Judith Light – ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’
Credits: Hosted by Scott Feinberg, recorded and produced by Matthew Whitehurst. | 31 July 2018
Tag: interview
Show People with Paul Wontorek: Matt Bomer of THE BOYS IN THE BAND
Screen star Matt Bomer discusses making his Broadway debut in THE BOYS IN THE BAND, his directorial debut and what the first workshop for SPRING AWAKENING was like. | 19 July 2018
HFPA in Conversation: the Eclectic, Masterful Judith Light
She is known for socially conscious TV shows like Ugly Betty and Transparent, but Judith Light didn’t search specifically for those projects. Regardless of who she is playing, the character has to be important to her, Light told HFPA journalist Gabriel Lerman at the Rogers and Cowan office in Century City. “If I had tried to orchestrate what has happened for me, I could never have done that in a million years. I happened to meet Silvio Horta and I did a pilot for him that didn’t get picked up by ABC. And he looked at me after that and he said to me, I will put you in something else. He is a man of his word. Along comes Ugly Betty. I wasn’t in the pilot, but right after the show won the Golden Globe, he called me and he said, here’s the part, this is what I want you to do,” she recalls and continues. “It’s about relationships to me and about meeting people and how you formulate those kinds of connections. They fit in with the world that I like to operate in. I think playing all different kinds of women is extremely essential to me, what I can bring to those women.”
In her five-decade career on stage, television, and film she has been nominated and won several different awards, including two consecutive Tony awards for the Best Featured Actress in a Play in 2012 (Other Desert Cities) and 2013 (The Assembled Parties). In 2016 she received a Golden Globe nomination for her work in Transparent and lastly, she got an Emmy nomination for her performance as Marilyn Miglin in the limited series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. “I thought it was such an interesting story culturally as to how this young man had been so closeted by his parents and by the culture and that the way the world looked at him and treated him, pushed him to kill more people.”
Early in her career, she understood that she can’t seek anybody’s validation. “If you keep looking for approval from somebody, you can’t get yourself anywhere really that has any kind of depth. And that was when I realized that we’re in a service business, we’re here to serve people, we’re here to give people a psychological understanding, an emotional understanding of a character, and we’re here to give a performance. That’s what our job is.”
Listen to the podcast and learn more about Light’s life: when she realized for the first time she wanted to be an actress; why she wanted to study theatre in college; what she did when everything didn’t go as she planned; what advice she would give younger actresses; how she learned she has deep emotional reactions; why she thought she would become a sign language teacher;what she learned from the soap opera One Life to Live; why she didn’t return to theatre for over two decades; why she and her husband, Robert Desiderio, decided not to have kids; and what are the pros and cons of being married to a person who understands the entertainment business.
Listen to the conversation here or, for immediate access to all of our podcasts, subscribe to HFPA in Conversation on iTunes.
Conversations with MATT BOMER
Career Conversations with Matt Bomer, currently starring in The Boys in the Band, moderated by Broadway World’s Richard Ridge of “Backstage with Richard Ridge!” | 12 July 2018
AMERICAN CRIME STORY: Executive Producer Nina Jacobson also talks POSE – Interview
Nina Jacobson is having a very successful 2018. As one of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s fellow executive producers on the project, she has been Emmy-nominated with the producing team for Outstanding Limited Series on FX Network’s THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY. Actors Darren Criss (as murderer Andrew Cunanan), Edgar Ramirez (as Gianni Versace), Penelope Cruz (as Donatella Versace), Ricky Martin (as Antonio D’Amico), Judith Light (as Marilyn Miglin), and Finn Wittrock (as Jeffrey Trail) are also nominated for their performances in the production; Murphy received a nomination for his direction of one episode and Tom Rob Smith is nominated for his writing of another. Jacobson and the producing group previously won an Outstanding Limited Series Emmy for the initial AMERICAN CRIME STORY season, THE PEOPLE V. O.J. SIMPSON
Meanwhile, FX’s POSE, the series about the transgender ballroom scene in New York in the ‘80s that Jacobson exec-produces with Murphy et al, currently airs Sunday nights and has been picked up for a second season.
In an interview conducted before this year’s Emmy nominations for THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE and POSE’s Season 2 pick-up were announced, Jacobson talks about both series.
ASSIGNMENT X: What kind of research do you do when it comes to still-living people who are depicted in AMERICAN CRIME STORY?
