Filming The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story was quite an experience for Darren Criss.
Not only was he playing killer Andrew Cunanan, who shot the famed designer dead in Miami, 1997, he was filming it where the murder took place. Literally.
Casa Casuarina was home to Versace until Cunanan cut short his life. Now it is a boutique hotel, used by director Ryan Murphy for his 9 part drama.
“It was an extreme luxury most people don’t have when you are filming an historical event,” Criss tells TV Tonight. “Usually you have to recreate it in a sound studio. This was the exact house, the exact place, the street and steps -the whole thing. It was a profoundly surreal experience.
“For the people of Miami to see this being recreated was pretty bizarre.”
The series has won rave reviews and stars Criss, Édgar Ramírez as Gianni Versace, Ricky Martin as boyfriend Antonio D’Amico and Penélope Cruz as Donatella Versace. The sumptuous locations, enhanced with exquisite furniture, costumes and classical music immediately elevate the piece to a grand scale, if contrasted by the grisly subject at its heart.
The articulate Criss, who is best known for playing Blaine in Glee, says the visuals reflect the characters of the key players.
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“The viewer has to make a decision about commitment”
“Sometimes you are sucked into something and you want to watch all of it. I just watched the first episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace, and I will certainly watch every episode of that. It was absolutely superb.”
The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story
Rating: 4½ out of 5 stars
The opening sequence of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story is exquisitely presented.
Adagio in G Minor strings accompany the striking visuals of 1997 Miami (as used so dramatically in works such as Platoon and The Elephant Man).
It is a summer’s morning and Italian fashion designer Gianni Versaci (Édgar Ramírez) is enjoying the luxury of his lavish beachfront villa. Brimming in ornate interiors, classic furniture, artworks, flowers, pool, staircase and staff, there is colour bursting at every turn. It’s as if Tuscany has been transported onto American soil.
Meanwhile 27 year old Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) wades out into the ocean and screams at the top of his lungs. Clearly overwrought with feelings of anxiety, he soon throws up in a public toilet before -or possibly after- a catastrophic event.
Not long after Versace’s partner Antonio (Ricky Martin) readies for a round of sport and Florida tourists request Gianni’s autograph during his daily walk, Cunanan comes face to face with the designer at the gates to his villa and shoots him dead. It’s like a moment of high opera, and sets the scene for Ryan Murphy’s latest anthology series.
But how did the players arrive at this crescendo? The opening chapter of this 9 part series flashes back to Cunanan’s meeting with Versace in a heady gay disco in San Francisco. Ambitious, deceptive, handsome, Cunanan is determined to befriend the designer via whatever elaborate ruse he can fabricate. One gets the impression that nothing he says is real, so it becomes a question of whether he believes his spin or is knowingly lying through his teeth.
But Versace is entranced and the two forge the start of a 7 year friendship.
In the present -the narrative is constantly juxtaposed with the past- Cunanan is delirious with glee at his assassination but on the run from local police. Antonio is heartbroken by the death of his partner whilst Donatella Versace (Penélope Cruz) arrives to take control. Rigid and seemingly unmoved by the loss of her brother, she seizes control of the company, even displaying little sympathy for Antonio.
Tom Rob Smith’s script (based on the book Vulgar Favors by Maureen Orth) highlights crass pop culture crimes with one quick-thinking observer snapping a Polaroid of a near-dead Versace being loaded into the ambulance and soon demanding top dollar from arriving media; another moment from autograph-hunters has to be seen to be believed….
Whilst The People v. O.J. Simpson spent far more time on the courtroom and the Prosecution, Versace is heavily invested in why Cunanan took such fatal action, and what ithe saga says about American society.
Darren Criss, whose romantic work in Glee saw him become a Ryan Murphy favourite, takes a dark detour as the complex, malevolent Cunanan. He has the lion’s share of the narrative here, wooing and extinguishing the relaxed, gifted designer played gently by Édgar Ramírez.
Initially Penelope Cruz and Ricky Martin are chess players in the bigger game, so the series will need to develop them beyond the opening chapter -thankfully there is much to work with.
Visually this is a splendid piece. Some of the scenes, such as Cunanan sitting on the beach, are so artfully captured they resemble paintings. The canvas for such a heightened piece, including the actual Versace residence, gives cinematographer Nelson Cragg plenty to work with.
Darren Criss to visit Australia to promote Versace drama
Darren Criss will visit Sydney next week to promote upcoming drama The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.
The former Glee star plays killer Andrew Cunanan in the Ryan Murphy-anthology drama.
He will also perform a one night only concert at the Eternity Playhouse on Friday May 18.
Best known for playing Blaine Anderson on Twentieth Century Fox Television’s global phenomenon Glee, his previous screen credits also include Girl Most Likely, American Horror Story, Web Therapy and Eastwick. He has starred in numerous Broadway productions, most recently his critically-acclaimed performance as “Hedwig” in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Last year he debuted his indie-pop band Computer Games, with the lead single from his EP Lost Boys Life debuting at number two on the Billboard “Hot Singles” charts.
The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story profiles spree-killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), whose cross-country path of destruction earns him a spot on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List, before his murder of international fashion icon Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez) on the steps of Versace’s South Beach residence in 1997. Based on the book Vulgar Favors by Maureen Orth, the series examines how cultural homophobia and prejudice delayed law enforcement’s search for Cunanan, as well as Versace’s relationship with his sister and muse Donatella (Penélope Cruz). The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story is a story of failed ambition and how the pursuit of an “American Dream” ended in murder and suicide.
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