His name may be in the one in the title, but when The Assassination of Gianni Versace premieres on FX next week, the famed fashion designer, gunned down in his prime, will share the spotlight.
In fact, much like The People v O.J. Simpson before it, the second installment of American Crime Story will use the crime involving the bold-named individual in the title to explore greater themes, as well as tell the stories of the lesser-known victims of serial killer Andrew Cunanan. And as executive producer Brad Simpson told E! News ahead of the show’s panel at the 2018 TCA Winter Press Tour, that’s exactly how the creative team wanted it.
“Andrew Cunanan was a spree killer and he murdered five people, the most famous being Gianni Versace. Versace was his obsession. He was everything he wanted and couldn’t have. The series tracks through those victims,” Simpson explained. “We thought it was important to spend the same amount of time with the less-known victims as it was with the most famous victims. Versace weaves his way in and out of this story, I think, in a great way, but the journey itself is the journey of this killer across the country as he murders people.”
In other words, just because Edgar Ramirez and Penélope Cruz dominate the show’s key art as Gianni and his legendary sister Donatella Versace, don’t expect this to be a Versace family biography. While Gianni’s name may be in the title, it’s the word “Assassination” that’s the real focus here.
“His obsession with Gianni Versace and the dance of creator and destroyer is the spine…that holds this together,” Simpson elaborated upon duing the show’s panel. “But ultimately, we felt it was really important for us, along this journey, to not only tell the story of Versace, but use that as fabric to tell the story of David Madson and Jeff Trail and the other victims.”
“This was a person who targeted people specifically to shame them and to out them and to have some payback for the life that he didn’t get to live,” Ryan Murphy added. “I just feel like anytime that you methodically plot to kill someone with pain and murder in your heart, to expose them for something, that is an assassination. It felt like the title was important for us, politically, to say.”
For executive producer Tom Rob Smith, who penned all nine episodes of the season, this installment of American Crime Story was an opportunity to explore issues that transcend one man’s crimes. “I think this is a story people don’t know. They know there was a murder in Miami. I kind of think of it as an iceberg. People just know the tip, and we’re taking them on the journey all the way down,” he told E! News. “And it’s an incredible story across the whole of America…It touches on this enormous issue of the American dream. How do you grow up and try and be successful? One of the elements that crushes him is homophobia. So we’re touching on the prejudices and preoccupations of society. It’s a crime that really has soaked up a lot of America.”
And for star Darren Criss, who turns in a career-making performance as Cunanan, it was the opportunity to explore the tragic undercurrent of the murderer’s actions that drove him to the role.
“That’s what made this such a joy for me, trying to find this common denominators between Andrew and the person watching, so much so that when he does something horrible, you’re really almost heartbroken that they’re doing this,” he told E! News. “That it is not only sad because of the actions, but sad because of the things that made those things happen.”
American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace premieres Wednesday, Jan. 17 at 10 p.m. on FX.
Tag: tom rob smith
[LQ] Maureen Orth, Tom Rob Smith, Edgar Ramirez, Brad Simpson, Darren Criss, Nina Jacobson and Ricky Martin from FX’s ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’ pose for a portrait during the 2018 Winter TCA Tour at Langham Hotel at Langham Hotel on January 5, 2018 in Pasadena, California
Why ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Plays Out in Reverse Order
“American Crime Story” fans can’t wait for “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” to start — though they’ll have to wait until it ends for the actual beginning of the story. We’ll explain.
The new season of anthology series “ACS” plays out in reverse chronological order, a decision that the producers were asked about Friday at the Television Critics Association press tour.
“This case is famous because of the murder of Versace,” executive producer and writer Tom Rob Smith explained. “The story-telling has to relate to the story itself.”
And that particular high-profile murder took place at the very end of Andrew Cunanan’s (Darren Criss) three-month streak of bloodshed back in 1997. Cunanan had killed at least four others before taking Versace’s life, and then ultimately his own.
As “fascinating” as Andrew’s own background might be, Smith continued, the audience “wouldn’t understand the context” had the show started there. After all, the average TV viewers probably wouldn’t know any of the earlier victims.
“We had to go backwards starting with what people know and then move into what they didn’t know,” he said.
Makes sense. Smith then pulled out a parallel between his back-to-front device and the real-life horror Cunanan created.
“[Andrew] understood that if he hadn’t have killed Versace … no attention would have came to this at all, it would have disappeared,” Smith said of the serial killer.
Why ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Plays Out in Reverse Order
maureen_orth: With wonderful @darrencriss@darrenarmy. Great #acsversace writer Tom RobSmith. A ha ha ha Hollywood kind of day! Pretty fun for new year. ##vulgarfavors book. Who whudda thunk??!
