yongchavez: When I told #DarrenCriss that I couldn’t cover/was declined creds to premiere of ACS:Versace w/c stars & tells struggles of a Fil-Am family seldom seen on TV, he took my phone & emailed the publicists. #speechless #PinoyPride @AsiansInHollywd @CAPEUSA
ACSFX: He wanted fame. He was wanted by the FBI. The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story premieres January 17 on FX. #ACSVersace @DarrenCriss
The second season of FX’s “American Crime Story” is called “The Assassination of Gianni Versace.” The first was the smash hit and award season bonanza “The People Vs. O.J. Simpson.”
Versace begins at 10 p.m. Jan. 17.
It confronts a specific period’s homophobia directly in a way that, despite the geometrically progressing acceleration of the subject everywhere, is still not all that common. Which is why, in its way, some will see it as brave, even now when gay subject matter has been routine for decades all over television.
But that is the whole point of Ryan Murphy’s “American Crime Story” this time around.
The nine-part limited series is based on the 2008 book “Vulgar Favors: Gianni Versace and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History” by Maureen Orth, the brilliant Vanity Fair reporter who is the widow of Tim Russert and the mother of Luke Russert.
Versace was murdered in 1997 in front of his Miami Estate by the disturbed serial killer Andrew Cunanan who, said Orth recently at a New York screening, “wanted to be everything Versace was but he wasn’t willing to do the work for it. The idea that he was willing to kill for fame – there’s a line from there to getting famous on a sex tape like the Kardashians down to becoming president of the United States because you’re a reality TV star.”
Cunanan’s killing for fame seems more than a little related to the motivations of Mark David Chapman’s murder of John Lennon.
If you read about that advance presentation in a New York theater, you come up with what sounds like a mission statement from Murphy that seems at odds with Orth’s tough social and media criticism.
Says Murphy “We’re trying to understand the psychology of someone who could be drawn to do those deeds.”
The trouble, of course, is that there is an immense difference between the amount of fame possessed by Versace, even at his “designer to the stars” zenith, and Simpson, even during the lowest point of America’s public obsession with his wife’s savage murder.
That too, is related to the relative lack of passion in investigation of crimes in the LGBT community. At its base though, we’re talking about the apogee of fame that can be achieved by a fashion designer, however ubiquitous his clients, compared to that achieved by a great football star, decent sportscaster, commercial spokesman and playful comic actor.
O.J. was in American living rooms and bedrooms running through airports while little old ladies shouted “Go, O.J. go.” If Versace had been in nightly TV commercials, things would have been different. What we see in the opening minutes of the new Versace series is a picture opposite to that of a populist American hero. Murphy’s “Versace,” in that opening episode, is nothing so much as a late-20th century version of a Venetian prince up to his receded hairline in impossible luxury. The act of waking up in the morning and being served his morning orange juice seems to epitomize the luxury of a Medici.
Even so we’re talking about about American fame on a vastly lower level than O.J., even before the obsession with the murder and trial began.
And that makes “Versace’s” decision to tell its tale the way it does almost fatal. It eventually gets very interesting. But it takes a while. It isn’t easy to stick with it. There’s no question that the figure who should command attention is his killer, with all his crimes and his pathology.
But its very title and its opening episode concentrate on what it presumes to be its chief appeal: the celebrity fashion designer so tragically murdered and the subsequent complexity of the fight over his business.
Whatever it made as a Vanity Fair story or book, it seems a good deal less on television.
The first thing we see is Edgar Ramirez, as Versace, living in sensual Miami luxury contrasted with the murderous stalking and psychological instability of Cunanan.
You don’t get to the juicy subjects the series concerns until you’ve gotten rid of the crime itself which didn’t begin to obsess America the way Nicole Brown Simpson’s and Ron Goldman’s murders did.
