Darren Criss on Not Whitewashing Half-Filipino Andrew Cunanan In ‘Versace’ — Turn It On Podcast
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Darren Criss on Not Whitewashing Half-Filipino Andrew Cunanan In ‘Versace’ — Turn It On Podcast
Darren Criss calls it “serendipity” that he already was in Ryan Murphy’s orbit when the producer focused in on telling the tale of serial killer Andrew Cunanan for “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” the latest edition of “American Crime Story.” Cunanan was half-Filipino, just as Criss is, which gave the actor a rare opportunity to play his ethnicity.
“I believe there are a lot of great half-Filipino actors out there that could have done this a lot of justice, [but] when Ryan talked about doing this three years ago, before we actually got the ball rolling last year, I would joke with him saying, ‘Hey man, I would love to do this, but if you don’t want me to do it with you, I defy you to find another guy who looks kind of like him, who’s in the same age range, who’s in your Rolodex of actors. Because if you don’t cast a half-Filipino guy, the Filipino community is going to cry bloody murder. So I don’t know what your other options are!’
“I would have never held that against him but I would jokingly think that. I’m glad it all came to fruition when it did.”
Executive producer Nina Jacobson said it was important that the actor playing Cunanan was half-Filipino, especially after having just produced the upcoming film “Crazy Rich Asians.”
“We did not want to whitewash a role,” she said. “Andrew was half-Filipino, and it was really important to not just get a guy and say that he was. We wanted to be authentic in terms of Andrew’s background. And the fact that Darren had kind of this striking resemblance physically, the chops of an actor and professionalism to take on a role of this disturbing hard role to play that he also could authentically play a half-Filipino character as opposed to the usual Hollywood thing.”
Criss said that he doesn’t think whitewashing comes out of any conscious malice, but admits that he may harbor “half-white privilege” in that view.
“What makes good casting work is when you have good actors. There are a lot of great Filipino actors that I think people just aren’t thinking outside of the box enough,” he said.
Criss pointed specifically to Jon Jon Briones, who plays Modesto Cunanan in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace.”
“He’s a tried and true Broadway veteran, he’s been acting for years, he’s not just some newbie — maybe to the film and television world but certainly not as a craftsman of acting,” Criss said. “And Ryan asked me, ‘Who is this guy, I love him! Where’s he from, how come he doesn’t get roles?’ I said, ‘Ryan, he does but he’s a Filipino man who looks a certain way. You have to understand the roles he’s being offered.’ The Thai terrorist on ‘CSI.’ And he’s from the original cast of ‘Miss Saigon,’ he’s doing Miss Saigon right now. He’s the Engineer on Broadway. What it takes is a role like this, hopefully, where people go, ‘oh! This guy is really good!’ It sucks we have to wait around for roles that show you off within the corner you’re put in to be able to play in the larger room.”
“The Assassination of Gianni Versace” may have Versace in the title, but it’s really the story of Andrew Cunanan, and the tale of how he became the killer of not just Versace but several other socialites across the country. It was a juicy role for Criss, and IndieWire’s Turn It On podcast recently met up with the actor to discuss the mystery of Cunanan, the sensitivity of the fact that so many people impacted by Cunanan may be watching, and how his ethnicity as a half-Filipino man made him the perfect fit for the role. Later in this episode, we also talked to American Crime Story producers Brad Simpson and Nina Jacobson about the franchise. But first, we talked to Criss about how this role impacted him. Listen below!
Criss said “Versace” was a tremendous role for him, but he’s muted in his enthusiasm because of the realization that Cunanan’s murders impacted many people who are still around and may watch the show.
“Now they have to deal with this being on television and being water cooler fodder at work,” he said. “That’s something I’m very much aware of. Saying this is a dream role I’m careful of because I don’t want to be insensitive to the lives that were affected. However, beyond it being a very interesting part as an actor, I got to work with all these people and we got to travel to interesting places All the boxes were ticked. I got to do a show with Penelope Cruz, Edgar Ramirez, Ricky Martin.”
It was also a bit of a challenge because there isn’t much documentation of Cunanan’s life — which meant Criss had to come up with some of the character on his own. “In that sense, I am relieved from having to do an imitation job,” he said. “He’s not a person that people are familiar with who are expecting me to do my version of Andrew. It gives me a lot of leeway.”
Darren Criss on Not Whitewashing Half-Filipino Andrew Cunanan In ‘Versace’ — Turn It On Podcast
‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Writer On Why Equality Means More Complicated Gay Villains
If the first time you ever heard the name “Versace” was in “Showgirls,” know that you might have missed a key layer of meaning behind the joke.
