Tag: interview

Uncovering The Spoilers Buried In The Music Of American Crime Story: Versace

Showrunner Ryan Murphy decided to start The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story with the titular designer’s death. For the first eight minutes of the show, there is minimal talking. We hear only the greetings as Versace (Edgar Ramírez) encounters various characters at the start of his day and the screams of Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), who was in the midst of a killing spree targeting gay men. What overwhelms our senses are the sounds of “Adagio in G Minor,” a haunting piece of baroque, Italian composition that we’ve all heard on screen many times, from Flashdance to Casanova to Manchester by the Sea. Though effective, it is not a particularly original choice. But, another layer is added to the story ACS: Versace is telling us if you explore the murky history of this piece of music.

“There were a couple of others we were trying, all in the same classical, Italian landscape,” the show’s music supervisor, Amanda Krieg Thomas, told Refinery29 on a recent phone call. Murphy, who directed the first episode, chose to set the sequence to a single piece of music and had the show’s composer, Mac Quayle, record a new version of this song to picture, so the arrangement matches up perfectly with the action.

There is a duality to watching a man who will lie, steal, and kill to serve his own ends execute another man in a moment scored by someone who perpetrated the most significant scam in classical music history. A musicologist named Remo Giazotto claims to have discovered the adagio, circa 1949. Giazotto was writing a book on the 18th-century Venetian master Tomaso Albinoni and said he had found this fragment of music in his archives, consisting of six bars of a melody. Giazotto took the liberty of finishing the composition, and the “Adagio in G Minor” was born. Except that Giazotto’s story wasn’t true. There is no proof to support that Albinoni wrote that fragment of music. Giazotto retracted his story later in life and took sole credit for the piece.

When it comes to pop music, of which the show has an abundance, powerhouse female vocalists from the late ‘80s and early ’90s are the stars in ACS: Versace. “It’s different from The People Versus O.J. Simpson in every way, but that show was a snapshot of the period, and that’s what we did for it musically as well. This season, the vision from Murphy was more focused on Cunanan and the type of music he would have grown up with; songs that would have been around him and in the places he went to that he’d be listening to,” Krieg Thomas says. The universe of ACS: Versace is aurally made up of women: club and radio jams by Lisa Stansfield, La Bouche, Indeep, Soul II Soul, and Jocelyn Enriquez all make appearances. And, of course, Laura Branigan whose cover (with its rewritten English lyrics) of “Gloria” became a hit in 1982. Her take is revived in episode 2, when Cunanan blasts it while he sings along in a stolen truck, taken from a man he killed.

“Murphy is such a fan of music, and for many of the moments, he knew what he wanted. ‘Gloria’ was one of those; he’s a big Laura Branigan fan,” Krieg Thomas said, which is probably not something anyone has said in decades. Her assertion bears itself out, though; the show uses another Branigan track, a No. 1 hit that has been all but forgotten in modern times, “You Take My Self Control,” in a future episode. “It works really well on many levels — it’s so incongruous with what just happened, he’s murdered people, he’s driving, and we hear this happy, upbeat song,” Krieg Thomas continued. She noted that the lyrics speak to what is happening: “Gloria, you’re always on the run now / Running after somebody, you gotta get him somehow” and “Gloria, don’t you think you’re fallin’? / If everybody wants you, why isn’t anybody callin’?”

A checking of the boxes (fits the show’s aesthetic, lyrically speaks to the scene) is noticeable at numerous moments in the first two episodes alone. “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” plays when Cunanan meets Versace in a club in San Francisco, letting us know something is afoot. “Be My Lover” plays while Cunanan fruitlessly searches for Versace in a South Beach club in a fit of desperation. It’s a sickening foreshadowing when Phil Collins & Phillip Bailey’s “Easy Lover” plays as Cunanan ties up and dominates a john. Under the Miami Vice aesthetic of this ’80s hit lies a cautionary tale about a lover who will leave and deceive, giving you nothing but regrets. As for talk that it might be an homage to American Psycho, Krieg Thomas said, “although it’s pulled from the same easy listening palette, it wasn’t a reference point.”

In episodes 3, 4, and 5, the soundtrack pivots to speak to us about the other men Cunanan killed: Lee Miglin (Mike Farrell), Jeffrey Trail (Finn Wittrock), and David Madson (Cody Fern). With Lee, it’s a resetting of the aesthetic by using songs coded for older gay men; where Doris Day and Astrud Gilberto play on the hi-fi. With Trail and Madson, the work is largely done by the show’s score, which sets a mood of horror to match the change in cinematography to the darker, harsher tones of Minnesota sunlight and Madson’s industrial loft. In episode 4, the foreshadowing is heavy when Madson and Cunanan are in a bar listening to Aimee Mann sing the saddest version imaginable of “Drive,” a morose uber-hit for the Cars in the ’80s. Madson’s tears along with the lyrics, “Who’s gonna pay attention / To your dreams? / Who’s gonna plug their ears / When you scream?” let us know that there was no escape. Not to the outside world where gay men were vilified, and not with Cunanan on a Bonnie and Clyde-esque murder spree.

