Tag: ryan murphy

Why Ryan Murphy Can’t Care Too Much What Donatella Thinks

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story comes to a chilling conclusion tonight on FX, and spoiler alert: Ricky Martin’s heartbreaking performance as Gianni Versace’s lover Antonio D’Amico may leave you in pieces.

“I want to give Ricky [Martin] his own show,” executive producer Ryan Murphy tells E! News. “He and I have been talking about that, so we are working on that. I feel the same way about Ricky as I did Sarah Paulson when I gave her Marcia Clark—which is, I knew Sarah was capable of anything. Ricky is, too. I knew that, given the opportunity, he could really surprise people.”

With Murphy’s massive new deal with Netflix, while maintaining his commitments to FX and Fox, it seems a safe bet he can find more work for Ricky.

And Ricky isn’t the only stand-out in tonight’s final episode, which shows the manhunt following Versace’s death for spree-killer Andrew Cunanan. In an exclusive chat with E! News, Murphy reveals how he knew Darren Criss, as Cunanan, could take the show to the depths it needed, his thoughts on the man behind the monster, Andrew’s father, Modesto “Pete” Cunanan, and why he can’t concern himself too much with what Donatella might think.

There was some skepticism when Darren Criss was cast as Cunanan that he could pull it off, and the finale feels like his most challenging work yet. Did you initially have any doubts?

I did not. It’s something Darren and I have been talking about for a long time and I was never going to make this show unless he did it. The stars aligned and I was proud of him. He showed up every day very prepared. He worked longer and harder than anybody. He sensed this could be really the role of a lifetime because they don’t write roles like this for young actors. This part is Shakespearean. It’s the most difficult, multi-faceted role of the year. It’s essentially nine hours of somebody having a nervous breakdown. He went for it. I knew he would.

The final two episodes shed a lot of light on Andrew Cunanan’s relationship with his father. Do you feel like his dad was the real monster behind this tragedy?

In no way did I want to glamorize what Andrew Cunanan did, because what he did was monstrous and horrific and took the lives of five people. I was interested in showing the trail of destruction that he left but also interested in… nobody is born a monster. Nobody is born a psychopath or sociopath and I thought, unlike OJ Simpson, where we never really went into OJ’s backstory or childhood in that way, here was an opportunity that we could.

And I thought that Andrew’s father being a Filipino man and chasing the American dream and having to win at all costs – were things that he passed down to his son. And I think the physical abuse, the sexual abuse, that Andrew witnessed his father hitting his mother repeatedly, the violence that he grew up with, he became desensitized to it and that was all in the water and part of the reason why he was able to kill so easily and with very little remorse.

What is known about whether Andrew was physically or sexually abused by his father? The show strongly infers it, but doesn’t actually go there.

It’s hard because it’s hard to substantiate that. We had people discussing his childhood, who claimed in Maureen Orth’s book that, look, any boy that’s given the master bedroom…you have have to question what those motivations are about. But obviously, we had a point of view, and Maureen Orth had a point of view, and eye witnesses and people who knew Andrew. But everybody was a victim in it. It’s such a dark, American story about identity and the quest for fame and all of that stuff, which are issues that I’ve always been interested in.

Have you heard anything from the Versace family in recent weeks? Do you know if their stance on the authenticity of the series has softened at all after seeing it? 

I don’t know. I don’t know if they’ve watched it. I don’t know if they’ve softened. I think that Donatella is really connected in the world of celebrity, and everyone has remarked that the portrayal of Donatella and Gianni are beautiful. And you know, I think Penelope [Cruz] and Edgar [Ramirez] did an amazing job.

But I also think what [Donatella] did to Antonio was really sh–ty, and so, I really don’t care what she thinks, other than we were really truthful to Maureen’s book and we did our own reporting. But I also really admire [Donatella], because I think what she did was impossible. Her brother was gunned down, he was the love of her life, other than her children, and he was taken from her. And she was faced with an insurmountable position and she kept that business going in the face of great odds and she really accomplished something. And I think that Penelope portrayed her as such. I don’t know. I can never think about that because that would cloud how we created the work and I was just trying to find the truth.

Spoiler alert, and it’s a small thing, but … Did Darren Criss really eat dog food for the scene in tonight’s finale?

Andrew Cunanan definitely ate dog food. Darren did not eat dog food, although I don’t know what that stuff was, but whenever I would watch the edits, it would make me gag. It was wet and moldy. I wouldn’t recommend it.