In the 1995 Paul Verhoeven film, young stripper Nomi (Elizabeth Berkeley) finds herself with some extra cash, so she buys a tight short dress from a Versace shop on the Las Vegas strip. You might think that the point of the bit is that Nomi reveals her trashy roots when she pronounces the name of the brand as “Ver-sase,” as opposed to its proper pronunciation of “Ver-sa-che.”
But according to showrunner Tom Rob Smith, it goes far deeper than that. “It’s not that someone classy doesn’t know it’s ‘Ver-sa-che,‘” he told IndieWire. “Because that person wouldn’t be wearing Versace.”
Instead, the point is that an unclassy person not only doesn’t know how to say “Versace,” but would actively chose to buy a dress from his label. “And that’s the unfairness of it, because actually, I mean, his outfits were extraordinary,” Smith said. “He was adding sex, that’s true. But he was so skillful. I think it’s the misogyny, actually, about it, that, you know, if you add sex to a woman’s dress, that makes it not classy. I don’t know quite where that logic comes from.”
It speaks to just one of the underreported elements of Gianni Versace’s life that fascinates in this new installment of “American Crime Story.” As guided by Smith — a UK native who came to the attention of “ACS” producers Brad Simpson and Nina Jacobson after his critically acclaimed 2015 miniseries “London Spy” — the show digs into two lives: Versace (Edgar Ramirez), the designer behind some of the most daring fashion of the 1990s, and Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), the man who killed him.
The show’s split focus means that there are a lot of competing elements in the first season, but one ongoing theme is the idea that the public perception of who Versace was has little relationship with the truth.
“His rise was very neat and tidy,” Smith said. “He started in Calabria, he went to Milan, and conquered the world from there. And it was just a series of steps… Just the most tenacious, driven, brilliant, out of the box thinking. Combining fabrics that have never been combined before. Combining materials that have never been combined before. Fearless of making a mistake. He would career off in one direction and then pull back another, and you fall in love with him.”
But Smith wasn’t in love with Versace before he started working on the series. “I don’t think I had a clear perception of him. I think, in a weird way, the perception was of the cliches,” he said. “Of his clothes and the stereotypes around his clothes, which are unfair and which have overwhelmed his name in a way that is sad. I don’t know quite whether he’s been understood. I think there’s a really interesting case to do a reconsideration of his life and his work.”
It’s a dark-hued tale due to Cunanan’s murder spree, in an era when so many stories featuring gay characters end up featuring a lot of death. But that’s something that Smith felt wasn’t just essential to “Versace” as a narrative, but also the general progression of gay-themed narratives.
“I write thrillers. And in thrillers, someone’s always in jeopardy and in danger. And I think, this is an interesting story because Cunanan was this complicated liar, this murderer, and this destroyer, and he was gay,” he said.
Mortality, too, is an inescapable factor given the period setting. “The ’80s are a big part of the story. And people lost a lot of their friends in the ’80s and ’90s in the most horrific circumstances,” Smith said. “If you were making a story set now, to deal with AIDS or not is entirely up the writer, but it’s hard to see how it’s not part of that world in the ’80s and ’90s. It was overwhelming communities.”
Added Smith, “If you want quality, the quality means that some of your stories are going to be disturbing and jagged and not all just upbeat and positive representations of people. The next step in the evolution of equality is, ‘Oh, wait a minute. I want to see a gay ‘Revenant.’ You know, straight men didn’t come out of that feeling, ‘Wow, we got a really bad rap in that movie.’ But they do! They’re the worst people ever! They’re like murderers. They’re terrible! But straight white men are so secure in their identity, the thought didn’t even flicker through their minds.”
Ultimately, Smith is interested in telling character stories that don’t idealize gay lives, but celebrate their complications. “The icon is that [Versace] achieved these great things. But everyone is messy, and I love people’s mess. I love the complications of people.”
Versace’s complications are as much a part of the “American Crime Story” narrative as his successes, especially his health struggles and battles with sister Donatella Versace (played by Penelope Cruz). “The icon thing is interesting, but it doesn’t, to me, rule out that real complexity and sometimes darkness, too,” Smith said.
“No actors want to play just sort of nice people. It’s not interesting. Where do they exist? I don’t know, in the world. So I’m like, I don’t want that. Everyone I know is really complicated. I want the complicated people.”
‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Writer On Why Equality Means More Complicated Gay Villains
‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’ Review: A Very Different ‘Story’ Yields Uneven Rewards
Virtually everything about the lengthy title “” is misleading. For one, it’s less of a crime story — in the “Law & Order,” cops and courtrooms sense — than a biography of Andrew Cunanan, the man who murdered at least five people over a three-month span in 1997. One of those people was iconic fashion designer Gianni Versace, but his relevance to Cunanan’s life, and thus the series overall, is largely symbolic — he’s the American dream, and he’s still damaged.
