Tag: january 2018

But How Gay is ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’?

What is The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story?

To say that The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story was a smash success for FX is an understatement.

The series won critical raves, audience interest, and a slew of awards for its stars, particularly for Sarah Paulson as O.J. Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark. Unfortunately, following it up proved to be tricky; the original plan for season two, a story revolving around Hurricane Katrina and the governmental response, proved to be a non-starter.

The Katrina season got new source material, but will need major time for a retool; Versace, the originally planned season three, was pushed up.

Time will tell how creator Ryan Murphy eventually handles Katrina, but the Versace story is very much in line with Simpson: a deeply ‘90s narrative, with just enough celebrity element to make it salacious. Rather than focus on the titular assassination, however, Murphy and his team have crafted a fascinating character study of serial killer Andrew Cunanan, tracking his progress backward.

Gianni Versace is killed in episode one; we meet Cunanan’s other victims in subsequent episodes. The final product is a story less about Gianni and Donatella Versace (despite what the Edgar Ramirez- and Penelope Cruz-heavy marketing might lead you to believe), and much more about how one infamous sociopath came to wreak such havoc.

Who’s in it?

Darren Criss, of Glee fame, plays Andrew Cunanan. But don’t let the lightness of his previous work fool you — this is one of the greatest TV performances of the decade.

He plays Cunanan like an Instagay of the ‘90s: opportunistic, narcissistic, and a pathological liar. Every brazenly false declaration is played with just the right amount of overconfident flourish. His charisma is toxic, but it’s hypnotizing. It’s the kind of bravura performance you know will be showered with every award under the sun. Luckily, he’ll deserve them all.

The other three main characters get much less time on-screen, but each makes their own, smaller impact.

Ramirez smartly plays Gianni Versace not as a demented or aloof genius, but as a kind man expressing his true self through excess. He gets tough moments, particularly in his relationship with sister Donatella, but wins out by leading with Gianni’s heart.

Speaking of the iconic Donatella, Cruz digs in to her portrayal with full force. Her accent is spot-on, and her entrance is gasp-worthy. But she never loses the character in caricature, no matter how broad her brushstrokes. One late episode, in particular, focuses on her creative partnership with Gianni; it’s some of the best work of Cruz’s career.

Ricky Martin also stars as Gianni’s lover, Antonio D’Amico, and acquits himself well in a handful of crucial scenes. But in a story that is all about Andrew Cunanan and only somewhat about the Versaces, there’s not much room for the latter’s own supporting cast.

Why should I watch it?

If my effusive praise for the performances alone hasn’t been enough hint, let me make it plain: The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story is masterful, perhaps Ryan Murphy’s best work ever.

The showrunner has always been something of an emotional creator, changing large bits of characterization in Glee on the fly because of his changing whims (see: the show’s sudden laser focus on Kurt starting in season two). He’s also known well for his excesses — of glamour, violence, and more, mostly on American Horror Story.

But Versace sees a more moderate Murphy, channeling all the extravagance into the Versace-led interludes and keeping Andrew’s story plain, true, and incredibly captivating.

If the first few episodes don’t hook you (which, they certainly hooked me), I’d recommend sticking around for episode four, “House by the Lake.” It’s a remarkably focused installment, exclusively about Andrew’s relationship with one of his victims, architect David Madson (played by the striking and sublime Australian actor Cody Fern).

If the intimate, tense storytelling and filmmaking of that episode doesn’t sell you, nothing will.

But how gay is it?

It breaks the goddamn Kinsey scale.

Ooh, because we see Darren Criss’ butt?

I mean, it’s way more than that.

Part of the reason why I wanted to do a But How Gay Is It? for this show in particular, when it’s only been a column format for movie reviews before, was because it is incredibly gay. Murphy, the creator, is gay. The story is about gay men; more than that, it explores homophobia and gay shame in remarkably subtle, fascinating ways. In “House by the Lake,” for example, Andrew takes David on a road trip unwillingly after killing their friend, Jeff Trail. Andrew keeps David from escaping by manipulating his fears about his family learning about his sexual proclivities. It’s deeply disturbing — and, for any gay man who has gone through a period of craving respect despite his sexuality, all too familiar.