The show uses music to tell us about Versace, as well. His South Beach soundscape is not so different from Cunanan’s, full of club music and dance hits but with flourishes of Italian classical dropped in to remind us where he comes from. In episode 2, there was a moment where the real Versace spoke. In another theme for this show, that of cover songs, they lifted a track that Versace used in his final fashion show for the scene with Donatella (Penélope Cruz), dropping the Lightning Seeds cover of “You Showed Me” in after their big fight over models and how to build a fashion brand. Reports have the siblings fighting quite a lot at the time, with Donatella trying to find her place in the house of Versace after her brother’s return upon his recovery from an illness. The use of this song in his real life may have simply been reaching for what was in the air at the time — it was the height of Britpop, and in his other shows he had used adjacent tracks like “Wonderwall” by Oasis. Or, it might have been a carefully constructed message to his sister. That we even ask the question, however, is entirely thanks to its presence in the American Crime Story universe.

Uncovering The Spoilers Buried In The Music Of American Crime Story: Versace

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“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” with Finn Wittrock

Joanna Robinson and Richard Lawson discuss “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” the fifth episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, and find time to mention representation at the Winter Olympics. This week’s featured interview is stage actor and frequent Ryan Murphy collaborator Finn Wittrock who talks about playing Jeff Trail and tracking his performance over multiple episodes.

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‘Versace’: Darren Criss Opens Up About the Revealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” Episode

Before the midpoint of FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, the narrative of serial killer Andrew Cunanan’s life has been told in reverse chronological order and devoted episodes to each of the murderer’s victims. But the fifth episode, titled “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” lives up to the promise creator Ryan Murphy made to shed a light on institutionalized homophobia in the 1990s, juxtaposing the coming out stories of two of Cunanan’s victims with the moment the killer unravels.

Darren Criss, who plays Cunanan, spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the pivotal episode, and how it helps fuse the past few episodes of the series — which have focused on Cunanan’s victims Lee Miglin, David Madson, Jeffrey Trail and William Reese — back with the titular fashion designer. “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” follows the struggle of military man Jeff Trail to come to terms with his own sexuality while Versace toys with the idea of publicly revealing his own relationship status. Their two very different experiences — one leading to Trail’s discharge from the service and the other leading to a high-profile piece in a national magazine — are both in conflict with Cunanan’s own spiral about his own identity and self-worth.

“At this point in the series you haven’t seen a lot from the Versaces, and so it’s nice to be juxtaposing someone like Jeff’s coming out story against Gianni coming out with The Advocate,” Criss tells THR. “Two different worlds are trying to face the same obstacles and being met with very different resistance is really interesting because you can see this very harrowing world that Jeff is in constant conflict with versus this very … glamorous side of the coin, which would be Gianni’s side. There’s a real heroism to both.”

Below, Criss discusses the series’ unique structure, building Cunanan’s back story and the lack of Versace in the series.

It’s interesting to see Andrew there for Jeff when he needs help accepting his identity as a gay man, but Andrew’s entire trip to Minneapolis to see David and Jeff is a cry for help and he won’t accept any from either of them.

Andrew has this savior complex, which is why I think he really thrived so much in a place as complex as San Diego in the ‘90s because you have a vibrant gay scene right on top of the vibrant military town. So it’s sort of built-in conflict within a lot of young men who Andrew meets. Andrew stands for everything that these men would find attractive — not in a sexual sense but in a personality and joie de vive sense, the guy that is now offering refuge and a place to celebrate what would otherwise be a source of conflict for them. It was a feeding ground for someone like Andrew to feel needed in a really fulfilling way.

[Andrew] has many tragedies, but one of his biggest tragedies is that I think he needs to be the purveyor of everything. He needs to be in control. He has to be the one that is buying the drinks, throwing the parties, introducing people. He needs to be the one that is giving the help, and as a result I think his output is so high that nothing goes in. And so his own help system, as far as gaining help, is manifested by only being able to help others. He just gives himself away to so many people to the point where he can sort of cover up his own shortcomings by being this constant giver.

Finding somebody like Jeff is sort of the gold mine Andrew gravitated toward. Even though he was really helping out Jeff — and he really does in a very earnest, beautiful way, I think — Jeff was also unconsciously there to help Andrew, just to give him some kind of purpose because he needed to feel love. So their meeting was very tragic.

Watching this episode from the perspective of someone who might not have really understood the nuances of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” military policy at the time, what can you say about how the episode might have enlightened you?

Even if you are of an age where this is something that you were aware of, unless you were gay and in the military at the time, I feel like there’s no way you’d have the same insight or experience as somebody like Jeff or his peers. You really can’t have a shot at working with what that actually means on a day-to-day basis. It’s a continuing question and struggle for our brothers and sisters in arms and people who serve our country. I think maybe hearing the specifics of Jeff’s particular story hopefully will make this more accessible to people and seem a little more real, and seeing the real struggle that it presents for a lot of young men and women.