To the show’s credit, these shifts aren’t problematic or even the most jarring twist on Season 1’s “The People vs. O.J. Simpson.” “Versace” is told in flashforward; it starts with Versace’s death and then works its way back in time through Cunanan’s other homicides and even into his childhood. This structural choice never delivers the emotional impact one would hope and does lead to some unnecessary repetition, but it’s a bold choice that should keep viewers on their toes.
Sometimes the new season feels as deceptive as its title: a sequel in name-only that doesn’t live up to its predecessor’s accomplishments despite similarly lofty ambitions. Written predominantly by Tom Rob Smith, the “London Spy” creator who was not part of “The People vs. O.J. Simpson,” the follow-up season is a very different tale. But just when you start to drift away, “Versace” tightens the tether; be it a few moving performances or subtle scenes that carefully convey greater meaning, there’s enough here to warrant attention — be it for a Versace story or not.
If “The People vs. O.J. Simpson” was told from the lawyers’ perspective in order to expose prejudices in the judicial system, then “Versace” is predominantly seen from Cunanan’s point of view so viewers can better understand the difficulties faced by gay men in ’90s America. Whether you were a poor, powerless man on the run, or a rich, worshiped company chair, the oppression, risk, and fear remains the same. “Versace” admirably (and more effectively) explores how Cunanan’s victims formed connections with him and why Cunanan may have finally snapped, even if it’s a less cohesive and richly detailed season than “The People vs. O.J.”
Given the set-up, Versace’s death is the climax of Cunanan’s life, so the series has to work a bit to bring Versace’s narrative back into the mix as it starts working back through the killer’s past. Though the first two episodes are largely dedicated to Cunanan’s time in South Beach and his not-so-chance first encounter with Versace, each episode is dedicated to a new victim.
Episode 3, “A Random Killing,” travels to Chicago to get to know closeted real estate tycoon Lee Miglin. Episode 4, “House by the Lake,” moves to Minneapolis to meet architect David Madson. Episode 5, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” is the best of the lot, as it delves into a naval story focused on Jeffrey Trail.
Within these hours, the story often strays from Cunanan’s viewpoint as it digs further and further into each new character. That gives “Versace” a looser, more haphazard feeling than “O.J.,” but it’s far from a mistake with performances like the ones Cody Fern (as David) and Finn Wittrock (as Jeffrey) provide. They, along with a briefly seen Max Greenfield, are the highlights, though they don’t exactly top the cast list.
Edgar Ramirez makes for a commanding Versace, exuding confidence in a largely quiet depiction, and yet his understated turn doesn’t undermine later scenes where Gianni is scared. Cruz’s presentation of his sister, Donatella, is less consistent, less lived-in, but still gripping. That being said, the most perplexing aspect of Donatella and Gianni has nothing to do with their actors’ respective choices; it’s that producer Ryan Murphy chose to cast two Italian characters steeped in Italian heritage and surrounded by Italian decor with two Hispanic actors.
Onscreen, the most cumbersome entry is Darren Criss’ take on Cunanan. Wide-eyed and speaking with the high-pitched voice of a liar, Criss is asked to carry the series, but he only has so many weapons in his arsenal. His stare dulls and his voice grates. Rather than develop over time, it’s as if Criss figured out who Cunanan was from the get-go and stuck with it. There’s little difference between the high school outcast in Episode 7 and the gun-toting murderer from the premiere.
Such regularity plays into the deadened serial killer stereotype “Versace” should be trying to avoid. (It also doesn’t help alleviate any concerns over another stereotype: associating homosexuality with insanity.) And it’s not even that Criss is bad; he has moments of raw power, he just doesn’t elevate the material the way Sarah Paulson, Sterling K. Brown, and David Schwimmer did for “The People vs. O.J. Simpson.” Such comparisons only hurt “Versace,” but if you can avoid them and take it in as not only a new chapter, but a new book, then this new “Crime Story” should satisfy.
Grade: B-
‘American Crime Story: Versace’ Trailer: Ryan Murphy’s FX Series Goes Back to the ’90s for Fashion World Murder
“THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY”
Network: FX
Release Date: January 17, 2018
Talent: Penélope Cruz, Édgar Ramírez, Ricky Martin, Darren CrissPrepare yourself: While “The People v. O.J. Simpson” set up “American Crime Story” as a franchise devoted to murder-tinged drama, the tone established by executive producer Ryan Murphy and lead writer Tom Rob Smith is of a very different nature. The reverse timeline structure (which begins with the titular event but then moves backwards to examine the motives of Versace’s killer) proves to be a major showcase for the acting talents of Darren Criss as Andrew Cunanan. Andrew’s journey ends up driving the story, but there’s still plenty to learn about Versace, his world, and in general what gay people in that era were dealing with — none of it easy.
ACS news 