Why Ryan Murphy & The ‘American Crime Story’ Team Tackled ‘The Assassination Of Gianni Versace’ – TCA
American Crime Story Brad Simpson revealed during the FX session of American Crime Story:The Assassination of Gianni Versace that actor Edgar Ramirez “didn’t give us an immediate ‘Yes’” when it came to playing the title role of the late Italian designer.
“I loved being in a room that’s interesting with an actor and he says come back to me with another script,” said EP Ryan Murphy, “I said ‘What?‘”
Then Murphy stopped twisting Ramirez’s elbow, who was also present at this afternoon’s session.
“I love Edgar’s process, it’s a questioning one. It formed me to go deeper as a director. I remember when I got Edgar to say ‘Yes’, he asked me ‘Why do you want to tell this story?’ I told him that I really understand these characters like Versace, I understand what it is to be hunted. That unlocked something in Edgar. He understood the pain he had to go through (as an actor).”
However, The Assassination of Gianni Versace is not all about Versace as it follows serial killer Andrew Cunanan and the victims he disgraced.
“It was the largest FBI fail of all-time,” asserted EP Tom Rob Smith.
“We wanted to explore between Versace and Cunanan the story of a creator, who is an authentic, honest person drawing on his history, heritage and family and creating from the inside out and another person who goes on a path of destruction because he’s on the outside without the work or the talent, and can’t tell the truth about who he is,” said EP Nina Jacobson.
“It was a political murder. This was a person who specifically went out of his way to shame and out people,” said Murphy about Cunanan, “He was having a form of payback for a life he could not live.” In addition to Versace, some of Cunanan’s victims include Chicago real estate developer Lee Miglin and architect David Madison, who actually was the murderer’s lover.
“When you plot to kill and expose people, that’s an assassination. And that’s why it was so important for us to include that in the title,” said Murphy. At one point the EPs considered putting Cunanan’s name in the title, but opted against it as they wanted to avoid glamorizing him.
After watching Darren Criss on Glee, viewers will be gobsmacked at the 180 he takes in portraying the slithery Cunanan. What’s affecting the actor is the fact that after 20 years, the real victims both on and off screen in American Crime Story have to relieve it. “That weighs heavily on me,” says the actor. Added series consultant Maureen Orth, whose book Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History is the source material for the second season, “I don’t think his (Versace’s) family is excited about the story being told.”
Commenting on the thrulines between the seasons of American Crime Story, Murphy mentioned again how the series will deconstruct major crimes that went beyond its victims and impacted society. Sexism and racism were the themes in The People v. O.J. Simpson which still were pertinent to today. In Versace “the homophobia of the day is topical” mentioned Murphy were as his next iteration of American Crime Story, Katrina tackles the medical conditions and global warming in our country and when they collide “who has the right to decide who lives and dies,” said Murphy.
Said Murphy, “Every season of this show will have a different tonality.”
Why title of FX’s Versace series doesn’t call murderer by his name
PASADENA, Calif. — Producers didn’t casually choose the title of the second installment of FX’s crime anthology series: The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (Jan. 17, 10 ET/PT).
“It was a political murder,” executive producer Ryan Murphy told the Television Critics Association Friday. Killer Andrew Cunanan went after gay men “to shame them and out them,” and fashion icon Versace, who was openly gay, was a prime target.
So the title doesn’t include the culprit’s name, because identifying Cunanan would be “elevating him to a place we didn’t want to put him in,” executive producer and writer Tom Rob Smith said. (Versace, his fifth and final victim, is also more well known).
The new season tracks Cunanan (Darren Criss, Glee) on a 1997 cross-country murder spree that resulted in at least five killings, culminating with the shooting of Versace (Edgar Ramirez, Hands of Stone) in Miami’s South Beach.
Penelope Cruz plays Gianni’s famous sister, Donatella, and pop star Ricky Martin plays Gianni’s boyfriend, Antonio D’Amico.
Versace, which FX describes as “inspired by actual events,” is based on Maureen Orth’s book, Vulgar Favors.
Homophobia plays a role in law enforcement’s slow response in pursuing Cunanan, who murdered four others before arriving in Miami, executive producer Nina Jacobson said.
Versace “did not have to die. Cunanan was out clubbing right across the street from the police department” before the shooting, she said.
The first ACS installment, 2016’s The People v. O.J. Simpson, was a big hit for FX, nabbing 10 Emmys.
“Every season of the show will have a different tonality. The first season was very much a courtroom potboiler. The second season is a manhunt thriller,” Murphy said. The delayed Katrina season, originally due before Versace, will focus on a hospital and examine the condition of “medical (care) in our country, global warming, who lives and who dies.”
