Helmed by award-winning writer-director-producer Ryan Murphy, the “Versace” story will feature Jon Jon as Modesto Cunanan, the father of serial killer Andrew Cunanan, who is portrayed by Darren.Other Fil-Ams joining the stellar cast which includes Edgar Ramirez (Gianni Versace), Ricky Martin (Antonio D’Amico), and Penelope Cruz (Donatella Versace), include Jon Jon’s daughter Isa Briones (who will portray Elena Cunanan, the sister of Andrew) and Carlin James (who will play Christopher Cunanan, the brother of Andrew).
The “Versace” story is the second season of the FX true crime anthology television series American Crime Story (ACS) and it will premiere on Jan. 17, 2018. It will consist of a total of 10 episodes. It will explore the murder of designer Gianni Versace by serial killer Andrew Cunanan, based on Maureen Orth’s book “Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, And The Largest Failed Manhunt In U.S. History.”
Jon Jon, who was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical for playing The Engineer role and won the Whatsonstage.com Award for Best Actor in a Musical, revealed to us how he got the part.
“I like this story, although it might be a little long,” he said. “Darren Criss and the writer, Tom Rob Smith, both talked about me to each other. They both saw me in ‘Miss Saigon’ London and both agreed that I might be right for the part. Apparently, Tom mentioned it first during a dinner towards the beginning of shooting and he brought my name up. Darren was like ‘OMG yes, we have to push for that!’ I then met Darren at the Tony Awards and he gave me a heads up on the project. He told me to tell my agent to keep an eye out for this role. At the same time, he was constantly bringing my name up on set to the producers. I then got an email from my agent that ACS wanted me to audition for the role of Modesto Cunanan. The audition was in LA and I am still in New York City doing ‘Miss Saigon’ so I taped myself instead. I submitted the audition and the rest is history.”
Unfortunately, he revealed, they don’t need to shoot in the Philippines. “We didn’t shoot in the Philippines but they recreated the house of Modesto Cunanan in Baliuag, Bulacan in a sound studio at the FOX lot,” he disclosed.
He said he is done filming all his scenes. “I’m in the last two episodes. I filmed for a total of two weeks for the two episodes I’m in. I had to fly back and forth between LA and New York a few times so I can do some of the shows on Broadway and then return to continue filming.”
He added that he did a lot of research on Modesto Cunanan. “I researched as much as I could,” he told us. “There was not much information out there on Modesto Cunanan. But my director for episode 8, Matt Bomer, gave me his book entitled ‘Vulgar Favors’ by Maureen Orth which helped me a lot. The whole show is based on that book by Miss Orth. Also, one of the executive producers-directors of the show, Dan Minahan gave me a copy of all the previous episode’s scripts to help me get a feel for the show. And it helped a lot.”
Jon Jon pointed out, “I’ve done a lot of TV roles before but this is definitely the biggest one. The writing is just so good!”
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Ricky Martin: ‘I would love to go back to the Philippines’
“I remember I was just 14 years old when I first visited the Philippines in 1985 as part of the Menudo band. We love the Philippines and the Filipinos. We even released ‘In Action,’ recording songs in English and Tagalog to appeal to our Filipino fans,” he said.
The Puerto Rican singer-actor-author admitted he would love to go back to the Philippines.
Ricky, whom we interviewed in Miami at the Versace Mansion, portrays Antonio D’Amico, the lover of Gianni Versace in Ryan Murphy’s second installment of his “American Crime Story” titled “The Assassination Of Gianni Versace.”
The show, which also features Fil-Am Darren Criss (“Glee”) as Versace’s killer Andrew Cunanan, began production this past April and is marked for debut in early 2018. Originally slated as a third installment after “Katrina,” the show has been moved to Season 2. Aside from Ricky and Darren, the show will feature Edgar Ramirez as Gianni Versace and Penélope Cruz as Donatella Versace.
Asked about his reaction when he got the part, Ricky said, “I postponed a whole tour to shoot this video actually. I pushed back 20 days of my tour in Spain and Portugal. This is something that I’ve been dreaming of and when I received the phone call from Ryan that he wanted to meet with me, I’m honored.”