Why Ryan Murphy Can’t Care Too Much What Donatella Thinks

Barbra Streisand Reveals What She Really Thinks of Lady Gaga’s ‘A Star Is Born’ Remake

dcriss-archive:

Streisand had no trouble, however, judging TV shows – including Murphy’s newest American Crime Story series, The Assassination of Gianni Versace.

“I binge-watched your show last night, Gianni Versace, but it’s very scary to me. I have to go fast,” she adorably revealed. “I like the parts with Penelope Cruz and Edgar Ramirez [who play Donatella and Gianni Versace, respectively], but I don’t like [Andrew Cunanan, whom Darren Criss plays]. He’s so good that it’s so awful.”

“Oh, this poor individual. Is any of this true stuff about him?” she asked Murphy, who replied with a resounding “Yes!” as the audience chuckled.

“That poor older guy he was with!” she remarked.

“Barbra, why did you watch that?” asked Murphy. “That’s not for you!”

Barbra Streisand Reveals What She Really Thinks of Lady Gaga’s ‘A Star Is Born’ Remake

American Crime Story Takes Donatella Versace From Caricature to Character

The Versace brand, which represents the Versace family, has said it disapproves of FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. “Lurid”, the family called it in one of two statements, “distorted” and “bogus.” This is not because they hated the silks, or because Donatella’s Jack Russell terrier Audrey found the color palettes unsuitable for her Instagram. No one from the uber-private Versace family has said this explicitly, but accusations that Ryan Murphy’s crime story is “reprehensible” are likely because the series reflects the reporting in Maureen Orth’s book Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U. S. History. The book, which is the basis for the series, asserts that Versace routinely had sex with escorts (with and without his partner Antonio (played by Ricky Martin) and that he was HIV positive when Andrew Cunanan murdered him in 1997. Although today, twenty years after the designer’s death, stigmas and taboos around HIV and even sex work have loosened, the family’s denials are understandable.

Gianni, Donatella and their brother Santo were a tight-knit unit that meticulously curated an image of luxurious, carefree glamour. They grew up in Southern Italy, with old-world Catholic values practically running through their veins. Although Orth’s book, which FX’s Versace uses as gospel, is exhaustively researched (and presumably lawsuit-proof), the Versaces contend that it’s gossip and lies. And while Donatella has said she hasn’t seen the series and has no plans to, she might be throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater because of all the ways Donatella has been portrayed in pop culture, FX’s is the most flattering, and the most important.

Penelope Cruz’s real-life friendship with Donatella certainly informs the grace and seriousness she gives the woman she’s portraying; Cruz has said she asked for Donatella’s permission in an hour long call before accepting the role. She told Vogue, “I didn’t want to do an imitation of Donatella, or a caricature. I wanted to try to capture the essence of who she is.” Cruz grounds her with the most sensible, and perhaps even gracious accent ever afforded her. That accent is hard to get right as proven by Gina Gershon, who sounded like a giddy Zsa Zza Gabor in Lifetime’s absurd House of Versace. (In fairness, she pushed for subtitles, she told Popsugar so maybe it would’ve been better?) Everyone who’s heard Donatella’s enchanting English knows it’s a husky, at times congested and slushy soup of sounds harsh (strength becomes “strenf”) and sweet; sometimes producers actually do provide subtitles so listeners can understand. Cruz told Vogue she worked with a dialogue coach to perfect Donatella’s speech — different now than it was in the 90s. The end result is an elegant purr that blends Cruz’s native Spanish, Italian and English; most importantly, she nails Donatella’s staccato speaking rhythm. But Cruz’s careful consideration of Donatella isn’t the only thing changing perceptions of the fashion mogul; FX’s story reveals about Donatella challenges everything America thought they knew.

Most people know Donatella Versace as a caricature, a shorthand for the ludicrous, Zoolander-like excesses associated with the fashion industry. After her brother’s death in 1997, Donatella became something of a pop star. In the 00s, as cable TV, Internet culture, red-carpet culture and celebrity culture congealed into the always-on loop that exists today, Donatella rose to the level of iconography. Her extreme Euro tan, platinum tresses, skin-tight dresses as well as paparazzi shots next to mega stars like J. Lo made it so that even people who don’t follow fashion could recognize her. And then there were Maya Rudolph’s SNL parodies — which depicted Donatella perennially holding a champagne flute, smoking a cigarette and screaming “Get out!” at lesser-thans — that made Donatella a household name.

