Tag: interview

How Glee’s Darren Criss transformed for new role as Gianni Versace’s killer

Glee star Darren Criss’ latest role is a world away from the one that made him a TV star. In The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, he plays spree-killer Andrew Cunanan.

In 1997, Andrew gunned down the Italian-born fashion icon outside his home in Miami. He’d killed four others in the three months prior.

The manhunt ended when he turned the gun on himself. Twenty years on, the killer’s motive remains unclear.

It’s a dark role for someone who rose to fame as singing, dancing Blaine Anderson in Glee. But Darren points out his latest character was all too human.

“People think what Andrew did was really far away from what they are capable of being or are,” Darren, 31, tells TV WEEK.

“The truth is, we all have access to the same thoughts and feelings someone like him had.”

The nine-part series also stars Édgar Ramírez as Gianni Versace, Penélope Cruz as Donatella Versace and Ricky Martin as Gianni’s partner, Antonio D’Amico.

Darren admits that between the challenging scenes, he and Ricky would “blow off some steam” by singing together.

“Have I sung Ricky Martin songs with Ricky Martin?” he asks. “Yes I have – and it’s awesome!”

Darren will soon be touring the US with his former Glee co-star Lea Michele. The pair will sing Broadway tunes – and, of course, several songs from the TV show.

Meanwhile, former The Voice Australia coach Ricky Martin put his world tour on hold when he was offered a role in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.

The singer plays Antonio D’Amico, Gianni Versace’s long-time partner.

“I was living in Miami when Versace was killed,” he says. “I was obsessed with this character and project.”

The series lovingly portrays the 15-year relationship between Versace and D’Amico. It was he who found him on the steps after he’d been shot by Andrew.

Filming in the real Versace mansion, preserved as a boutique hotel, helped Ricky, 46, connect with the grief.

“I was waiting inside while they laid out Edgar on the steps,” he says. “It helped me so much to reach a level of sadness. All I had to do was see him covered in blood and hear ‘Action!’ to let it out.”

How Glee’s Darren Criss transformed for new role as Gianni Versace’s killer

Conversations with Penélope Cruz of THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY

Q&A with Penélope Cruz of THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY. Moderated by Kristen Baldwin, Entertainment Weekly. 

Inspired by actual events, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story is the second installment of FX’s award-winning limited series, American Crime Story. 

 Ryan Murphy, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Brad Falchuk, Alexis Martin Woodall, Dan Minahan, Tom Rob Smith, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski are Executive Producers of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. It is written by Tom Rob Smith, and Ryan Murphy directed the premiere episode of the series, which stars Darren Criss, Edgar Ramirez, Penélope Cruz and Ricky Martin.  The series is produced by Fox 21 Television Studios and FX Productions.

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

TV’s Top Supporting Actors Reveal Most-Coveted Roles: ‘Big Little Lies,’ ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘The Crown’ [Ricky Martin edit]

“I would love to be part of a series like The Crown,” said Ricky Martin (The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story). “Be Prince Phillip, maybe? I think that would be amazing. And yes, obviously I would dive into that British accent. If you give me time, I’ll know it.” | 4 June 2018

Conversations with Darren Criss of THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY

Q&A with Darren Criss. Moderated by Henry Goldblatt, Editor in Chief of Entertainment Weekly. 

 Inspired by actual events, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story is the second installment of FX’s award-winning limited series, American Crime Story. 

 Ryan Murphy, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Brad Falchuk, Alexis Martin Woodall, Dan Minahan, Tom Rob Smith, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski are Executive Producers of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. It is written by Tom Rob Smith, and Ryan Murphy directed the premiere episode of the series, which stars Darren Criss, Edgar Ramirez, Penelope Cruz and Ricky Martin.  The series is produced by Fox 21 Television Studios and FX Productions.

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

Emmys: 33 Supporting Actors Pose for Star-Studded Class Photo

Their roles couldn’t be more different — from aspiring spies (Holly Taylor on The Americans) to awkward tech execs (Zach Woods on Silicon Valley) to sheriffs searching for justice (Scoot McNairy on Godless) and a man who loses his longtime partner at the hands of a serial killer (Ricky Martin on The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story) — but one thing these 33 supporting actors have in common is that they’ve all brought to life memorable characters on TV in the past year. On April 17, at a beautiful estate in Silver Lake, these breakouts gathered together for The Hollywood Reporter’s annual megashoot, which reunited old friends (like This Is Us’ Susan Kelechi Watson and Insecure’s Yvonne Orji, who stuck around after the shoot to snap selfies together) and brought together many actors who’d never met before. By the end of the lovely garden party shoot, a few stories had been swapped and new friendships forged as they all prepared for the long Emmy season ahead.

