Tag: edgar ramirez

edgarramirez25: 🇬🇧Are you watching The Assassination of Gianni Versace? Enter to watch the finale with my good friend ‪Ricky Martin‬ and have lunch with ‪Darren Criss‬! It all supports the wonderful work of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles—ENTER through my bio link or omaze.com/acs • 🇪🇸 ¿Estás viendo El asesinato de Gianni Versace? ¡Entra para ver el final con mi buen amigo Ricky Martin y almorzar con Darren Criss! Todo para apoyar el maravilloso trabajo del Children’s Hospital Los Angeles- Entra través del enlace en mi biografía o omaze.com/acs

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’

Edgar Ramírez on Becoming Gianni Versace, from Prosthetics to Pasta

The emperor has no clothes. Or at least that’s how we first encounter Gianni Versace in the opening minutes of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story: bare-chested in bed, gazing up at the finely painted clouds on the ceiling. With the camera trailing a polite butler’s distance behind, we follow the fashion legend as he strides through his palatial Miami Beach home, donning slippers and a salmon-pink robe, until he emerges onto an oceanfront balcony. The regal stance seems to beg a proclamation—only for Versace, his clothes do the talking.

When episode one debuted a week ago—luring in 5.5 million viewers thirsty for fashion-world mythology, 1990s nostalgia, or prestige true crime—one revelation was that the story line had far more to do with serial killer Andrew Cunanan than the man on the marquee. The other revelation was that the Versace clan (highlighted again in tonight’s installment) shimmered, with Penelope Cruz playing the chiseled, platinum-blonde Donatella—sister, muse, empress—and Edgar Ramírez in a chameleonic turn as the designer, who fused Roman myth with Renaissance opulence to model a new kind of Sun King.

“It was part of his cultural heritage: He wanted to be ruler of the realm,” says Ramírez, referring to the Versace solar system, “with all these people orbiting around him.” Establishing that dynamic from the first scene—as the designer floats through Casa Casuarina, projecting an easy, unassailable confidence—called for a different sort of transformation for the Venezuela-born actor, whose recent roles had him dive into boxing (Hands of Stone) and extreme rock climbing and surfing (Point Break). “I tend to be very physical in the exploration of my characters,” he says, “as far as my health permits and the time permits.”

In this case, the challenge was to fill out Versace’s “typical Southern Italian, robust body,” says Ramírez. The first casualty was the actor’s catchall training regimen, which includes regular sparring sessions, Pilates, and CrossFit. “Boxing basically sculpts your arms and your shoulders in a very natural way, so I needed to let the muscle mass go to convey the body that Gianni had"—strong, yes, but not chiseled. Next came the Versace diet. "I had to put on some weight to fit his measurements. That was the fun part,” Ramírez jokes of the steady helpings of pasta and polenta, along with arepas—the Venezuelan stuffed pastries he tracked down while filming in Miami. “The hard part is to lose it,” he admits, “so I’m still in the process.”

The second task: trading his thick mahogany hair for the older designer’s sparse gray. “It is a bald cap, and then I had four amazing wigs, depending on the time period that we were shooting,” Ramírez explains, adding that a prosthetic helped reshape his forehead and hairline (and making him feel “like a conehead,” he laughs). As important as that visual doubling was, it was just the beginning. “Impersonation is flat; it’s not alive,” he says. “In the end, [the goal] is to capture what his essence might have been.”

Working alongside Cruz, in a revolving lineup of sleek, barely breathable ensembles, offered as much a boost in character-building. “The bond between Donatella and Gianni came rather easily for Penelope and I,” Ramírez says of their close sibling relationships and Catholic upbringings. “And we’re Latin, so it’s pretty much the same cultural reservoir,” he adds, referring to an emotional brio that comes to the fore in tonight’s second episode, as Versace and his sister argue about whether their label should reflect market desires or his singular lust for life. “All this kind of heroine-chic look—he wasn’t into that. He wanted people to feel healthy and alive and vital,” Ramírez says, “because that’s how he was.”

Where would that exuberance fit into the world today, with feminine norms shifting and commerce reframing the fashion conversation? “For better or for worse, we live in a culture that was partially shaped by Gianni Versace: the exacerbation of fame, glamour, the whole bling culture,” says Ramírez. Prescient, too, was the way the designer injected unbridled sensuality into his work, from the red-carpet shutdowns to the supermodels still ruling the Versace runways. “He had a fascination for beauty in everything,” the actor adds. “It was about the women feeling gorgeous—he wanted the dresses to be a tool to be empowered.” With sartorial messaging on the awards circuit this year, that impulse lives on.

Edgar Ramírez on Becoming Gianni Versace, from Prosthetics to Pasta