Murphy is a fascinating figure in American television, an authentic gay grandee provocateur of the medium. He’s reported himself gay since high school and much of what he does is saturated with gay themes and what some would decorously call “camp” concerns (“Feud”). His new series “9-1-1” began, on its opening night, with the husband of the character played by Angela Bassett telling his two sons at breakfast that he has, in middle age, figured out that he was gay.
What bowls almost everyone over about Murphy is his extraordinary success at casting his productions. Even his new “9-1-1” series stars Bassett, Peter Krause and Connie Britton which is a terrific cast for something that is little more than a 21st century version of the old TV series “Emergency” (which Michael Arlen once wittily called “training television” for children).
The casting of “The People Vs. O. J. Simpson” was little short of sensational even before anyone got a look at the thing. And then it became legendary no matter how debatable – Cuba Gooding Jr. as O.J., John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, Courtney B. Vance as Johnnie Cochran, Nathan Lane as F. Lee Bailey, Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clarke and Sterling K. Brown as Christopher Darden. That cast received awards and acclaim all over the place. It remains one of the best casts ever assembled for a TV drama.
And yet another reason why the newest follow up in Murphy’s “American Crime Story” series is nothing if not a disappointment.
Ricky Martin, Penelope Cruz, Edgar Ramirez and Darren Criss, stepped out at the premiere of their new series, “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” the second installment of Ryan Murphy’s “American Crime Story” franchise. While the Versace family recently released a statement denouncing the project as “a work of fiction,” Murphy was quick to mention that Cruz had received a kind gesture from her onscreen alter ego. “Donatella Versace sent Penelope Cruz a huge arrangement of flowers yesterday,” he shared.
“It was very nice,” said Cruz, who stars as Donatella in the nine-episode series, which debuts Jan. 17 on FX. “I don’t know if she has seen [any episodes yet], but it’s a personal thing. For me, it really made me smile. It made me happy.” The actress said she admires Donatella’s passion and success in running an empire. “She had to do that in a moment when she was devastated and she proved to be strong. That was a very generous thing to do because I’m sure she did it also for him.”
“Look, maybe it will be too painful for her to [watch], but I think we treat her with a lot of respect and dignity,” added Murphy. “I really admire Donatella — like I really admire Marcia Clark. I think Donatella Versace was a woman who, out of the blue, was asked to carry on a billion-dollar company and keep her family business going and intact and was up against a board of directors and lawyers who were all men and were trying to tell her something contrary to what she wanted to do. I really admire what she was able to do and continues to do.”
Cruz said she spoke with Donatella in advance of filming. “We had a long conversation when Ryan offered me the part,” said Cruz. “I needed to talk to her about it before I moved forward.” Once she accepted the role, Cruz prepared by combing through interviews with Donatella on YouTube in order “to capture the essence of this wonderful woman.”
Ramirez plays the role of Gianni Versace. “It’s such a great opportunity and such a great privilege to step into the shoes of one of the most creative minds of the 20th century,” said Ramirez, who wore prosthetics as part of his physical transformation. “He’s a genius that affected culture and changed it. Gianni was a disruptor. Gianni did things that no one else had done before….He was the designer of his time and for me that’s incredible to play.”
While Ramirez spoke with a few of the late designer’s friends to prepare, he didn’t read Maureen Orth’s “Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History,” the book upon which the show is based. “Andrew Cunanan has nothing to do with his life,” he explained. “He has to do with his death, so I wasn’t interested in Andrew Cunanan. I didn’t want to put those ideas in my head.”