Ricky Martin
‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ (FX)

What inspired you to act?
A movie many years ago called The Priest. I grew up Catholic, and it was sad, it was intense.

Most intimidating scene?
I was playing Gianni Versace’s lover, so to have to shoot a scene where you find your lover murdered in the streets was intense. I think I lived as Antonio for those 10 days that we were in Miami because we were in the set, we were there right where it actually happened, so the energy of that house really was of impact for me and my performance.

Penélope Cruz on Woody Allen: “The Case Has to Be Looked at Again”

[…] Cruz also reunited with Darren Criss at the lavish afternoon polo match, her co-star in American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace. Both are top Emmy contenders for their work in the FX limited series, which has been praised by critics—though Cruz isn’t sure whether the real Donatella Versace, whom she played in Versace, has watched her emotional performance.

“I don’t know if she has seen it, because I think it’s a tricky subject,” Cruz said. “But she sent me flowers as good luck at the premiere. I sent things to her, and we both talk about each other. Somebody asked her in Spain during an interview, and she talked a little about me with affection, so that’s very important for me that she knows that I have played her with a lot of respect.”

Cruz also said that the role of the famed designer, whom she has met only four or five times at parties, was one of the most “challenging” performances in her career.

“I have a lot of respect and affection for her, so I was very intimidated by the idea of playing her. I wanted to show that she’s a force of nature that she is,” said Cruz. “So when I talked to [Versace show-runner] Ryan [Murphy], I knew he wanted to do the same. I talked to Donatella and she said, ‘If someone is going to play me, I’m happy that it is you.’ So it was like her blessing for me to do it.”

Cruz’s dramatic physical transformation, meanwhile—which required multiple blonde wigs to replicate Donatella’s iconic platinum hair—was the least stressful aspect of embodying the character.

“I’ve been blonde before for other projects, so I wasn’t very shocked when I saw myself with the wig on,” she said with a smile. “I liked it!”

Penélope Cruz on Woody Allen: “The Case Has to Be Looked at Again”

Serial thriller with designs on Versace

dcriss-archive:

Gunned down by a serial killer on the steps of his Miami Beach home, the murder of fashion icon Gianni Versace in July 1997 captivated the world. But the crimes that festered around, and later were exposed by Versace’s death, most fascinate Darren Criss, the 31-year-old actor who plays killer, Andrew Cunanan, in a new TV drama series. After his breakout role as Blaine in Glee, Criss has made a string of TV appearances; wowed Broadway as Hedwig in the musical Hedwig And The Angry Inch; developed the alt-pop band Computer Games with his brother, Chuck; and in January this year got engaged to his longtime girlfriend, writer-producer Mia Swier.

American Crime Story 2: The Assassination of Gianni Versace has already aired in the US, what’s been the reaction?

I’m just thrilled people have watched it — not for my own ego — but because it’s such a fascinating and compelling story that raises so many questions. It’s the kind of show that I’d like to talk about, even if I wasn’t in it!

We don’t totally know Cunanan’s motivation for the serial killings, do we?

I don’t think it is as simple as this guy wanted fame and fortune or glory. It’s sort of a pretty big cocktail of a lot of unfortunate factors.

And the crimes around that crime?

The show tries to hone in on this theme of homophobia in the United States. One of the great things about American Crime Stories is that we centralise our story on a crime, but we kind of really investigate and explore the other crimes around that, and how they affected the central crime, and vice versa. The first series (The People v O.J. Simpson) obviously is centred on the murder, but what it is really investigating is racism in Los Angeles; and what that trial meant for national black identity. What we focus on here (Versace) is how homophobia plays a hand in these crimes — not just for Cunanan and Versace, but how it manifests itself in the FBI and in the military.

20 years on, those issues are still relevant.

Absolutely. It’s unfortunate, fear and prejudice always seem to be in fashion in one way or another.

Aimee Mann guest stars in a powerful scene for Cunanan, where she sings “who’s going to drive you home tonight?” (The Cars, Drive). How psychologically revealing are those lyrics?