It didn’t matter that Donatella Versace was actually the brains and muscle behind a global empire that employed thousands of people: Donatella herself loved the attention. (Self-deprecating and astute to the currency conversation creates, she went on HLN, of all places, to express her admiration for the lampooning and did the bit with Maya on Vh1’s Fashion Awards.) It’s true that the exaggerations weren’t entirely off base — Donatella used to have her Marlboro Reds wrapped in packets bearing her initials, because she didn’t like the warning label, and keep them in a bejeweled Versace case — but as is the case with parody, complexities got lost. The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story presents her with real depth, the way people who really know her say she is is: a strong-willed woman who thrived after being thrust into steering a $800 million ship in the midst of impossible grief. The depiction may not be entirely flattering (she’s never denied giving Gianni’s partner the cold shoulder, as she does in the series) but in Versace, Donatella earns overdue public respect, not laughs.

“We wanted to show Donatella I think in a serious light,” Ryan Murphy told TV Guide at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in January. “Like what Sarah [Paulson] did with Marcia [Clark in The People vs. O.J. Simpson] I think what we did with Penelope was show her with heart. In many ways it’s a tribute to Donatella.”

Of course, no Donatella works without glamour, and the first glimpses of her in the first episode practically drip with allure. Donatella descends from a private jet, jaw-droppingly chic in all black, before getting into a black limo and doing all the stereotypical things post-Maya Rudolph audiences expect: put on black sunglasses, make note of her hair, and scurry away from photographers blinding her with flash bulbs. (One critique of these first scenes from Cathy Horn, a legendary fashion critic who spent time with Gianni and Donatella, notes that Donatella would’ve been more likely to use a back door but, whatever.) Though Penelope’s Donatella captures her exterior fabulousness, it eschews Donatella’s famed trivial pursuits — her love of celebrity, big jewelry and yes, cocaine — in favor of showing someone grounded and tough. Nobody would know from her public perception that Donatella had been running the company for as much as a year and a half before Gianni’s death, so Versace’s scenes of her making executive decisions on behalf of the company swing a new set of empathies in her favor.

Donatella’s achievements are astonishingly rare; despite being fashion’s primary consumers, women made up only 14 percent of the leadership teams for 50 major fashion brands — and that was in 2016, Business of Fashion says. Two decades before that, Donatella had the vision to shape the direction of her family’s brand and the resolve to make men follow her lead. “I had to show strength. I had to show, ‘We’re going to do it,’” she told the New York Times in 2015. Seeing Donatella, calmly and strategically charting a steady course for their empire minutes after her brother had been murdered changes the narrative about her significantly. She wasn’t just a muse, a glorified freeloader, a party girl with a budget and nothing to do — nor was she too emotional to function at a time of unimaginable sadness. She rose to the moment, becoming chief designer and creative director right after Gianni died. While the brand later hit some turbulence (it was rescued from the brink of bankruptcy through investments and structural changes) she remains its head — and was responsible for guiding it through some of its best years. As it turned out, the image of the Versace woman she’d been selling — bold, confident and assured — was a reflection, not fanciful fashion fantasy.

“What she went through was insane,” Murphy said. He said he loved the scene in which she tells her brother Santo she won’t take the company public, surrounded by male bankers. “She did not give in to patriarchal pressure. That’s rough now. In 1997 — can you imagine? She had no time to grieve. She had no experience running something that big and she still kept it together.”

“Tell Morgan Stanley we will not list on the exchange. We will remain a private family company,” Cruz’s Donatella says in the first episode. The savvy she displays under pressure cuts closer to the keen and sometimes combustible real life Donatella than any other pop culture reimagining, and leaves a lasting impression as the series progresses. The real Donatella has no plans to see it, but if she ever does, she might be pleasantly surprised. “It’s important to me when she sees what I’ve done,” Cruz told Ellen Degeneres, “she can feel the love and respect that I have put there [and] how I feel for her.” It’s an image makeover sure to last all seasons.

American Crime Story Takes Donatella Versace From Caricature to Character

‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’: How Julia Roberts helped Penelope Cruz get cast as Donatella

Julia Roberts, Ryan Murphy and a pivotally placed rock all led to Penelope Cruz being cast on tonight’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.