Criss was tasked with tackling the role of serial killer Cunanan. “I feel like I made varsity,” Criss said of being cast on the show. “I get to be on an FX show, another Ryan Murphy show. The fact that it’s a second season for a show whose stripes are already proven in quality and content. Then I get to be in a project that has a character that is extremely compelling and is an actor’s dream to work on — not because of it’s darkness or the violence that it involves but because of the colors of emotional arcs that he carries with him. And on top of that let’s not forget the bonus that I get to hang out with a bunch of movie stars which is certainly a thrill. My head explodes a little bit [when I talk about it] and it did every day going to work. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Murphy said that the project features his dream cast. “They were all my first choices,” he shared, adding that, despite rumors, Lady Gaga was never in the running for the role. “She was never available. She was doing ‘A Star Is Born’ when we were casting it.” Murphy added, “I always wanted to work with Penelope. I liked that she was friendly with and knew Donatella very well. I’ve been friends with Penelope for almost 10 years and I’ve always wanted to work with her, but we could never find the right piece or the right timing. Finally this worked.”
Famous guest stars include Max Greenfield, Finn Wittrock, Michael Nouri and Judith Light, the latter of whom wore Christian Siriano to the premiere. “I remember hearing the news,” said Light, who appears on the third episode as Marilyn Miglin, a powerful businesswoman whose husband is murdered. “My parents were living in Florida at the time and they lived in Pompano Beach, which is near Miami. He was iconic and it was shocking — how this could have happened when there were so many things that fell by the wayside.”
Beyond the headlines, Murphy said the project is, at its core, “about something I lived through which was homophobia in the Nineties and the trickle-down effect of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ in our country. I also think it’s about great beauty and great destruction and it answers the question, ‘How does one person become a murderer?’ And how does another person become a creative genius? Both things don’t just happen, so we examine that.”
The bar was already set especially high for the second installment of “American Crime Story” by the critical and popular success of last year’s “The People v. O. J. Simpson.” From the long white Bronco chase along the Los Angeles freeways to the gavel-to-gavel coverage of Simpson’s trial, much of the nation had followed the case from beginning to end, all but guaranteeing a sizable audience for the dramatization. Critical raves, Emmys and other awards only added to its success.
Unlike Simpson, the central character in the FX anthology series’ second season was not well-known at all, but his obsessive desire to change that drove him to kill one of the most famous fashion designers in the world. “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” whose nine-episode season premieres Wednesday, Jan. 17, may not get “Simpson”-level ratings, but it takes the series, loosely based on a book by Maureen Orth, to another level altogether. Though at times excruciating to watch, it is a riveting and provocative indictment of both homophobia and, on a larger level, our obsessive fascination with celebrity, both real and manufactured.
In fact, the show’s new season is even more about celebrity than the first. Versace (Edgar Ramírez) has it, uses it, wallows in it. His boldly opulent, neo-baroque fashion designs reflect it, taunt wealthy customers with it. Celebrity is what Versace’s boyfriend, Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin), uses to entice attractive young men to follow him from Miami clubs to Versace’s villa. Sometimes Versace is part of the ensuing menage. Other times, he keeps working while the sex continues in the background, almost as if he is feeding directly off its energy as he creates his designs.
Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) learns from his con man father, Modesto (Jon Jon Briones), that appearance is everything — that it doesn’t matter who you are inside or what you actually accomplish in life: As long as you look and act the part, you can pretend to be anyone you want to be. Let others work hard for success: If you’re smart and inventive, you can get there simply through elaborate pretense.
We meet Cunanan on a sun-bleached morning on the beach as Versace is returning to his gated palazzo after a short walk to buy the newspaper. Cunanan walks calmly forward, raises his arm and shoots, killing Versace and creating the small red waterfall on the villa steps that we will see next to crime markers when the murder is covered by TV news. A turtle dove is collateral damage. Later, in a singularly over-the-top scene, the camera pulls back in the morgue to show Versace’s body on a table, and then, in the foreground, that of the bird. Although the actual bird was gray, it becomes tellingly white in the TV version.
From that shocking beginning, screenwriter Tom Rob Smith tells the story of Cunanan’s life in extended flashback, showing us how his father doted on him to the exclusion of his other children and wife, and how Cunanan began lying from an early age to hide his family’s lack of status and wealth. He was a show-off at school and later as an attractive young man who pathologically reinvented his biography to get him closer to older men, in particular. Like a character in Dickens or Fitzgerald, Cunanan wanted to belong.
