THE CHARACTER: DONATELLA VERSACE, THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE

For a woman whose family name is synonymous with flashy prints, rock-’n’-roll swagger, and sex appeal, Donatella Versace seems notably reserved. As a young designer, she could be shy, insecure, and comfortable in the shadows—especially the shadow of her older brother Gianni. Even after he was murdered in 1997—and Donatella was thrust into the spotlight as Gianni’s successor—she seemed content to let the public think of her as a garish cartoon, the caricature that performers like Saturday Night Live’s Maya Rudolph extrapolated from Donatella’s surface extremes—bleach-blonde hair, bronzed skin, animal prints, sky-high shoes, and thick Italian accent. In good humor, Donatella even phoned Rudolph to offer a single playful note about her S.N.L. impression: “I can tell from a mile away that your jewelry is fake. You can’t do that to me, darling … I’m allergic to it. I get a rash all over my body.”

Rather than try to dispel her diva reputation, Donatella participated only in select interviews over the years, usually just when the fashion brand needed a P.R. boost. In fact, Oscar winner Penélope Cruz feels so protective of Donatella that even now, months after portraying the designer on The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, the actress still refuses to disclose the vaguest details of her own conversations with the designer.

American Crime Story executive producer Ryan Murphy, who helped reverse Marcia Clark’s bad reputation in the anthology series’s first season, recognized that the misunderstood fashion designer was due for a similar close examination. “I always looked at Donatella really as a sort of a feminist heroine in the same way I looked at Marcia Clark,” he told Rolling Stone before the series premiered. “She stepped into an impossible situation, she kept her family intact, she kept her family’s business intact, and she did it with kindness, elegance, and grace.”

To prick holes in an existing public opinion, Murphy needed a superb actress to make audiences sympathize with this wealthy, larger-than-life fashion figure. His first choice for the role had fortunately worked closely enough with the house of Versace to see past the veneer.

“I’ve met her in my life, a few times, at parties and things like that,” Cruz said in an interview. “Every time I’ve seen her, she has been so nice and kind. Versace has dressed me for so many events, and everyone I know [who works with her] … is really, really kind. They all love her. She has all of the same people working with her for 20, 30 years.” The Spanish-born actress has always been fond of Versace and what the brand stood for, and remembers being heartbroken by the news of Gianni’s murder. “I was in New York, and I remember hearing the news and being completely shocked. I was a huge fan of Versace and everything he did.”

When Cruz was offered the role, she knew that she could not accept it without first getting Donatella’s blessing.

“I could not say yes without making a phone call to Donatella, talking to her, and seeing how she felt about me doing that. She was not really involved in the development of the series. But she told me, ‘If somebody’s going to do this, I’m happy it’s you.’ I needed to hear those words before saying yes. I think she knew what I feel for her—a lot of admiration and respect—and that that was going to be there in the way I played her. And I think that was the way that Ryan wanted me to approach this character, and the way he saw her—like some kind of hero. Because she had had incredible challenges in her life, and she has demonstrated so much strength and courage.”

HOW SHE CAME TO LIFE

“The most important thing for me was to get the voice,” said Cruz. “We speak in such different ways. It was not just the Italian accent, which I have done before. She speaks in a very unique way, in a very rock-’n’-roll way. And that was the key for me: to find that essence without trying to do an imitation.”

Cruz had a few months to prepare for the series, during which she watched “videos of Donatella many, many hours a day—video with her in the backstage shows, these interviews of Donatella in Italian, in English. Interviews with people who know her. Interviews with Gianni talking about her. And I was working with Tim Monich, my dialect coach.”

The television format excited her, “Because you get to explore a character and have more time to build it, because it’s not just two hours of a movie.” The medium also came with its own challenge: “I’m not used to that rhythm. Sometimes you get the script, like, a week before [filming]. Or you get huge changes two days before. So we didn’t really know everything that we were going to shoot until a little time before. That’s scary, but at the same time, it’s an amazing exercise for actors, because you have to live so much in the present.”

Cruz was so focused on nailing Versace’s unique accent and speech patterns largely so that she could prepare for these unexpected changes: “You’re going to have to be able to improvise with that accent, and adapt the dialogue if there are changes the same morning. Sometimes I would get a huge monologue the night before, so I had to be able to speak like my version of Donatella in any improvisation or any new text.”