The other reason why I wanted to, however, was because many of the filmsthat have hit theaters recently have been decidedly not gay. It’s not news to say TV is gayer or queerer; GLAAD has reported it several times over at this point.

But watching the screeners for Versace (critics received eight of the nine episodes ahead of airing) right after seeing the last of 2017’s films drew such a sharp contrast for me. Said in the broadest strokes, TV right now is progressive, boundary-pushing, and risky. Movies, of which there are fewer, and are far more beholden to studios and franchises, just cannot keep up.

In other words, if we were asking ‘But How Gay Is TV’ versus ‘But How Gay Is Film?’, the former would win out almost every time. There are other merits to measure the two, of course — but this column particularly cares about that one.

…so do we see Darren Criss’ butt in this?

[sigh] Yes, you do.

That’s really all I wanted to know.

I know.

It sounds like a good show, though.

It really is!

But How Gay is ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’?

There’s Not That Much Fashion in FX’s Big Versace Drama

LOS ANGELES — Has fashion’s big moment on television finally arrived with the docudrama “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” the long-awaited installment of “American Crime Story” that begins airing on Wednesday on FX?

Not exactly.

This show centers not on Mr. Versace, the storied Italian designer fatally shot on his doorstep in Miami at age 50 on July 15, 1997, but on his killer, Andrew Cunanan, whose three-month murder spree culminated in his suicide at 27 a week later, leaving any motive a mystery. Mr. Versace doesn’t even appear in some episodes. Much of the season is told backward, beginning with the murder, and then working through Mr. Cunanan’s origin story, going back to his childhood.

It’s grittier and bloodier than its predecessor, “The People vs. O.J. Simpson,” which skipped the two gruesome murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman and focused instead on the madcap trial that followed, setting ratings records for FX and winning Emmys and Golden Globes aplenty.

“We knew we didn’t want to do ‘O.J.’-lite,” said Brad Simpson, an executive producer of the series. “We didn’t want to have the exact same tone or vibe because we felt like that’s something we couldn’t match. This is much more about crime.”

“‘O.J.’ was very frenetic,” said Ryan Murphy, another executive producer. “‘Versace’ is lot slower and grander in its compositions. That’s one of the turn-ons of the show for me. Every season, we’re going to take on a crime, we’re going to look at broader social issues, and every season will have a different tone.”

This one is two-toned. There is the color of Mr. Versace (Edgar Ramirez), whose over-the-top sensibility brought celebrities to the front row, and who helped nurture his younger sister, Donatella (Penélope Cruz), into a star in her own right. In the series, life is getting better for Mr. Versace before his death: His fashion house is about to go public; he is out and proud, rare for high-profile gay men at the time; and though he is H.I.V. positive, new medication is making him stronger.

Then there is the darkness of Mr. Cunanan (Darren Criss), who had a taste for the high life but appears to have made few earnest efforts to get there. The series focuses on his hideous unraveling from social climber to killer. In all, he murdered five people, including two friends, and at least three, and possibly four, gay men.

Much of the series is based on “Vulgar Favors,” Maureen Orth’s 1999 book about Mr. Cunanan, from which the Versace family has distanced itself. “The Versace family has neither authorized nor had any involvement whatsoever in the forthcoming TV series about Mr. Gianni Versace,” the fashion label said in a statement last week. “Since Versace did not authorize the book on which it is partly based nor has it taken part in the writing of the screenplay, this TV series should only be considered as a work of fiction.”

Regardless of its genre, ratings estimates indicate that roughly half the audience that tuned into “The People vs. O.J. Simpson” will not return for this season, said John Landgraf, the chief executive of FX, and he’s just fine with that.

“We’ve made a show that by definition that a gay man that’s lived through this experience is going to have a richer, deeper connection to this material than a straight guy who lived through that period of time,” Mr. Landgraf said. “That’s probably not the most commercial choice you could make in America, but the way you get to great television is to ask people to go into experiences that are compelling but that are challenging.”