Cruz is riveting as Gianni’s younger sister Donatella on the FX miniseries and established a rapport with executive producer Ryan Murphy on the set of 2010’s Eat, Pray, Love, the movie directed by Murphy and starring Roberts and Cruz’s husband, Javier Bardem.

“I think she came on set on one on the worst shooting days I’ve had in my life and sat next to me on a rock smelling like talcum powder and perfume and was so polite,” Murphy revealed to EW on the Miami set of Versace in May. “I always thought my first impression she must think I’m insane. We had a weird day once where we were on a yacht with Julia Roberts. When I called her on the phone, she was instantly interested because she had never done anything like that. She had never done American television. She said ‘I’m afraid to do this so I think that’s why I should do it.‘”

‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’: How Julia Roberts helped Penelope Cruz get cast as Donatella

Darren Criss Is the Male Sarah Paulson and 6 More Things To Know About American Crime Story Season 2

American Crime Story made The People Vs. O.J. Simpson a phenomenon all over again, over 20 years after the actual verdict. The Gianni Versace murder was not as sensationalized a case, so the FX anthology series took a different approach on The Assassination of Gianni Versace.

Based on Maureen Orth’s book Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History, the show opens with Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) pulling the trigger on Versace (Edgar Ramirez) and flashes back to events that explained how Cunanan and Versace collided in tragedy.

Cunanan killed four men before Versace, and Criss portrays the serial killer’s growing homophobia and escalating delusions. The show unfolds in reverse, with Cunanan and Versace crossing paths, but mostly existing separately.

Criss spoke with Rotten Tomatoes about American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, after the Television Critics Association winter press tour panel, during which creator Ryan Murphy revealed details about the series and its stars. Producers Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson also weighed in. Here are seven things they shared about the second season of the series.

1. RYAN MURPHY HAS CALLED HIM THE MALE SARAH PAULSON

“Darren was, to me, the male version of Sarah Paulson,” American Crime Story creator Murphy said to reporters after a panel, invoking his muse who played Marcia Clark in The People Vs. O.J. Simpson. Murphy saw her as a lead actor and gave her that role to show the world. He sees that for Criss in the role of Andrew Cunanan.

“Well, I think that’s an insult to Sarah Paulson,” Criss modestly joked. “Poor Sarah, who’s had an amazing career, done amazing work, spanning all kinds of places.”

Ultimately Criss accepts the challenge to live up to Murphy’s go-to star.

“Hey, I’ll take it,” Criss said. “I realize what he means. The person in the roster that is doing a project with a lot of eyes on it. If my name is uttered in the same sentence as her at any point, that’s a thrill.”

If anything, Criss has some catching up to do to live up to Paulson’s ongoing legacy.

“It always blew my mind that after O.J., people said that was a real turning point for her,” Criss said. “I think it has less to do with her ability and more about the visibility of the shows that Ryan touches.”

2. CRISS UNDERSTANDS CUNANAN’S LIES

We all know people who embellish their stories to make themselves sound more important. That behavior may be annoying, but most of them won’t kill us over it. Cunanan’s lies, unfortunately, turned deadly. Criss saw a parallel to some of the more harmless white lies we all commit.

“I think his lies, his stories, his delusions of grandeur were an effort for him to be in control of the way he was viewed, just the way any of us curate our lives with filters on Instagram, with selfies from a certain angle,” Criss said. “These are obviously on a smaller scale and much more socially acceptable. But if you took that to an extreme, that’s what he was doing.”

According to the show, Cunanan lied to Versace to try to make himself a closer acquaintance. Then he lied to others about how close he was to Versace.

“He needed to be in control of all the things that he didn’t have, which is to pretend they were a reality and tell other people they were,” Criss said. “Because he was such a narcissist, by telling people and telling himself, he could ipso facto make them true to himself. And if he couldn’t have it and it couldn’t be true, then he’d have to destroy it.”

Orth’s book suggested that lying was Cunanan’s way of crafting new personas, and Simpson elaborated on the killer’s pathology.

“In some ways, I think it was trying on identities and trying on personalities,” Simpson said. “I think he was taught though. His dad was a scam artist who abandoned the family when Cunanan was 18 and made them all go bankrupt. I think that idea that the truth is elastic was something he was taught by his family.”

3. CUNANAN WANTED TO BE SOMEBODY ELSE

Simpson believed Cunanan lied to craft a new identity.

“I also felt like he wanted to be somebody else,” Simpson said. “He wanted to be different. He didn’t want to be that half Filipino kid from a working-class background. He wanted to be the guy in Vanity Fair.”