NINA JACOBSON: Generally speaking, we have only worked on recent material. We did it with O.J. and with this [VERSACE], which is that, a well-researched book, or in the case of O.J., where there were so many books, we obviously worked off of the [Jeffrey] Toobin book, in this case, we worked off of Maureen [Orth]’s book, getting the perspective of multiple voices, as opposed to trying to tell one or another person’s story, allows us to serve a more balanced telling. And so we don’t ask people, “Hey, do you want us to tell your story?” or, “How do you want us to tell your story?” We just try to get as much research as we can, whether it’s written, whether it’s anything that’s been reported, or whether it’s people who knew the individuals involved, and then put together sort of a mosaic of information, and then let the actors find their character as they go. And then if ultimately they want to talk to the person – for instance, Antonio was very generous to Ricky, but that was well into the process that they started to speak, and so we don’t usually have contact with the people, because, for one, it feels intrusive, and we just draw on well-researched sources and then try to put a mosaic together that doesn’t over-emphasize one person’s version over another, because everybody will tell their story in a different way.
AX: For you, and also for Ryan Murphy, how much of the appeal of telling the story of Versace’s death and the homophobia surrounding it, was the political aspect, and how much was the aspect of getting to visually go into Versace’s world?
JACOBSON: Certainly for me, and I think for Ryan, too, the homophobia that runs through the story brings up painful memories, it is a reminder of how much has changed in twenty years, but to even read in Maureen’s book about where guys were being outed as they were being murdered, and they [the FBI] would go to the parents and say, “Well, there are things you don’t know about your son.” You’re like, “It’s so wrong, and it’s so disturbing.” And then the fact that Versace did not have to be killed, that Andrew is there in South Beach, across the street, in plain sight, and nobody is looking for him. I mean, they are – badly – but they’re not going into the clubs. They wouldn’t put the flyers up. All that stuff that’s in the material, which is that they wouldn’t put the flyers up, they wouldn’t go to the gay community, walk into bars – “Have you seen this guy?” [Cunanan] was right there. So the politics of that to me were really devastating, and that inability to be authentic and the struggle for authenticity, and the courage of Versace’s heroism [for being openly gay]. I didn’t realize, when you put him in a timeline, all the other designers who were out were dead, and they were out because they died of AIDS, they were outed by being ill. He chose to come out at a time when Ellen [DeGeneres] wasn’t out yet. It was a very different time.
AX: Because POSE deals with high style, and Versace was designing in the ‘80s, is there any costume design crossover between VERSACE and POSE?
JACOBSON: Other than the fact that we have the wildly talented Lou Eyrich [also nominated for AMERICAN CRIME STORY] working on them both, not necessarily. Although it was funny, when we did [the upcoming feature film] CRAZY RICH ASIANS, for a lot of the characters demonstrating their success and wealth, they wore Versace. So while we were working on this, we were also working on CRAZY RICH ASIANS, and you could see how much the brand is still a signifier of wealth, and of a certain kind of expression of wealth.
AX: Have you and the production company ever met any resistance in doing LGBTQ-focused material?
JACOBSON: No. For me, it’s actually a real privilege, because these are actually the first stories in this space that I have told, between POSE and VERSACE. Representation is really important to me. I’ve tried to advance the representation of women, and certainly, for something like CRAZY RICH ASIANS, which has an all-Asian cast, and a romantic comedy, it’s a big, fun, mainstream movie for everybody, but these are actually the first times that I’ve really had the chance to tell stories about gay and trans people, so I just feel lucky to get to do it now. I mean, and to have the material, and then someone like Ryan, who has this access to so many people who want to see the stories that he tells.
AX: How many projects are you working on at once?
JACOBSON: Quite a few. We have a movie [set and shot] in New York called BEN IS BACK with Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges, we have POSE, we have GOLDFINCH, so we have all of that, and then a couple of things that are about to go here in L.A., and then CRAZY RICH ASIANS in post. It’s been kind of a crazy busy year. But it’s a good thing.
AX: And what would you most like people to know about THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE and POSE?