Such experimentation makes FX an appealing line item on the slate of properties that the Walt Disney Company is looking to buy from 21st Century Fox, in a deal that will depend on regulatory approval. Mr. Murphy, a hitmaker whose contract expires later this year, has said he is not sure if he will stay with Fox after the Disney sale.

He said he was inspired to do the show because he was living in Los Angeles at the time and gay men in all major national metropolises were transfixed by the story, and terrified Mr. Cunanan would be arriving in their city next. But when Mr. Murphy proposed a season about Mr. Cunanan three years ago — well before the Simpson series debuted — it gave his colleagues pause.

Nina Jacobson, a producer of the series, politely nodded along before she went home to Google the killer. “I was pretty much in the dark,” she said. Brad Simpson, another producer, had a dim memory, too, and wondered if there was “enough meat on the bone.”

Compared with the abundance of coverage around the O.J. Simpson case (tons of books, boundless archives of material), the public’s fascination with Mr. Cunanan’s murder spree was faded like a pair of acid-washed jeans.

But the producers saw bigger themes in Ms. Orth’s book. If Mr. Simpson’s trial touched on racism and sexism, the Cunanan tale connected to something else: the shame of the closet, the remarkable difficulty of being openly gay in the 1990s.

“‘American Crime Story’ at its core only works if you’re telling a bigger story about a societal ill,” Mr. Murphy said. “So I thought, ‘Can we do something on homophobia in the ’90s and the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies at the time that I think and ruined so many lives?’ And it’s more topical than ever now with this president who is all about discrimination and exclusion.”

Ricky Martin, who plays Mr. Versace’s longtime lover Antonio D’Amico, was himself in the closet in 1997. During multiple time jumps in the series, Antonio is presented as both devoted lover when Mr. Versace was in the closet, and then devoted and even happier lover after he came out.

Mr. Martin said that his performance was informed by two things: just how much better it is to be proudly out now, and the embarrassment that he felt considering how he treated his former partners while he kept his sexuality secret.

“I went back to my life and what my life was in the ’90s: big closet,” he said. “I made my lovers be like Antonio where he was kept in the shadows and kept in the dark back in the ’90s. It took me back to a place, where, see, it was not necessary. I go back to Harvey Milk where he said everyone has to come out and we have to normalize this. So for me, I was playing both roles. I was playing the man coming out and the relief of it, and the lover, the victim.”

It wasn’t hard for Mr. Murphy to secure Mr. Martin’s participation.

“I used to live in Miami when the actual crime happened,” Mr. Martin said. “Although I never met Gianni personally, I was invited to that house many, many times. And for some reason I never went. I had a Giorgio Armani campaign back in the day, so I’m sure that didn’t help!”

Never one to miss a red-carpet opportunity, the house of Armani last week blasted out a news release announcing that it had dressed Mr. Martin, Mr. Criss and Finn Wittrock, the actor who plays one of the Cunanan victims, for the Los Angeles premiere of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace.”

Ms. Cruz chose a Stella McCartney dress for the premiere. A 2009 Academy Award winner for her performance in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” she called Donatella Versace, with whom she had come into contact “here and there” over the years, after being cast.

“She said to me, ‘If somebody is doing this and play me, I’m happy that it’s you,’” Ms. Cruz said. “We spoke for one hour. It was a very good conversation.” (Ms. Versace did make one request of the producers, which was granted: that neither of her two children be portrayed in the series.)

Ms. Cruz said she watched hundreds of hours of tape of Ms. Versace to master her Italian accent and mannerisms, and that her portrayal was intended to be one of “respect and love.”

And she said that early last week, Ms. Versace sent her flowers and that the two have been texting like middle-schoolers.

As for Mr. Ramirez, he found access to his character through compassion for the intense scrutiny Mr. Versace faced post-mortem. Mr. Versace “was killed twice,” he said. “He was killed physically, and he was killed so to speak morally and socially.”