If Cunanan wanted to be someone else, it was important to cast someone who could embody who he was. Criss’s heritage was a factor; the actor is actually half Filipino on his mother’s side, like Cunanan was.

“The idea of not whitewashing the half Filipino side and casting a white dude was important,” Jacobson said. “Darren had Ryan’s endorsement and understanding of him as an actor, great look for the part, and then was authentically half Filipino like Andrew was.”

4. CUNANAN’S OBSESSION EVOLVES VICTIM BY VICTIM

Three of Cunanan’s four prior victims get their own episode to explore their relationships with Cunanan. The fourth, William Reese, was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, as Cunanan stole his truck. Criss explained how each killing builds off the prior one.

“It escalates,” Criss said. “This was somebody whose crimes were a crime of passion in the beginning. He crossed a certain threshold, and there was a change of his pathology.”

His third victim, Lee Miglin, was a Chicago real estate mogul who’d hired Cunanan as an escort. Miglin was married at the time. His wife Marlyn discovered his body, staged by Cunanan.

“It became less something personal to people around him, more about proving a point on a larger scale to hurting someone like Lee and hurting someone like Versace,” Criss said. “Yeah, there’s a differentiation between each of the murders for sure.”

Each victim was also a step towards Cunanan’s ultimate target, the title of the show.

“The throughline of Andrew’s obsession with Versace, once he snapped, he’s on this mission,” Jacobson added. “Really, the shock of killing people who are dear to you, I still get very disturbed by. The idea that he’s not somebody who has one moment; it’s these sequential moments of calculated choices from a guy that was not a murderer born. I think there are people who are born missing the empathy gene, missing the fear gene. That wasn’t him.”

5. THE SHOW IS GRAPHIC. CUNANAN MADE SURE OF THAT

The show portrays murders like Lee Miglin’s as they must have happened to end up where they did. Miglin’s body was bound with wounds from a screwdriver and saw, ribs broken, throat slashed, and stabbed.

“We’re always trying to strike a balance of you know what the crime scenes look like so you can glean what the murder was,” Jacobson said. “You don’t want to be exploitive and at the same time, you don’t want to shy away from the horror of it.”

The show spends time on Cunanan’s psychological torture of his victims leading up to the murders.

“The Lee Miglin murder was staged to shame and embarrass him,” Jacobson said. “The way he manipulates David by saying, ‘This is what they’ll find. You’ll be assumed to be guilty.’ Those things all seem very important to cover.

6. IT GOES ALL THE WAY BACK TO CHILDHOOD

Episode 8 ultimately shows Cunanan as a child and in high school, exploring motivations and warning signs that early. It was important to Criss that the show try to explain this tragedy.

“It all has to add up,” Criss said. “It all has to connect together, otherwise there’s no point in showing the horrible stuff, because then it’s just exposing something horrible that we already know is horrible. We have to keep having every moment beforehand connected to it in some way so it’s not just gratuitous.”

Learning of his father’s scam was certainly a turning point for Andrew.

“I think finding anybody when they’re younger tells a bit of an origin story as it were,” Criss continued, “of not only where this guy came from, a better sense of how and why it went wrong, how it went astray.”

Criss still plays Cunanan at 18, by the way.

“For the first half we have a great young actor, Edouard Holdener who plays young Cunanan,” Simpson said. “For the rest of it, it’s Darren because Darren is very youthful looking and can still play an 18-year-old luckily.”

7. CRISS WILL BE BACK FOR MORE RYAN MURPHY SHOWS

If he is going to be the male Sarah Paulson, that means Criss will have to come back for every show Murphy does. Criss is on board, but isn’t aware of any future roles just yet.

“Who knows what the future holds,” Criss said. “Ryan is a dear friend, a true collaborator, and he’s been a champion for me. So f— yeah, if I can keep doing what we’ve been doing, I should be so lucky.”

Criss’s dream was to be part of a theater company where the same troupe performed different shows. Murphy’s managed to keep most of the same cast together across American Crime Story, American Horror Story, Feud, and Glee.

“I always grew up with this notion, I idolized repertory theater companies,” Criss said. “I had no idea that in my life I would be able to do that in the television world with someone like Ryan Murphy. [Sarah and I] are both lucky enough to have stumbled somehow into Ryan’s repertory player situation.”

Darren Criss Is the Male Sarah Paulson and 6 More Things To Know About American Crime Story Season 2