So did he know what it was about, we asked. “I knew a little bit because I’m very good friends with Edgar and Edgar told me that he was just booked to work in Versace with Ryan,” Ricky said. “I had the opportunity to work with Ryan in ‘Glee.’ Two weeks later, I called Edgar. I go ‘Edgar, guess who I’m having dinner with tonight’ because Ryan wanted to see where I was and Ryan wanted to invite me to this amazing project. It was a very beautiful dinner where we talked about our kids, where music is at the moment and about this amazing story and how important it is for this story to be told. Then I got really nervous. I pushed back a few months of a tour in Spain and everything worked out perfectly. The serendipity, the stars were aligned for this to happen and I’m very happy that I’m doing this.”
Does he remember where he was when he heard the news about Versace? “Yes, I was living in Miami at the moment,” he replied. “It was very personal but I was in Europe when it actually happened. But I remember the atmosphere in Miami obviously changed completely. It changed in every way. The market collapsed. People were living in fear for a moment because there was a man out in the streets who was killing people randomly. No-one knew who he was. No-one knew what was happening so there was a lot of tension and it really affected the whole city.
“Celebrities started leaving the city. I remember back then even Sylvester Stallone was living here and Madonna was living here. The Bee Gees were living here and they said it’s a wrap. It’s time to move because it was really scary.”
Is he confident portraying somebody alive? “I’ve been obsessed with this character,” he confessed. “I’ve been obsessed with this. When I started reading the script I immediately started trying to say the lines of how incredibly beautiful it was written and how powerful every line is. The amount of research that we’ve done and of course the production company and Ryan has helped me so much. He just tapped into the big story, what’s known and what’s not known. I feel powerful. I feel confident that I’m going to do justice to the role and what Antonio D’Amico went through.
“There’s a lot of highs and lows in this character. There’s a lot of sadness. There’s a lot of uncertainty but at the same time you have the love and the connection between him and Gianni which was something so magical. To be able to live for 15 years together and in an era where a (gay) relationship was forbidden in many aspects and the fact that nothing stopped them is something that I definitely want to talk about.
“He is still alive and I am reaching out to him little by little. Sometimes they want to talk; sometimes they don’t want to talk. I am making myself available to see if he wants to guide me a little bit but what’s documented and what is out there is enough for me to see exactly and feel what he was going through.
So where does he feel he is now in his life? “I am a proud father of two beautiful twin boys who are my life. They’re eight years old and they inspire me like no-one. I have a great man (Jwan Yosef) next to me. I will get married soon hopefully. We don’t have a date. Let’s see what happens but what I’m trying to say is I’m in such a good place.
“I’ve been touring for the last three years around the world and I needed to land. We just moved to L.A. I just moved there and I’m so in love. I’m in love with my house. People invite me to parties in L.A. and I’m like no, come to my house. You have to come to my house. So I’m in a really good place. I am divided right now between three very beautiful projects.”
He paused and asked, “Did I say I am in a really good place?”
Darren Criss portrays Andrew Cunanan in ‘Versace’ movie
Darren Criss as Andrew Cunanan in ‘Versace: American Crime Story’ with Annaleigh Ashford as Elizabeth Cote and Nico Evers-Swindell as Phil Cote (Photo by Jeff Daly/FX Networks)
Los Angeles – The weather in Miami was hot but Darren Criss, wearing a long-sleeved white shirt, was hotter.
The 30-year-old former “Glee” actor who portrayed Blaine Anderson, the lead singer of The Dalton Academy Warblers, has indeed gone a long way.
The Fil-Am actor, whose parents are Cerina Bru from Cebu and Charles William Criss from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, met with us one day at the late fashion designer Gianni Versace’s former home in Miami.
The charming, eloquent and talented actor talked to us about portraying the Fil-Am serial killer Andrew Cunanan who killed the famous fashion designer just outside of his Miami mansion in Ryan Murphy’s third season of his anthology series, “The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.”