Smith’s reverse chronology is fundamental to the success of “Versace” and why it is often excruciating to watch. We know what will happen to each of his victims as he makes his way toward Miami.
Cunanan goes first to Minneapolis because he is in love, or what he convinces himself is love, with David Madson (Cody Fern). We already know how Madson and Cunanan met, and we know what will happen to him. Cunanan all but holds him hostage in his own loft as they wait for Madson’s friend Jeff Trail (Finn Wittrock) to arrive.
Although the names of Trail and Madson aren’t well known, we know who they are by this point in the story. We know Madson is a gifted, kind and ambitious young architect. We know that Trail struggled trying to hide his sexuality as a career naval officer and having to leave the Navy broke his heart. That knowledge informs our reactions as we see them moving toward inevitability. Cunanan blames Trail for the fact that Madson refuses to be the “man of my dreams.”
From Minneapolis, Cunanan goes to Chicago where Lee Miglin (Mike Farrell) is alone in the richly appointed home he shares with his wife, Marilyn (Judith Light), who has her own cosmetics empire. Miglin is deeply closeted. Does Marilyn know? She is stoic, cold, micro-focused on detail when she returns from a business trip to find her husband dead. At this point, it is redundant to say this about any Judith Light performance, but she is extraordinarily brilliant in showing Marilyn’s herculean effort to bottle her roil of emotions, her shame, her pain, the loss of her husband, of course, but also the game of pretense they carried on for years.
While Smith is telling Cunanan’s story, he is telling Versace’s as well. The two stories couldn’t be more unalike, but there is a common thread here: Versace wants his work to be noticed, and to accomplish that, he has to be noticed himself. And like Cunanan, artifice is a key ingredient to making that happen. Until he made what was then a bold decision to come out in an interview with the Advocate, Versace was coy and protective about his sexuality. When he tells his sister, Donatella (Penelope Cruz) that he’s going to come out, she tries to dissuade him, reminding him of how Perry Ellis, his body ravaged with an illness that his representatives refused to name, had to be helped onto the runway for one of his final fashion shows. Donatella is sure Versace’s revelation will kill his business.
The moment Versace comes out, the thread he unknowingly had in common with Cunanan is severed. Cunanan was incapable of telling or being the truth. Versace is strengthened by it, and so is his brand.
The quality of Smith’s script is honored effectively through the direction of the series, by Matt Bomer, Gwyneth Horder-Payton and series creator Ryan Murphy, and through exquisite performances, beginning with that of Darren Criss. His national tour of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” showed there was more to him than the singing, dancing charmer of “Glee,” but nothing he’s done compares to his work here. In fact, he uses that charm as the base for Cunanan’s twisted personality. We may have read the papers and watched new accounts of the killing spree and wondered how anyone could have been taken in by such a malevolent poseur. The answer is in Criss’ Emmy-worthy performance.
Ramírez is equally convincing as Versace. His physical resemblance to the designer is uncanny, but the performance is what makes the story so credible. We see the man behind the public figure, a man who loves beauty and who comes to understand what Cunanan never can, that truth is beauty. Wittrock, Briones, Fern and Farrell contribute mightily to the production. Cruz does a decent job as Donatella, although she never manages to keep her natural Castilian accent under control playing an Italian woman. No matter, Cruz is convincing as the one person Gianni could trust more than any other, and, as we know, the woman who would take control of his business after his death.
From the outset, what Cunanan wanted to be was famous. He wanted people to pay attention to him and to remember him. In his final moments on that houseboat off Collins Avenue, did he think he was guaranteeing cultural immortality by taking his own life? If so, he was wrong there as well. The fact that he is not Simpson, that it will probably take you a minute or two to recall the name of Versace’s killer, is one reason why “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” is more than just the story of a loser on a killing spree.
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