The show’s main accomplishment, according to Mr. Ramirez? “I think it’s the redemption of Gianni Versace.”

There’s Not That Much Fashion in FX’s Big Versace Drama

Darren Criss makes radical transformation in ‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’

Brace yourself, “Glee” fans: You’re about to see a radically different side of Darren Criss.

In “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” the actor who gained fame as the cute, preppy singer Blaine Anderson, transforms himself into a cold-blooded serial leader.

Criss, a Bay Area native, plays Andrew Cunanan, the man who murdered five people over a three-month span in 1997. One of his victims was Versace, the iconic fashion designer who was gunned down on the steps outside his mansion in Miami Beach.

“The Assassination of Gianni Versace” is producer Ryan Murphy’s nine-episode follow-up to “The People v. O.J. Simpson” and Criss’ mesmerizing performance is at the center of it. If “Versace” manages to draw anything close to the amount of attention “O.J.” generated, expect to hear the actor’s name being bandied about during awards season.

Playing Cunanan might seem like a bold, image-busting kind of move, but Criss doesn’t see it that way.

“I think people have a fascination with the dichotomy between something like ‘Glee’ and this (series), but people sometimes forget that actors are actors. We are acting,” he says. “I’m always looking for interesting material. I’m looking for things with clay that I can get my hands on and really do something different and big.”

Murphy, who also produced “Glee,” says he always knew Criss had the ability to go dark. That — along with the actor’s physical resemblance to Cunanan — made Criss his “first and only choice” to play the pivotal role in “Versace,” which is based on Maureen Orth’s book, “Vulgar Favors.” The cast also includes Edgar Ramirez as the title character, as well as Penelope Cruz as Versace’s sister, Donatella, and Ricky Martin as his longtime (partner) Antonio D’Amico.

Cunanan was a closeted gay man, who after dropping out of college, settled in the Castro District of San Francisco. Over his final years, he often befriended wealthy older men. He had a tendency to lie his way into high society, telling fantastic tales about his personal life and false accomplishments. Eight days after shooting Versace, and with the FBI hunting for him, he killed himself with a gunshot to the head in a Miami houseboat. He was 27 years old.

While doing his research for the role, Criss said he was surprised to learn that Cunanan was not “your typical spree killer.”

“This is not somebody who had a history of killing small animals and burying them in his backyard,” he says. “He defied all those textbook analogies. He was a charming, affable person, despite everything we know about him now. For the most part, people loved Andrew. He was always the life of the party. There were so many positive things about him.

“I’m less disturbed and creeped out than I am just utterly heartbroken by the loss of such potential and the wrong avenues he took in life.”

Criss, who grew up in San Francisco and spent much of his youth performing in American Conservatory Theater plays, says he avoided simplistically thinking of Cunanan as just a violent psychopath. Instead, he tried to detect “common denominators.”

“You find the primary colors — basic things that aren’t so complicated,” he says. “For example, everyone knows what it feels like to want something that you’re not allowed to have, the desire to rise higher than your station. Then you add in the other layers — what’s happening in his home life, his socio-economic situation and what’s happening with his own sexuality and that kind of added the other colors. You find things that you can relate to and then you let the script and the world around you — with Ryan’s curating — do the rest of the work. It’s not as hard as what it would seem.”

“Versace” differs from “O.J.” in tone and approach. As Murphy says, the first was a “courtroom pot boiler” and the followup in a “manhunt thriller.”

“I really loved how we laid into everybody who was affected,” he says. “Not just the people who were killed, but also the relatives, the siblings.”

Even though Criss was forced to dwell in the dark side during much of the production on “Versace,” he insists he didn’t bring the role home with him at the end of the day.

“I know a lot of people who jump into these kinds of things, and it really consumes their whole lives,” he says. “…  I think what saved me is that Andrew compartmentalized so many things in his life: emotions, people, experiences. He could disassociate. And likewise, I could sort of disassociate.”

Darren Criss makes radical transformation in ‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’