Although the story is being told in reverse, the first four episodes have a very clear structure. This episode played with time a bit differently — what was filming it like?

Luckily and very thankfully, to the credit of Dan Minehan, who directed both four and five, we did something that I hadn’t done in a very long time, and it’s something that actors really thirst for — we had a table reading. We actually read through both episodes in chronological order, and we shot in chronological order as much as possible, those two episodes together, which is really an absurd luxury. I was thrilled that they took the diligence to really try and execute this in a more linear way. So, in that sense, it made these very much a two-parter. I watched two episodes together, so I actually would be curious to see how people experience it, having had a week or so in between. It’s a really interesting structure. Some people seem to take to it, others really don’t like it because there’s less of, I guess, a payoff — or it’s an inverse payoff, because you already made your decisions about the person.

Shooting out of sequence, to me, just means I get to have this kind of CSI map emotional trajectory on my wall and I have to kind of play emotion Tetris as far as what fits where, in order to get what yields this to get this. And how does point A have to connect to point B? I’m still curious because I still haven’t seen the very last episode. To me, that’s where it all comes together again.

In the next three episodes that you have seen, what did you learn about Andrew and what are you looking forward to audiences learning about him?

I was always interested in Andrew’s life as a teenager because it’s always easier to identify with a young person that has so much more time to go. I think, inevitably, when you know somebody has done something as terrible as Andrew did, you connect every moment of their life to those actions. Any little thing he did in high school, “Well that’s, you know…” Now you look at it differently because you know that they’ve committed murder. It’s interesting in looking at really gifted, young, talented kid and just really exploring how fun and charming he was. A lot of the grim atmosphere that he was breathing in towards the latter part of his life, I really, really wanted to make sure that we couldn’t connect that dot to the dots of his youth.

We shot a lot of stuff that I thought was really fun and showed just an honest-to-goodness, lovable teenager. I don’t know if that all made it into the show, but I remember those scenes and I really enjoyed being able to paint those colors of Andrew. I had to wait the entire shoot to be able to finally show these more affable colors. Earlier in the season where we know what he’s done, there’s sinister undertones of even his happier moments because we’re closer to the famous murders. We can’t help but question everything he’s doing. I couldn’t wait to get him as a teenager because I really wanted to confuse people’s senses of who and what you’re rooting for.

That was the first chance to really embrace the best parts of someone’s life … you may have not liked him, but you couldn’t say that he wasn’t the life of the party. [A high school classmate of Cunanan’s told Criss], “I just want you to know that Andrew was such a good friend. We really loved him. He was so much fun and he was just someone you could count on.” She said it with such — it was so heartbreaking to hear because you could tell the tone was totally mortified when she read the news 10, 15 years after the fact.

That’s the person that I was really hoping to create and that’s what makes this structure interesting. It’s like Merrily We Roll Along. You start with them at their worst, and how do you feel about them when you see them at their best? It’s pretty divisive. It’s either going to make you really mad, or its just going break your heart that there was such a loss of potential there. The memorable parts for me was just showing a kid that’s just trying to figure out his life like every other kid.

The end of this “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” episode saw Andrew and Jeff fighting about honor, which really seemed to be what set Andrew off on his killing spree.

I was speaking earlier about the metaphorical mapping out of Andrew, and as far as the big red circles, with the red pins on ‘em, that moment is a huge one. That comes back to a question a lot of people have who don’t know the story and this case very well: “What happened between San Diego and Minneapolis? What triggered Andrew to go AWOL? What happened between the two of them? They were inseparable.” Something must’ve happened between them for him to go to Minneapolis and carry out this action that you can’t help but assume is planned.

That’s a big question mark for a lot of people. We will never know what happened, and our show could never dare to say that this is truth by any means. But for our storytelling sake, it’s not necessarily about what really happened so much as it’s about the emotional arcs that had to have happened in order for these things take place. So in our case, we have this scene where there is a cathartic laying of cards on the table, where the ethos of both characters is kind of put on the line. You have, basically, Jeff calling Andrew out. Not too dissimilar from what had happened in the last episode, where the thing that set Andrew off on David was him finally calling him out for what he was and basically making Andrew live inside a world that is real and therefore not very pretty.

Any time Andrew forced to be exposed to the real world around him or the truth, it’s a very unpleasant thing for him. So that set him off in the last episode, and ultimately ended with a fight in the car and very rageful homicide. That was the second of the murders. So the first one — “no one wants your love” is the line that Jeff says. And that’s enough to turn a cog in Andrew’s brain. To hear that from the one person that he’s given everything to, you can’t help but feel bad for the guy, even though hopefully most people wouldn’t do what he did.