Though she will not disclose what exactly the real Donatella told her during their conversations, Cruz said that they initially spoke for an hour by phone—before corresponding later “in writing … She was very open with me about some things … It was very important to have those conversations.”

Cruz had undergone physical transformations for previous roles—including Sergio Castellitto’s Non ti Muovere, in which Cruz wore prosthetic nose and a makeup-mottled complexion. She figured that playing Versace could require another full, prosthetic-aided transformation. “I’m always open to that. If a character needs a certain look, it’s not about, ‘Does it look good? Does it look bad?’ It’s like, ‘Does it look like [how] it’s supposed to look for that character?’” But because she was working with such a creative hair and makeup team, Cruz explained, “They actually did very little. I had the right wig, like no eyebrows—because they were very blonde eyebrows—but no prosthetic anything. It was just a little bit of makeup in the right places. The eyebrows were crucial because it really changes the expression of your eyes. And the right wigs that looked so real that people were asking me if I dyed my hair.” The subtle transformation helped Cruz ensure her portrayal wasn’t a caricature. “It was important that they didn’t overdo anything.”

The most thrilling scenes for Cruz to film were the brother-sister moments between Donatella and Édgar Ramírez’s Gianni, which unfold throughout the series in flashback scenes.

“Everyone who knew them and spent time with them said they had this amazing brother-sister relationship, and they loved each other so much. But they also had creative discussions that could get very heated, but the [passion came from] respect for each other and love for what they did—[and] their love for fashion. They are artists creating together and challenging each other,” said Cruz, who searched the Internet for videos featuring the brother and sister—in moments that varied from volatile and tense to tender. “I found moments like that … of them backstage [of a fashion show] arguing about, ‘Put it this way, or that way.’ Like right before the models stepped out on the catwalk, they were still arguing with each other—in a very loving way, but always challenging each other.”

Cruz’s favorite episode to film was “Ascent,” the seventh episode of the season, in which Donatella and Gianni clash over creative differences, the stress of running the brand, and Donatella’s reluctance to take over for Gianni, who is ill. Though Donatella has all the confidence in the world in her brother, she has little confidence in herself—an insecurity stoked when one of her sketches is sidelined during a business meeting. Gianni takes Donatella aside, and tells her she will have to step up to the challenge of heading their empire. “This dress is not my legacy … you are,” he says. The episode features another uplifting scene in which Gianni dresses Donatella—like he did all throughout their childhood, when he treated her like his own personal doll. This time, though, he’s dressing her up in a black bondage-collared dress. Later, when told the dress is not selling as the company expected it would, Donatella suggests a more practical design—a creative concession which infuriates Gianni. He takes scissors to the dress, yelling, “Is it normal enough?”

“Édgar and I got into an amazing zone, in terms of how much we enjoyed playing this episode. Because it was all about the challenges of trying to create something special and, in this relationship, how they were pushing each other to get the best from each other,” said Cruz, adding that the dynamic offscreen in some ways matched the relationship on-screen. “I think if you talk to him, he would agree that we enjoyed every single second of shooting that episode, because there was so much love in that episode—for each other, for this brother and sister. And love for their profession, for their job. It was very emotional for me to shoot that one.”

Initially, Donatella suggests that Gianni give his bondage dress to a supermodel like Naomi Campbell, who could own such a provocative look. But Gianni insists that Donatella, his muse, wears his masterpiece, and accompanies her to the event where it will make its debut. Near the end of the episode, Donatella shyly removes her coat and ascends the stairs of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Met Gala as her bother watches proudly.

“Gianni was pushing Donatella to really believe in herself. He believed so much in her. So getting up those stairs dressed in that dress was very symbolic. It told so much about their relationship and how much he believed in her, knowing her talent. And that’s what she proved when he was gone—she had to continue with this empire and [overcome a tragedy which left her] so full of pain. She had to have that strength to continue what they started together, but by herself … that theme of her climbing those stairs in that dress—it makes you think about everything that happened later.”

Cruz was so emotionally invested in playing Donatella, she said, that she couldn’t come to grips with the project ending. “Part of me was completely refusing the idea [that we were done]. You know, like, ‘How come [it has to stop]? I don’t get this. This doesn’t make sense.”

Even though she ultimately had to let go, Cruz seems satisfied that she was able to offer Donatella Versace a more nuanced, sympathetic portrait—built from love, reverence, and a carefully studied accent: “It was like my own personal homage to her.”

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