“Don’t Let the Business Kill the Love”: The Drama Actor Roundtable

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There are few things that can make a sextet of generally loquacious actors freeze up faster than an open-ended question about gender pay parity. Unlike their female counterparts, many of whom have not only forced the dialogue but also demanded action via the Time’s Up movement, the men gathered for The Hollywood Reporter’s annual television Drama Actor Roundtable find themselves looking awkwardly around the table, waiting to see who will bite.

On this afternoon in late April, it’s Ozark’s Jason Bateman, 49, who jumps in first; but it doesn’t take long before The Americans’ Matthew Rhys, 43, interjects, diffusing any tension with a joke — which, to everyone’s delight, changes both the tenor and the direction of the discussion. Fortunately, the group — which also includes J.K. Simmons, 63 (Starz’s Counterpart); Jeff Daniels, 63 (Hulu’s The Looming Tower, Netflix’s Godless); Michael B. Jordan, 31 (HBO’s Fahrenheit 451); and Darren Criss, 31 (FX’s American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace) — is considerably better suited for an eclectic and often hilarious conversation about the easy yesses (and easier nos), the roles still on their bucket lists and, yes, the on-set politics of prosthetic penises.

Darren, you signed on to play Andrew Cunanan, who is not only a real person but also a serial killer. What were your concerns going in?

CRISS I’ve been lucky, I kind of fell ass backwards into the Ryan Murphy camp, which has been the gift that keeps on giving. The only thing that gave me pause was playing a real person, and this particular person had very lasting effects on people who are still alive and the echoes of the tragedy and the destruction that he wrought. I couldn’t help but think about the sons and daughters and husbands and wives who were affected by this guy, and now they’re like, “Oh God, we have to revisit this and make it pop culture fodder.” That weighs on me.

JORDAN Did you ever think about reaching out to them at all?

CRISS I thought about it. Out of almost respect to them, I didn’t want to bug them about it. Again, this is a horrible thing to have to think about, so I let it go.

FULL ARTICLE | THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Darren Criss crosses to dark side

The actor and singer, best known for his role as openly gay drama student Blaine on the TV series Glee, stars in the new instalment of Ryan Murphy’s true crime anthology series American Crime Story.

Following on from the successful first season The People vs OJ Simpson, this new nine-part stand-alone season explores the killing spree of Andrew Cunanan which included the shooting of Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace on the steps of his Miami mansion.

“We get caught up in the really scary things, but we have more in common with the worst people we can think of than we care to admit,” Criss says.

“We all have access to the same emotions and actions. There’s a cocktail of variables for why we don’t go down certain paths.

“I by no means in finding all my similarities forgive or exonerate anything Andrew did. But I know what it’s like to have pain and hurt and longing. Most of that stuff doesn’t stem from these scary moments but from very simple, relate-able things.

“He was a bit of a showman. As an actor I can understand that – the desire to stand out, be ambitious, to leave a good impression. I’m also attracted to big ideas; I love flourish and embellishments.

“It becomes very easy to see how they get twisted and turned around. The point of attack (as an actor) is finding the best parts of somebody.”

Cunanan killed four other men, including Chicago business tycoon Lee Miglin, before he shot Versace. The series, which is based on Maureen Orth’s book Vulgar Favours, delves into those events which lead to his most infamous murder and subsequent suicide.

“The huge difference between the OJ story and this story is that most people don’t know most of the story,” Criss says. “I knew Gianni was tragically murdered on the steps of his home and I vaguely remember it was by a half-Filipino guy, but that happens in the first eight minutes of the series. There’s a whole lot more to talk about.”

Unlike his other dramatic roles, there was an added layer of responsibility for Criss in bringing a real-life tragedy to the screen.

“He was a real person who took very real people’s lives and wrought havoc on peoples lives who are still alive today,” he says.

“It’s fun to play baddies when they’re James Bond villains and you can play with the fantastical element, but when you’re inhabiting someone real it’s a different kind of invigoration.

“There’s a great deal of responsibility of making sure to tell the story right and hit the emotional beats right to not only honour those taken away but somehow allow an audience to wrap their brains around how something like this can happen.”

The drama also stars Edgar Ramirez as Gianni Versace, Ricky Martin as his partner Antonio D‘Amico and Penelope Cruz as Donatella Versace. Murphy directs five of the episodes and is an executive producer.

“He was my boss on Glee but we had never worked tog in the typical actor director relationship,” he says.

“We talked about doing the Versace story before they made the OJ series. By the time it came out, if I wasn’t already extremely excited about shooting this series then I was more excited after I saw how well he was working with true crime stories.”

Darren Criss crosses to dark side

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Conversation 17 – Darren Criss

HFPA journalist Ruben Nepales met Darren Criss on a busy day at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills to talk about his role as Andrew Cunanan in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. They also discuss Darren’s growing up in a musical family, his college musical group StarKid, A Very Potter Musical, and what it was like replacing Daniel Radcliffe on Broadway. They also talk about his role as Blaine Anderson on Glee, touring with Lea Michele, and opening a new piano bar with his fiancée. | 30 May 2018

HFPA in Conversation: Darren Criss, the Multitalented ‘Piano Man”

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HFPA journalist Ruben Nepales met Darren Criss on a busy day at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills. Recently, Criss has been seen on FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story playing a serial killer based on real-life criminal Andrew Cunanan. He is currently touring with his Gleeco-star Lea Michele.

At the beginning of this interview, Criss looks back to his childhood and confesses he didn’t like performing if he was told to do so. “If it was on my own fruition to do a song and dance number, then I’d be happy to. I guess I always wanted to because I enjoyed it, but if you told me to do something, I was like, no way.”

He grew up in San Francisco and Honolulu in a family he describes as very musical. “I grew up in a household where a lot of singing and music was around.”

In high school he was given a choice: did he want to be an Oscar or Grammy winner in the yearbook. “It was polite way to say you did music or theatre. And because I did both I got to choose. And the only reason why I chose the Grammy was because I thought it’d be a fun picture with my friend Michelle because we both played a ton of instruments, so I brought all my instruments and we took like a fun yearbook photo.”

After college, he formed a musical theatre StarKid with his friends and played Harry Potter on stage. In an interesting overlap, later in his life, he’d replace Daniel Radcliffe in the play How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. “When we met, I didn’t bring it up because I think it’s the pink elephant in the room. But this was years ago when I met him right before I did the show. He’s always been very friendly. We see each other around town every now and then and there are more interesting things to talk about than Harry Potter when we’re together for the brief moments we are together.”

Listen to the podcast to learn what he thinks about his stage debut at ten years old, what being a younger brother means to him, why he likes to introduce people to each other, why being part of Glee was like a lottery ticket for him, why he is only a piano man in his and his fiancée’s piano bar, Tramp Stamp Granny’s, how playing Andrew Cunanan affected him and what he seeks from the future – amongst other things.

HFPA in Conversation: Darren Criss, the Multitalented ‘Piano Man”