He’s giving so much of himself to people that they now have to feel beholden to holding him up. And so it’s sort of emotional hostage — you’re now feeling entitled to someone’s life because you’ve given them something that they didn’t ever really ask for. That’s a pretty big awakening point, for Jeff to realize that this guy is unconsciously using him. And he calls that out, the truth that Andrew’s not ready or emotionally prepared to hear or deal with. And if he can’t have something, he has to take it, and he has to destroy it.

He couldn’t have Jeff; he couldn’t have David; so he had to literally take it. He couldn’t have Versace’s fame, success, everything, so he to take it. Even to take someone’s car. So when Andrew is deprived something, the ultimate way to really take it back and be in control is to be more powerful, and to be the controller of that person’s life.

‘Versace’: Darren Criss Opens Up About the Revealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” Episode

Ricky Martin on ACS: Versace, Coming Out, and ‘Normalizing’ Open Relationships

There are obvious parallels between Ricky Martin’s life as an international celebrity and Gianni Versace’s brand of glamour and hedonism. Both sold sex appeal as part of their brands while living as gay men. In the FX show American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Versace makes a conscious decision to publicly come out in 1995 during an interview with The Advocate. Martin came out in 2010, saying that the act made him feel free and liberated: “I could say I love myself completely,” he told Oprah afterward. In ACS, Martin plays Antonio D’Amico, the supportive, longtime partner of the late fashion designer.

“Unlike Darren [Criss, who plays serial killer Andrew Cunanan in the series] I brought all my emotions back home with me,” an exuberant Martin told a group of reporters after the TCA panel. In a brief but warm interview with Vulture beforehand, Martin discussed his conversations with Antonio D’Amico, the homophobia of the police interrogation, and how he wrestled with his own coming-out process.

Did you meet Antonio D’Amico, the person you’re portraying?
A couple of times we met. It was difficult for me to find him, but then I found him. It was like, “FBI, find Antonio!” Because I just wanted to do justice to his story, you know? I’m telling the story of someone who is alive, and I cannot jump in front of the camera without having an interaction with him. So we found him, and he was so open and so vulnerable. I told him, “Antonio, I just want to do justice to your love for Gianni. And I want you to tell me what your love was about, for the audience to see what it was about.”

I want to normalize relationships like this. It’s good for the world; it’s good for me as a gay man with kids. It’s important that we shed some light on power couples like this, even though he was quiet and behind the scenes and he was just there supporting his man for 15 years. I also believe there was a level of homophobia going around in his family where he was hiding, even though he says, “My relationship was very open and free with Gianni.” So I used that as well in front of the camera, and for that, I will always be very thankful.

What kind of insight did he give you into his relationship with Versace?
He told me about Gianni’s character, and he told me about how he would react when there were different situations that would arise in the day-to-day. “Gianni would not pick up his clothes from the floor. He would take a shower and he would leave his shirt there, so it was me after him, picking up,” and “He was extremely organized with everything that had to do with Gianni the Enterprise. Extremely organized, very focused and extremely on top of things with everything! But in his personal life, he had me picking up after him.”

The silent person behind the scenes.
The silent person behind the scenes, yeah. One of the toughest scenes that I shot [was] the first, the interrogation when the FBI is investigating Antonio. It was a very excruciating scene for me. I mean, this guy was opening every door that was a secret from Gianni’s and Antonio’s relationship. I’m talking about bringing men into our lives. I’m talking about bringing escorts. That exposure is very heavy, and it can be extremely uncomfortable for me, for the family, but I’m here doing a job, and the story, once again, needs to be told, for people to see the level of unity between these two. The level of commitment after 15 years. The level of security between them and trust between them is so solid. We want to normalize another kind of reality for open relationships. And that’s what we’re doing. There’s absolutely nothing wrong. We’re just two very self-secure men that are completely in love with each other, that trust each other to the maximum level, and here we are. But the scene was very intense and painful. Excruciating. It was a long day.

How much do you feel like homophobia was a part of that?
Ignorance! Oh my god, every question was so ignorant coming from this guy. And I’m like, “What are you talking about? He’s my boyfriend, my partner.” But even for me, in the ’90s, it was difficult to say the word “boyfriend.” I wish I could have said “my husband” back then, in order for people to understand. But before that interrogation, it’s still confusing, even now, if you have a boyfriend that brings escorts to you for you to have intimacy with. But that is the reality for many men and women, and I cannot say only in the gay world. There are many relationships that are open.

