends, a gift for storytelling (or lying) and no history of social problems, why did Cunanan become a murderer?  

Orth suggested the young man was willing to kill to become famous and that he envied Versace, who had the fame, riches and romantic relationship he desired.

That contrast is emphasized in the Versace, writer Tom Rob Smith told the Television Critics Association. 

“This is a story of two men born in very different circumstances, a lot of similarities, both gay, both understood that they could be destroyed at any point, and how one person navigates that destruction by building this amazing empire and how he protects against homophobia by surrounding himself with money and power and success, and (how) someone else who fails to do that, who is then destroyed.”

Cunanan had disadvantages and setbacks that many others encounter without suffering such “an extreme fall from grace,” Criss says. “There are things that happened with him that would have changed most people and made them think about their lives differently, whereas Andrew, instead of facing reality, continued to cover it up with more lies and more fantasy that would ultimately” lead to tragedy.

Darren Criss, far from ‘Glee,’ takes darker turn as Gianni Versace’s killer