Why title of FX’s Versace series doesn’t call murderer by his name
‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Team on Exploring ‘What Went Wrong’ That Made Andrew Cunanan Kill
The latest installment of FX and Ryan Murphy’s anthology drama “American Crime Story,” “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” starts with the murder of the fashion icon (played here by Edgar Ramirez), but that is just the jumping off point for a deep dive into a handful of horrific crimes committed by Andrew Cunanan (played by Darren Criss) in the 1990s.
“This case is famous because of the murder of Versace,” executive producer Tom Rob Smith said at FX’s Television Critics Assn. press tour Friday in Pasadena, Calif. “That’s all I knew, but it was the tip of the iceberg.”
Smith, alongside executive producers Murphy, Brad Simpson and Nina Jacobson used Maureen Orth’s 1999 book “Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in US History” as research and the basis for the nine-episode series.
Since Cunanan’s victims were no longer alive to confirm exactly how events took place, Smith, who also wrote the episodes, pieced together the facts from Orth’s book and imagined what might have happened in between the gaps. “We have these tiny points of truth, and you try to connect the tissue between them, but I would never use the term ’embellish,‘” Smith said.
While Simpson pointed out that Versace is a “thread that goes all the way through” all nine episodes, the show is designed to be an ensemble, and they wanted to pay respect to all of Cunanan’s victims, including Lee Miglin (Mike Farrell), David Madson (Cody Fern) and Jeffrey Trail (Finn Wittrock). “Each victims were tragic in their own way,” he said.
Although the show follows Cunanan as he dips in and out of these other men’s lives (and ultimately takes their lives), Simpson noted they didn’t want to put his name in the title because it felt like it would have been “elevating him to a place we didn’t want to put him.”
Jacobson points out the title of the series really points to the contrast between Cunanan and the high-profile victim who made him famous. “Some of the themes [in the series are] the contrasts between Cunanan and Versace in the destroyer and the curator. One character is an authentic, honest creator drawing on his heritage, his background his family… and the other goes on a path of destruction because he wants the fame without the work or the talent,” she said.
Jacobson also felt strongly that Versace did not have to die but the homophobia at the time allowed the prior victims’ cases to be mishandled or under-investigated. “Cunanan was going out clubbing right across the street from the police department. The neglect and the isolation and the ‘otherness’ in the way the police handled the deaths of gay men, with the exception of one of the victims, [made Versace’s death] a death that didn’t have to happen,” Jacobson said.
The distinction between victims is an important element not only for the way their cases were handled but also for the way the murders occurred and the motivations behind them, per Smith. “When Andrew’s life fell apart, he murdered his closest friend and his lover, but those murders are different from Lee Miglin and Gianni Versace,” he said. “Once he crossed the line and became a killer, he began to kill to pursue ideas.”
Those ideas, according to Murphy, included targeting people “specifically to shame them and out them and have a form of payback for a life that he felt he could not live.” And Smith was adamant about calling Cunanan a “spree killer” whose pathology more closely mirrored terrorism than that of a “serial killer.”
“This is someone who had a [great] education and was brilliant and was witty and had the world at his feet. Why does this person end up killing five people? You have to explore the intellect. You have to explore what went wrong,” Smith said, noting that Cunanan was a man who felt invisible who was desperate to find a way to be seen.
“Once he realizes he lost everything, either you build something that impresses someone which takes a lot of work, or if you don’t want anonymity, you can try to rip something down,” Smith continued. “Andrew ripped down the success of Lee Miglin and Versace.”
Orth, as well, felt Cunanan’s desperation was what drove him — and ultimately what doomed him. “He was willing to kill to become famous. Now you can be an Instagram star or a YouTube star. If he had been born later, maybe that’s what he would have gone for, but he wanted to be famous that he was willing to kill for it,” Orth said.
“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” premieres Jan. 17 at 10pm on FX.
‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Team on Exploring ‘What Went Wrong’ That Made Andrew Cunanan Kill
[LQ] Executive producer/director Ryan Murphy, executive producer Nina Jacobson, executive producer Brad Simpson, executive producer/writer Tom Rob Smith, consultant Maureen Orth, actors Darren Criss, Edgar Ramirez and Ricky Martin of the television show The Assassination of Gianni Versace speak onstage during the FOX/FX Networks portion of the 2018 Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour at The Langham Huntington, Pasadena on January 5, 2018 in Pasadena, California
americancrimestoryfx: Our #ACSVersace cast and crew step out on the TCA carpet. #tca2018
ACS news 