What’s your relationship like with Penélope Cruz? Because you have an adversarial relationship in the show, but I assume that’s not how it is in real life.
First of all, we’ve worked together many, many, many times, philanthropically. We’ve done fundraisers together. We were sponsors of a very beautiful orphanage in Calcutta, so we did fundraising galas, and we’ve known each other for a long time. It’s funny because as I am shooting the scene of the investigation, I hadn’t seen Penélope. She walks onto set already dressed up as Donatella, and of course, I am drained and I’m tired and it’s been hours of this excruciating interrogation, and all of a sudden she walks in and I just go like [Martin holds his hand out]. I want to hold you, but I want to hold my friend. But I go like that [holds his hand out again] and Ryan goes, “Great idea! We need this for the shot, so stay there, and you cannot hug him. You hate him.” She came back to me and goes, “Rick, I saw you devastated. Your eyes were swollen. I needed to give you a hug.” And I’m like, “And you didn’t.” “But I wasn’t allowed to!” “You didn’t.” “I wasn’t allowed! It was better for the acting.” I’m glad we didn’t hug because all that made even more of [an] impact for the series.

You used the actual emotion that you felt.
I wanted to hug you. I really wanted to. But Antonio, after being interrogated for nine hours, he’s filled with blood. The first person that he sees that he knows is her, and even though they don’t have a good relationship, he’s like, “Hug me, I need someone to hug me.” And it took it to the next level. And Penélope is amazing. I was very honored to work with her.

The scene where Gianni decides to come out to the interviewer and then he brings you with him was really emotional for me.
And for me. You have no idea.

What was it like to shoot it?
Well, you know, for many years I lived in the closet, and you will never know how easy it is to be out of the closet until you actually decide to come out of the closet. If I knew how easy everything was going to be afterward, I would have done it way before. So, I went to that moment and I went to the relationship, where I held my partners pretty much prisoners of my closet, so as an actor it was very easy for me to get somewhere emotionally. And I felt a joy, and I felt the love come from my partner. Honestly, I went to my real life where I was hiding them, and then the other side of the coin, my partner is exposing our truth, our reality, and it felt amazing and I cried. But it was joyful, and when I held Edgar — Gianni’s — hand, I wanted to kiss him, and we did. He was nervous. It’s one of the most beautiful scenes, I think.

It’s so joyful and empowering too.
And at the end of the day, I had no idea that he was going to bring me in, it just happened. I was like, “What’s going on here? Is this really happening? Oh my God!”

Because it’s not just “I’m a gay man,” but “This is the man who’s been with me for so long.”
It’s the love, and he needs to be recognized, acknowledged.

Gianni Versace has a line where he says, “Is the brand of Versace braver than the man?” when Donatella didn’t want him to come out. And I wondered if you wrestled with that question yourself in your life?
Yes. Everybody, people that I love, people that were really close to me told me, “You come out, this will be the end of your career.” You know, “Girls won’t buy your albums, they won’t buy your T-shirts, they won’t buy your concert tickets,” and that kept me from coming out many years. Because you work so hard to get to a place in the entertainment business and then they tell you if you talk about your nature everything’s gonna collapse. So you say, “Okay, no. Okay, let’s just not talk about it then.” But then there’s this emptiness; it doesn’t matter what you created. Living with this emptiness, it’s not how I want to live. And then one day you find the strength, you don’t know from where, and you just do it for yourself, you do it for your kids, and then with social media you realize the power and how important it is for us in the LGBTQ community to normalize families like mine, and then it wouldn’t be an issue. I mean, Harvey Milk said it many years ago, “Guys, you need to come out, ’cause then it’s normal.”

But I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a megacelebrity whose brand relied on sex appeal.
Yeah, you know, back then, Donatella or someone would say, “the board of directors advises not to…” and to me, it was “the record company advises not to,” which was b.s. Doesn’t matter. What’s important is what you need to do to become a better person, and with this — I go back to this scene — and how important it was to present this moment where you see this amazing fashion icon, a monster, strong, being vulnerable and afraid of sharing something as beautiful as your nature. You know, that scene where he holds me in the hallway before he walks into the room, that he gives me a kiss? He was trembling. And we all go through it at a certain point.

Did you ever meet Versace?
I never met Versace. I was invited to the house a hundred times to different events. I never met Donatella. I never met him personally. At the time I had a campaign with Giorgio Armani, so everything was Armani and Giorgio Armani outfitted two of my tours, but I was invited to the villa and I never went. So I used the fact that it’s my first time in this villa and it felt amazing.

Did you date back in the ’90s, early 2000s?
I was working like crazy in the ’90s. I had girlfriends, I had boyfriends, I had dog friends, I had cat friends. But my career never sabotaged my intimate life.

It didn’t?
It didn’t, it didn’t. Now, I think I could have lived more intensely and I could have had more experiences that the closet kept me from.

Did you have a partner?
No. I had my girlfriend, who was a woman that I dated on and off for nine years, and she’s like the Gala for Dalí. Dalí had Gala. And I had this woman who was amazing. Unfortunately, we don’t talk anymore, but she was amazing, and she was powerful and she knew about me. She knew I was gay, but we were together.