Asked what he discovered about Andrew in his research of him, Darren replied, “That’s a very loaded question, a half hour is not enough time for me to go through that. I think the main thing to remember about any character you’re playing whether they’re real or not is your job as an actor, as a storyteller. I don’t even want to make it specific to actors. This goes to anybody who is a creative person. It’s your job to find as many common denominators with that person as possible.
“It’s important, especially for me for this particular story. This is a real person who did really horrible, tragic things to real people. Their families are still affected by the things that he did. But I still maintain the idea that we all have more in common with someone like Andrew than we don’t.
“Obviously, there are big variables. I’d like to think most of us don’t have actual murderous tendencies. However, at the end of the day, we are flesh and blood. We have mothers; we have fathers; we have dreams; we have hopes; we have regrets and failures that all make us who we are. So, the short answer is I found that we really do have a lot in common and that shouldn’t be misconstrued with the things that we know him for, which are obviously these horrible acts.
“But there’s a certain point in all of our lives that could have taken us into this certain path. You really have to identify what those moments are so that as a viewer, you’re not just antagonizing this person from the get go because you know what he’s done. You have to understand how he got there and what the links are between you and that person. So I found an awful lot of those.”
Sides to a story
Darren explained further that there are three different versions of Andrew Cunanan that he has to deal with.
He said, “There is the real version that none of us knew. There is the version that people did know but even that person was like 20 different people and then there’s the version that we’re telling. So as an actor, I can try and contact these family members or friends but they’re all going to have a different answer of who he was because he had different names. He had different looks. He had different attitudes that weren’t parallel to each other. So for me, my job is to serve the script. And whoever the persons that we’ve painted in this particular version, which I’m sure people who knew Andrew will be like, he wasn’t like that. However for our story and for the way that we’re characterizing him, I have to honor what’s on the page.
“So to me, what’s on the page and what’s in the script is my leader in this, and in Ryan and in people who are creating this. I’m serving their image of this story as much as I want to stay true to who he really was. We don’t know what kind of person he was so we just have to humanize him as much as possible and hope for the best.”
Darren was just 10 years old when Versace died. So at what point in his life before this project, did he learn about Andrew, we asked.
“I knew about the Versace murder just from general world facts,” Darren revealed. “I knew Versace was killed in front of his home. I’d been here before, the first time I went to Miami. I stopped by here. And I remember looking it up going, God, seeing the steps and I can’t believe they’re still here. This is so eerie. I vaguely remembered that he was half Filipino.
“I think growing up half Filipino if there’s any half Filipino in the media you tend to pay attention to it. That was about it. I had, through the fabulous world of ‘Glee’ I had met Donatella. I had been to Versace’s home in Milan. And I had seen things about his history. But that was about as far of a connection that I had.
“I don’t know if Ryan told you the story of how this came up. He brought this up to me about two, almost three years ago. I was having lunch with him in New Orleans. And I was joking with him about ‘Horror Story’ because he just announced Lady Gaga was going to be in it. So I jokingly said, hey let me know if you need a wily bellhop to show up on that show, I’ll do it. And he was, no, but there’s this other thing that I’m thinking about doing – Andrew. I looked it up and I was kind of spooked because he looks like me and my brother.
“That was it. I didn’t think he would actually make the show. I ended up diving in pretty hard on researching the guy. I had to wipe my hands clean of it because I was, I don’t want to have to know all this stuff if I don’t need to know about it. It’s a very dark place to be in. So, cut to now, here we are and he kept up with his word.
“While it is a very gruesome and dark project, it is an exciting project to be with him and with this prestigious group of people. So that was about all I knew. I definitely sense being involved I have this profound new connection to Versace and to the story. Like I said, being in this house for the past week has been extraordinarily moving. This isn’t to be romantic or spiritual, but he’s just in the house. Everything that he’s made that we all know the iconography of Gianni Versace, it is present in every turn. So seeing that has really given me a new profound appreciation of his work and appreciation of a great creator, someone who just wanted to relentlessly wreak beauty upon the world.”
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