JACOBSON: [With POSE], I think one of the things we wanted to explore – the politics are certainly there, but for now, really the show lives and dies on these characters and this extraordinary cast. I think one of the things that we’re trying to explore is, there was enormous transphobia in the gay community. It wasn’t just what you still see now in terms of transphobia, [like] the purported trans ban in the military. There was a “divide and conquer” [mentality], and everybody always looking to have somebody who might be beneath them in the pecking order. I think the show tries to explore even that level of politics, the politics within the gay and trans community, before they had come together, which they’re still making an effort to do, but at a time when people turned on each other. And that’s something we explore in the show as well. It’s the point at which you’re either a “have” or a “have not,” and the rush to become a “have and the pressure to strike up a pose and live up to the materialism of the ‘80s, to be one of those guys. It’s something you see with Evan [Peters]’s character. And we’re certainly living with the results of that now. But we try tocome at it all not through an instructive or expository manner, but just these characters living their struggles in a way that I think illuminates and speaks to the politics of that time.
[With VERSACE], I hope people will pay attention to the pertinence of these themes and the politics of it. We’re still looking at so much – that attempted ban on trans people in the military, and when you look at the impact on somebody like Jeff Trail and how heartbreaking it was to see the personal toll of that, and that guy who had his true love taken from him, just because of who he was, and then to see the contrast of [what] one person who has acceptance and love and family can achieve, like a Versace, versus the terrible corrosive effect of self-hatred and the inability to live an authentic life, and how important it is that we keep advancing the ability for people to be able to live authentic lives.
AMERICAN CRIME STORY: Executive Producer Nina Jacobson also talks POSE – Interview
Here’s How Ricky Martin Is Celebrating His First-Ever Emmy Nomination
Ricky Martin hadn’t had zero acting experience when he was cast as Antonio D’Amico, partner of Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez), in Ryan Murphy’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story — he appeared on Glee, some Latin American telenovelas and even General Hospital way back in the day — but the initial announcement came as a surprise to many. Could Ricky Martin of Menudo and “Shake Your Bon-Bon” fame deliver the goods in a real-deal dramatic role on par with those in The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story?
If Martin’s performance didn’t erase all doubt the answer was an emphatic yes, then the announcement heard ‘round the world Thursday did: Martin received an Emmy nod for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. He told TV Guide he found out when he was startled awake by a loud banging on his door. “Mr. Martin! Wake up, it’s an emergency!” shouted a woman who worked for him; he’d gotten home from a recording studio, where he was working on new material, at 4 a.m. His publicist had dispatched the woman to rouse him, and, in the hours since, he’s gotten so many messages his phone’s battery just gave up and shut down. “I don’t even know how I’m feeling,” he said, sounding slightly groggy but obviously thrilled.
He stayed on the line long enough to tell us four things we didn’t know about his star turn on American Crime Story. Keep scrolling for the full Martin tea.
1. The scene that earned Martin a nod had a key edit that the actor himself asked to change up on set.
Martin traversed between catatonic despair, joy and humiliation when Gianni’s sister Donatella (Penelope Cruz) shut him out of the Versace family business and home. Martin, who has previously described the experience of shooting the series at the Versace mansion as supernatural, credited Murphy’s direction and the sense of trust he created on set as the reason he got noticed — even if the license Martin took surely played a part too.“Ryan is very specific about the things he needs but once you commit to those things, he lets you fly,” he said. Martin asked for permission to actually hold Gianni’s bloody body in the now unforgettable scene when Antonio discovers his partner had been shot. “Ryan said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘I need to feel him,’ and I asked Edgar if I could hold him. I was just bawling. They were very difficult emotions to tap into.”
2. While the recognition is great, what makes Martin the happiest is the fact that justice prevailed, even if it was delayed.
Martin’s role wasn’t just good but resonant too; only eight years have passed since Martin publicly came out (on his website) and the now married father of two, who’s been famous most of his life, is intimately knowledgable about dealing with homophobia and the pressure to stay closeted as a celebrity, which Versace explores in depth.“To be recognized by your peers — it doesn’t matter how cool you try to act…it is the industry telling you you’ve done a good job. But for me most important [is that] the show means justice prevailed. We all jumped into this show because of the need to shed some light into this world. The FBI never caught (Andrew Cunanan, played by Darren Criss) in Miami, which is a small city and [Andrew] was not hiding. I guess the FBI said, ‘It’s a gay man killing gay man, look the other way and let it happen.’ We have to be careful because history tends to repeat itself. This heavy atmosphere we’re dealing with — the xenophobic atmosphere, the racism — we have to stand up and be aware, eyes wide open to stop injustice.”