She knew?
Yeah, she knew. She knew and we were together. It was one of those things, but we broke up around ’97, ’98, and then I just worked. I worked so hard. I dated, but nothing as serious, as formal as Antonio and Gianni.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Ricky Martin on ACS: Versace, Coming Out, and ‘Normalizing’ Open Relationships

Versace: Watch Jeff Trail’s Real-Life Interview About Being Gay in the Military

Wednesday night’s episode of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace features two very different coming-out scenes. In one, set in 1995, Gianni Versace openly discusses his sexuality with a reporter from The Advocate, even introducing his longtime boyfriend Antonio D’Amico during the interview. This refreshing, meaningful moment is intercut with a scene during which Jeff Trail—an ensign and a Gulf War veteran who was later murdered by Andrew Cunanan—risks his career to participate in a segment for CBS news magazine 48 Hours called “Gays in the Military.”

Reporter Richard Schlesinger, who interviewed the real Trail in 1993, later recalled that the U.S. Naval Academy graduate “chose to speak to us because he thought it was the right thing to do.”

The segment coincided with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and a change in the policy on gay people serving in the military.

“He did the interview in silhouette but he was still taking a tremendous risk with his career,” said Schlesinger. “He had absolutely nothing to gain by doing the interview. Yet he took the risk and spoke out.”

Trail warned Schlesinger, “You’re going to weaken our national defense if you remove gays from the military. And you’ll never be able to do it 100 percent, it’s just whether or not you’ll continue to hunt us and force us to fear.”

Asked whether he felt comfortable speaking from the literal shadows to protect his identity, Trail said, “There is nothing I would like more than to be lit up [here] and tell you who I am and show you who I am. But I am not allowed to do that… It’s [only] comfortable for me because I know I will be able to continue to serve my country and do my job and do it right. That’s what I care about most.”

To prepare to play Trail on American Crime Story, actor Finn Wittrock told Vanity Fair’s Still Watching podcast that he watched footage from the 48 Hoursspecial on repeat: “That was my bible. I would watch that and listen to that every day.”

Wittrock said that when he first read the scripts for the series in the summer of 2017, he thought that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was such a “dated” concept.

“‘I don’t know if people are going to be able to relate to that,’’’ Wittrock remembered thinking. “Then a week later there was the transgender military Trump ban…Suddenly I thought, ‘Oh wow. How many steps we take forward and how many we take back.’ So suddenly I was examining the whole story in that way. How relevant is this still? Sadly, so much of it is still relevant.”

Wittrock, who is not gay himself, said that he prepared for the role by speaking to gay men who were “in their 40s or 50s and lived through this period when they weren’t [out].” Ultimately though, Wittrock was struck by how much he had in common with Trail: “Besides my sexuality, I could be Jeff Trail. There’s very little, I found, that separates us in that way.”

Versace: Watch Jeff Trail’s Real-Life Interview About Being Gay in the Military

American Crime Story: Versace: How Penelope Cruz Became Donatella

One of the biggest joys of watching a Ryan Murphy series—at least, the ones based on real life—is seeing exactly how it physically transforms stars into the characters they play. On The People vs. O.J. Simpson, impeccably dowdy wigs morphed Sarah Paulson into Marcia Clark. On Feud, perfectly defined brows and a careful swipe of eyeliner turned Jessica Lange into a dead ringer for Joan Crawford. And on The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Penelope Cruz has pulled off one of the most drastic transformations yet, taking on the role of her friend Donatella Versace.

How much hair and make-up did that take—and what, exactly, is going on with her plump upper lip? We spoke with the show’s costume designers and hair and make-up team to find out.

THE CLOTHES

The costume team for Versace consistently worked at breakneck speed due to production constraints, yet their work perfectly captures the Versace era—both the world of high fashion and the grungier elements of the 90s, through the parallel story of Versace murderer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss). This was no small feat, considering the team had no help from the Versace family.

When it came to capturing Donatella’s iconic look, costume designers Lou Eyrichand Allison Leach started with the basics—specifically, that tiny waist.

“I feel that a big part of the silhouette for Donatella was the corset, to get that really structured waist,” Eyrich said. “That tiny-waist look was a big part of it, and then the bodycon… And Penelope has a rocking figure as well, so as far as getting that same silhouette, that was easy. And then once Ana and Massimo added the wig and the makeup, Penelope would just magically transform.”

One of the signature Versace looks the two were most excited—and nervous—to recreate was that notorious bondage dress, which Donatella famously wore to the Met Gala in 1996. Leach said recreating that memorable look was both “very exciting and harrowing.”

“It is such an iconic dress, and it it was scripted that it definitely needed to be that dress to tell the story of her coming into her of her own stardom,” Leach continued, describing a scene the series depicts in episode 7. “Just from a construction standpoint and materials, it was such beautiful leather dress that had to fit perfectly—and all these different angles that the neck and the you know skirt had to swath just, just right.” That dress, Leach said, was one of the most challenging items on the show’s list—but also the most rewarding.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Donatella on Versace is how her appearance changes after her brother’s death. Each department made its own contribution to that effort. For costumes, it meant keeping things somber. Though Leach and her team kept the character’s clothes fitted–and of course designer—they also avoided low-cut necklines, and kept Cruz a little more covered up in scenes set after the murder. “I would think that she would feel, you know, maybe safer in those layers,” Leach explained. “And, you know, there’s always elements of jewelry and stuff, but sometimes we downplayed it a little bit to make it more appropriate for the tone of the scene.”