Oh, yeah. It’s a great scene. He’s terrified of being left alone. There’s a key line — and I’ll summarise — where he says, ‘I’m a new person. Now I just need someone to be a new person for’. He just needs these people so he can share this fantastical version of himself.

Segueing now, The Cars, ’Til Tuesday, did they influence your band Computer Games?

Sure. Any popular good music. Everything influences you either consciously or not. So, yeah, sure, I’ve played my fair share of Cars covers in my day.

Hedwig creator John Cameron Mitchell will be in Brisbane next month. Did John give you any advice on the role when you took over from him on Broadway?

He’s been such a great friend and a great mentor in general, that I can’t boil it down to one specific piece of advice. But I will say John was always very encouraging of me to learn my own stuff to sort of add to the internal narrative that is Hedwig. And, yep, I’m a ‘Hed-head’ myself. I was a Hedwig fan that got to wear the wig!

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Foxtel, showcase, Thursdays, 8.30pm; also available Foxtel On Demand

The Origin of Love: The Songs and Stories of Hedwig, QPAC Concert Hall, July 17, 8pm, qpac.com.au

Serial thriller with designs on Versace

Writers on ‘Versace,’ ‘Tupac’ and More Reveal Secrets to Bringing True Tales to the Screen

While the challenge often is truncating an abundance of material, sometimes the dilemma is the opposite. In producing the follow-up to the hit limited series American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, producer Nina Jacobson found that FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace proved a more difficult story to tell than its predecessor.

“Whereas with the O.J. Simpson trial virtually every person involved with the story had written a book, in the case of Versace, we had much less information available to us,” she says.

The series creators based many of the key events in the story of Andrew Cunanan, who murdered the famous fashion designer outside his Miami home, on Maureen Orth’s 2000 book Vulgar Favors. They gathered additional information from newspaper accounts and available video footage. “But what happened between David Madsen and Andrew Cunanan, for example, when they went missing for several days, or how exactly some of the murder scenes went down — the only people who know about them are dead,” says exec producer Brad Simpson. “They had to be imagined based on what we knew of the personalities and the crime scenes.”

That’s where the storytellers must rely heavily on what they call “emotional truth.” “Marcia Clark used that phrase after she saw [People v. O.J.]. She said, ‘It’s not a documentary, but they captured the emotional truth of what happened,’” recalls Simpson, adding that producers did not, for either season, contact any of the people involved. “We want to be cognizant of the victims, but at the same time we think it’s best to tell the story based on historical evidence and to try to unpack what happened but not be beholden to telling one particular story in one particular way. That’s been our approach for the Crime Story series in general.”

Writers on ‘Versace,’ ‘Tupac’ and More Reveal Secrets to Bringing True Tales to the Screen

‘ACS: Versace’ Breakout Cody Fern Explains How Gay Shame Leads to Tragedy (Video)

Emmys 2018: Fern discusses how internalized homophobia is “very different from all other kinds of shame”

For his stunning breakout role on “American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” Cody Fern went to dark places playing a cautious out gay man entangled with spree killer Andrew Cunanan.

Australian-born Fern plays David Madsen, a sweet and eligible architect who can’t seem to shake his former lover Cunanan — who is a compulsive liar and increasingly desperate following a split with a generous older boyfriend.

After witnessing the gruesome murder of their mutual friend Jeff Trail at Cunanan’s hands, Madsen is taken hostage and eventually meets the same end. The Ryan Murphy FX series serves as a sort of redemption for Madsen, who was initially thought to be Cunanan’s accomplice.

“He was a very charming, very generous, very compassionate person. When [police] entered his apartment they found presents for his nephews and nieces that were wrapped six months in advance of Christmas,” Fern told TheWrap of the real Madsen, who was killed by two gunshot wounds and left for dead by a lake in Minnesota in 1997.

While Madsen was not an accomplice, the show suggests his own internalized shame over his sexuality bound him to his killer.

“Shame is something that’s really gripping the country right now,” Fern said.

The actor and series director Dan Minahan set out to “capture the essence of what gay shame does to a person. It’s very different from all other kinds of shame in that it’s something that’s forced onto a person from the society and then internalized.”

Watch more of TheWrap’s interview with Fern above, and check out our report of his breakout episode,  “House by the Lake.”