3. Martin’s already planning on making the most of his nomination — and right now that means celebrating with his castmates and family.
Martin said he’s going to look for “any excuse to throw a little party” and that starts with his Versace teammates. He’s going to Spain in a few days, so he’ll look up Penelope Cruz, he said, and though Edgar Ramirez is in Atlanta, he’s already making plans to turn all the way up this weekend with Darren Criss and Ryan Murphy — possibly at his house.As for the most important people in his life — his family — he’s pretty sure he knows how they’re going to react. “My husband [artist Jwan Yosef] and my kids put up with a lot — my frustration and crying…My husband says to me, ‘I forgot I was married to Ricky, all of a sudden I’m married to Antonio.’” His 10 year old sons are in camp, he said, and he has no plans to interrupt their idyllic summer moment to tell them papa got nominated for the highest award possible in TV. “They’re somewhere else. ‘Dad, look at this! Look at this kick!’ They’ll care, they’ll say ‘Congratulations Papi!’ and they’ll be on to the next.”
4. He knows what he’s wearing to the Emmys in September.
Martin said he’d wear something “conceptual and chic” the night of the ceremony, but importantly he knows just where to put that glossy hardware if he’s lucky enough to bring it home: right next to his two Grammys.
Here’s How Ricky Martin Is Celebrating His First-Ever Emmy Nomination
Edgar Ramirez on his Emmy nod for portraying ‘one of the most fascinating characters ever,’ Gianni Versace
Playing the iconic, ill-fated fashion designer Gianni Versace, who was slain by a serial killer in 1997, was a “profound, transformative life experience,” says Edgar Ramirez. But it was the themes of prejudice and homophobia in FX’s “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” that really resonated for the Venezuelan-born actor, who on Thursday earned a supporting actor Emmy nomination for his work.
Where are we catching you?
I’m in Atlanta. I’m shooting a movie here. It’s hot. We’re one week away from shooting and in rehearsals right now. This was just such a surprise, honestly. I was trying not to think too much about it in the days leading up to it, because you never know. You can’t obsess about these things, but when they happen, you celebrate the fact that the show got so much beautiful recognition. I’m very, very happy.
Why was playing Versace such a profound experience, as you’ve called it?
It not only allowed me to portray one of the most fascinating characters ever, but it also allowed me to meet some of the most important people in my life now. People who are now family, and that is beautiful. It was also one of those roles, those characters, that brings so much to you. What I love is the complexity of the show, the different layers that the show has. And that’s something that doesn’t happen every day.
The undercurrent of the series is really about homophobia. How does that idea intersect with the search for Andrew Cunanan, the serial killer who murdered Versace?
We have to remember that America in the late ’90s was all about “Don’t ask, don’t tell” — Bill Clinton’s solution to the gay issue. And when you look at the story of this serial killer, the search to find him, the effort to understand what he was up to and what he might do next, what comes up over and over again is this denial of sexuality. And the almost refusal to acknowledge that there was a gay world out there. It played against the efforts to find this guy.
How relevant is the show, those social dynamics, today — is homophobia something you worry about, given the increasingly conservative Supreme Court?
Of course, of course. Clearly. Any type of discrimination or overlooking the rights of any individual, any citizen, is very worrisome. And that’s what makes this show so relevant — it was 20 years ago, and yet we see signs of new forms of discrimination, a political climate where discriminating is becoming a normalized thing. And that is something that is very worrisome. And it’s something that’s very global, it’s all over the world. This show is a good way to revisit history, to see how things were in order to prevent them. So that history doesn’t repeat itself.
The show addresses different forms of homophobia, which isn’t always this open, raging sentiment, as you’ve said, but often a quieter, internalized, and in some ways an even more dangerous thing. Can you elaborate on that?
It’s a lack of knowledge. A lack of contact. That’s the internalized homophobia. It was almost a refusal that was, maybe not an angry, but was a total lack of knowledge that there was a gay culture out there. It’s not the same, today; but of course there’s a lot of work ahead of us and there’s an urgent need to protect the rights of individuals that have been [established] so far. Language is important, the rules of engagement are important, in order for us to coexist respecting and accepting each other. If we foster an environment where we’re allowed to discriminate, then words will be easily turned into action. We’ve seen that in the past. And that’s what’s worrisome.