THE FACE

Perhaps the biggest challenge in turning Cruz into Donatella was morphing her face—an effort spearheaded by Cruz’s make-up artist, Ana Lozano.

Lozano said thatshe and Cruz did a lot of their make-up tests back in Spain, before they even got on the plane to film. Together, they sifted through photos of Donatella’s looks, calibrating smokey eyes and contouring to get just the right balance. And if you’ve been wondering what, exactly, is making Cruz’s upper lip so plump on the series, the answer is more obvious than you’d think: it’s an instrument literally called “Plumper.”

“It’s a kind of dental prosthetic to make her lips bigger,” Lozano said. The effect also gives Cruz a slightly different-looking face. “Penelope has enough lips in reality,” Lozano clarified, but in real life, they are a different shape than those of the woman she plays. Lozano also used contouring to finish the look and further define Cruz’s lips—as well as to lightly massage the rest of her features into a more Donatella-like illusion.

Lozano tried using prosthetics for Cruz’s eyebrows, but in the end, it was simpler and more natural-looking to simply bleach them and give them a thinner shape. Then came the eyes—those smoky, smoky eyes. As Lozano notes, smokey eyes have changed over time; in the 90s, they had a rounder look, rather than the more cat-like approach that’s become popular now.

Like the costume team, Lozano worked to make sure Cruz’s “Donatella” physically changed after her brother’s death. She made her skin a little paler, and made her eye make-up just slightly less perfect—“just to make the impression that she was crying and she was not sleeping.” (Lozano adds that she particularly likes Cruz in slightly destroyed make-up, as it “gives more importance to the look.”) For the scenes set after Gianni’s death, Lozano also contoured Cruz a little more aggressively, making her features just a little sunken.

Cruz, Lozano said, was constantly practicing, working to get her portrayal just right; sometimes, Lozano even recorded the actress so she could review her facial expressions, or the way she gestured. “At the end,” Lozano said, “it’s like you press a button; it’s like, Wow. She is Donatella.”

THAT HAIR

Like Lozano, Cruz’s hair stylist Massimo Gattabrussi started working with Cruz in Madrid before making the final wigs for the series. When Cruz called Gattabrussi about the project, the stylist recalls he “remained silent for a few seconds.” Once his excitement for the challenge took over, he said, “I understood that it would be brilliant.” He used a photo book Donatella produced in 2016—Versace—to become more acquainted with the icon’s past.

Gattabrussi and Cruz tested color, hair quality, and style with about nine prototypes to ensure they got the right balance of characteristics. The stylist has long collaborated with the historical Italian studio Rocchetti-Rome, which allows him to participate in the construction and finalization of the wigs—which, he said, “is very important for me because of my close knowledge of Penelope and its physical and gestural characteristics.” In the end, they narrowed down their choice to three pieces, all of which made it on the series—two with bangs, one golden and the other platinum, and the third without bangs, with longer hair to give the illusion of extensions. As Gattabrussi put it, he’s “always looking in a line between real and fiction.”

How did Gattabrussi help the show’s Donatella express her grief after losing her brother? That’s what the third, bangs-less wig was for. 1997, he said, “was a sad year to represent.” In addition to tailoring the wig to fit the time’s fashion trends—longer, heavier hair without bangs—Gattabrussi said he “paid attention to detail like having increased the regrowth of dark hair to the root.” That, he said, helped the wig offer a more realistic image, and slightly lowered “the flash of platinum” that’s always been associated with Donatella’s powerful and iconic image.

American Crime Story: Versace: How Penelope Cruz Became Donatella

Behind the Title: Encore (and Ryan Murphy) Colorist Kevin Kirwan – Randi Altman’s postPerspective

HOW HAS THE VISUAL STYLE EVOLVED OVER THE YEARS AS YOU AND RYAN HAVE WORKED TOGETHER?
It’s a show-by-show thing. Shows like Glee, or something like the new series that we just started, 911, are pretty straightforward, nothing stylized, good contrast, nice poppy colors, don’t go too dark, feature the performance, make sure you can see into the actors’ expressions… that sort of thing.

American Horror Story is a different creature each season. These anthology series are fun because even though it’s technically the same show each time, the seasons all have their own theme. The look is much more tailored to fit the individual story. Season 2, which was called Asylum, was my favorite in terms of look. Very desaturated, dark and moody. It was a grungy, forbidding vibe that I really had fun with.

We just finished the second season of American Crime. This one was The Assassination of Gianni Versace. It’s very warm and colorful, especially when we were in Miami, but as we descended into Andrew Cunanan’s world it got a bit dirty, and we got to play a bit.

The first season of American Crime, The People Vs. OJ Simpson, was pretty gritty. It had a really tight look and a nice period feel.

Behind the Title: Encore (and Ryan Murphy) Colorist Kevin Kirwan – Randi Altman’s postPerspective

Cody Fern is ‘American Crime Story: Versace’s Major Discovery

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Don’t be diverted by the sleek clothes, vibrant colors or transformative work of its lead actors — the crown jewel in the medusa head of “American Crime Story: Versace” is necomer Cody Fern.

From a small mining town in Australia, with only one prior credit to his name, Fern plays the little-known David Madson — a pawn in the game of serial killer Andrew Cunanan, who famously gunned down designer Gianni Versace in Miami in 1997.

That Fern would stand out with his famous costars Penelope Cruz, Edgar Ramirez and Darren Criss is as unlikely as it is exhilarating. His performance as Madson is the show’s true revelation, despite the halo Ramirez brings Gianni, the quiet dignity Cruz affords Donatella and the textured madness Criss gives us as Cunanan.

Let us explain. (Warning: Do not read ahead if you aren’t caught up on the show.)

“Versace,” produced by Ryan Murphy and his “People v. O.J.” team of Brad Simpson and Nina Jacobson, shows Cunanan’s five-person murder spree in reverse. It hooks you with the spectacle and tragedy of Versace being gunned down on the marble steps of his palazzo and walks you back through Cunanan’s horrible journey to that moment.

On this timeline, we meet his victims and friends Madson and Jeff Trail (Finn Wittrock). At the top of the fourth episode, we witness Fern’s big moment: Cunanan violently bashes Trail in the skull and face 28 times with a hammer.

The violence is implicit and the camera doesn’t show the murder, just a slow push on Fern. He conveys abject horror and shock at the act unfolding in front of him. Only after the screams and grunts are through do we see a blood-soaked Cunanan, who immediately retreats into the arms of the terrified Fern, looking for approval.

Madson had a dog, and the animal used in the scene had such a strong reaction that the actors had to do a second take, Jacobson told TheWrap.

“The intensity of that murder was present there at the shoot,” she said. “What’s so great about Cody’s performance is that the horror of the murder is playing out across him.”

After the murder, Cunanan seizes on the violence and confusion to make Madson feel complicit. He pulls him into the shower and washes the blood from them both. He watches as Madson dresses and struggles to find an appropriate response to the crime he’s just witnessed.

Cunanan promises no one else will get hurt if Madson flees the scene with him, so the men set off together on a morbid little road trip. Here they both begin to weigh the consequences of their choices.

“We watched a lot of road movies from the 1990s, there was this trend of road movies. ‘Natural Born Kilers,’ ‘Wild at Heart,’ ‘Thelma and Louise.’ [Episode writer] Tom Rob Smith watched those, and we talked about this being a twisted version of that,” Simpson told TheWrap.

Indeed, Cunanan joyously belts out Technotronic’s “Pump Up The Jam” while Madson stares off into the distance, drudging up his internalized shame over being gay, and wondering how news of the crime will hurt his family, which struggled with his coming out, years before.

“The question becomes, ‘How redeemable is Andrew and how redeemable am I?” Fern said of the episode, speaking from the set of his new gig on “House of Cards.” “How complicit am I in the death of this other person, my best friend? Could I run now if I wanted to?”

To prepare for the episode, Fern said he read the famous testimony of Manson Family member Linda Kasabian, a key witness in the defense of the Tate-LaBianca murders.

“You got the sense that the light went out behind her eyes, ” Fern said.

The episode reaches a second crescendo when the fugitives stop at a roadside bar. Fern’s Madson keeps reaching the end of his emotional rope, only to find more rope. A lounge lizard (played by indie goddess Amie Mann in a stealth cameo) sings an impossibly sad cover of The Cars song’ “Drive.”

Madson escapes to the bathroom, where he breaks the glass of a small rectangular window above the toilet — “Maybe he fits through it, maybe he doesn’t,” Jacobson said.

Back in the bar, reality rushes to Cunanan and tears stream down his face.

When he looks up, Madson has returned to the table. The sweater he wrapped around his fist to punch the window is now tied on his waist.

“The shame, it’s something we wanted to explore in this entire season. Think about Versace. He came out before Ellen, and there were so few role models and people you could look up to. There was so much internalized homophobia, it’s so present with both of those characters, both Madson and Jeff,” Jacobson said.

“It’s more than the murder for Madson. It’s ‘People know you’re guilty for being gay, and guilty of being gay.’ That Cunanan plays on that is so disturbing,” Simpson said.

Tom Rob Smith’s teleplay for the episode is titled “House by the Lake.” That’s where the episode ends, and we won’t spoil what fate awaits the men there.

Cody Fern is ‘American Crime Story: Versace’s Major Discovery