You went through quite a transformation to play Versace — prosthetics, you gained 20 pounds. What was that like and did the physicality help you connect with, and better channel, Versace?
When I saw myself for the first time it was kind of shocking; I hadn’t really worked with prosthetics before. I was afraid it would look fake. But it was a matter of time and I got used to it. And it did help me embody the role. I do believe in physical transformation a lot. If you feel it in your body, then the character grows in — or out of — you.
Are you fashion conscious yourself?
Well, I don’t follow it to the letter, but I’m not a stranger to it. I pay attention. I have friends in the fashion industry. My style? You gotta be comfortable. I believe in classic pieces, but I also like to play around and have fun.
Lou Eyrich “MEET THE HOLLYWOOD COSTUME DESIGNERS”
WANT TO KNOW ALL THE FACTS ABOUT THE COSTUMES IN THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE?
In this new episode of Meet the Hollywood Costume Designers Lou Eyrich had a chat with us about how she created the ‘90s-era Miami “heat and sizzle” for the tv show The Assassination of Gianni Versace.
Spoiler: it wasn’t easy at all!
Bonus: Lou takes you to one of the most beautiful costume houses in Los Angeles. | 23 February 2018
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
‘The Assassination Of Gianni Versace’ Stars Reflect On Emmy Nominations: TV Academy “Voted For Justice”
“How am I doing? I don’t even know how I’m doing. I’m on fire, man. What can I say?” Ricky Martin told Deadline today, after receiving his first ever Emmy nomination for Ryan Murphy’s FX series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. Picking up their own nominations amongst the series’ 18 overall nods, Versace stars Edgar Ramírez, Darren Criss and Finn Wittrock seemed to share Martin’s sense of excited bewilderment.
Documenting the murder of the titular fashion icon (Ramírez) at the hands of spree killer Andrew Cunanan (Criss), the latest installment of Murphy’s true crime anthology series was a dream project for those involved. “It’s a difficult thing to say because obviously [Cunanan] is a very tragic figure. I’d like to think that if I was in any position to have stopped the horrible things that happened, if I was there, I would have tried to do something,” Criss explained of his thinking in portraying an infamous real-life killer. “But unfortunately I wasn’t there. So all I could do is try to bring a kind of positivity to this darkness by telling a story in a certain way, raising certain questions that we can ask 20 years later about not only him, but ourselves and our society.”
“Regardless of awards season, this is an opportunity that I have worked and waited for my entire life. Actors are really only as good as the parts they can get, and the people that believe in them, and the complexity of the characters that they’re playing,” Criss added with reference to his troubled character, who finds himself at the center of the series—more so than Versace himself. “The thing that makes Andrew interesting is not the stuff that is dark or scary or uncomfortable; it’s the breadth of colors that exists on his palette. That’s what actors really crave.”
Like Criss, Martin was happy to see some light come out of the darkness of Versace and Cunanan’s experience. “Today, I realized that my peers in The Academy voted for justice — because at the end of the day, this is what the story was about,” he said. “It’s focused on the justice that is needed [following] this horrible crime. This is the way I see it, period.”
For the actors of Versace, portraying real-life figures was a challange. “As happens every time you play a real-life person, [the challenge] is not to yield before the pressure of playing someone that a lot of people knew—especially someone like Gianni whose work was so impactful,” Ramírez said. “Playing a real-life character, it’s not about imitating. It’s not a photograph—it’s a painting.”
While Criss contemplated the psyche of a killer—attempting to manifest all of Cunanan’s complexity—Martin gave himself up to the darkness D’Amico experienced following the death of Versace. “We walked on set every day extremely vulnerable, but at the same time, we all felt protected because we were being directed by Ryan, and by an amazing group of directors,” he said. “It just felt right.”
Celebrating the success of Versace, each of the series’ stars tipped their hat to its mastermind, Ryan Murphy, discussing what makes him so unique and vital as a storyteller. “He works harder than anyone else in the business and continues to keep a group of people around him who are continually impressive. With every new project, you’re going to be challenged in a new way and surprised,” Wittrock said.
Added Criss, who also worked with Murphy on Glee, “He really gravitates towards sides of the story that we wouldn’t typically hear, or haven’t heard in the past. He finds what’s not only most accessible about those stories, but as a showrunner and a showman, he knows how to make those things attractive.”
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