[LQ] Actors Darren Criss and Edgar Ramirez 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.
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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
‘ACS: Versace’: Darren Criss Explains How He Was Able To Relate To Killer Andrew Cunanan
In an EXCLUSIVE chat with Darren Criss, he tells HollywoodLife how he was able to get into the mindset of Gianni Versace’s murderer, Andrew Cunanan.
Darren Criss, 30, had to find a way to make murderer Andrew Cunanan a relatable being while portraying him for The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. When HollywoodLife asked him EXCLUSIVELY at the FX’s presentation for the Television Critics Association how he was able to get into the mindset of “crazy” Andrew, he immediately corrected us by saying, “See that’s the trick right there, I don’t look at him as a crazy person. We do. But I can’t. It’s my job to not think of him that way. It makes it too simple. I guess with any character, anybody, you have to approach everything from common denominators. This is very eyeroll-y actor jabber, but you find the primary colors.”
“The very basic things that aren’t so complicated. We’re all 1’s and 0’s so the first couple 1’s and 0’s are things like, everybody knows what it feels like to want something that you’re not allowed to have, wanting to rise higher than your station,” Darren added, talking to HollywoodLife. “Then you add on the other layers of what was happening in his home life, what was happening in his social economic situation, what was happening with his own sexuality and that kind of adds the other colors. I think you start with the things that you can relate to and then you let the script and the world around you, at least the one that Ryan [Murphy] is curating, to kind of do the rest of the work. It’s not as hard as it would seem. And any time you’re doing things that seem extreme and hard to relate to, these extreme acts of violence, if you go far enough back in the 1’s and 0’s you remind yourself that these acts come from places of pain, places of hurt and places that I can relate to. I don’t relate to the execution of said emotions, but I can relate to the emotions. I’m not saying it makes it easy, by any stretch of the word, but it makes it more accessible.”
HollywoodLife pressed for more information, asking Darren what some of the more relatable aspects of Andrew’s life were for him as a person. “Well, we both went to Catholic school, that’s a big one. There’s like basic things,” Darren shared. “I think we both had a desire to stand out. His was for sort of social gain, mine was because I just didn’t want to be like everybody else. So, they were kind of routed in different places. He did something very interesting where he was the kind of kid they said would put dimes in his penny loafers. To not put pennies. And I thought, ‘Hell yeah, I would have put dimes in my penny loafers!’ Our motivations were different, but I understand the desire to not be ordinary.”
The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story premieres on January 17, 2018 on FX.
‘ACS: Versace’: Darren Criss Explains How He Was Able To Relate To Killer Andrew Cunanan
maureen_orth A selfie with @ricky_martin@acsversaceseries based on my book, #vulgarfavors. He plays Gianni’s boyfriend Antonio. At TVCritics Assocation meeting, Pasadena.
‘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
The Assassination of Gianni Versace Will Expose the Stigmas of the ’90s
The Assassination of Gianni Versace is not just about the takedown of the day’s most famous fashion designer, but also of the homophobia and stigmas prevalent during the time period leading up to his death.
Actor Edgar Ramirez steps into the iconic shoes of the titular designer in the next installment of Ryan Muphy’s American Crime Story anthology series. The show will not only tackle Versace’s death but also the events in his life that paralleled those of his killer, Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), the most significant of which was Versace’s HIV diagnosis in the mid 1990s.
Ramirez sat down with TV Guide at the Television Critics Association winter press tour on Friday and explained how issues like HIV and homophobia will take center stage when the series premieres later this month.
“The AIDS crisis — the AZTs and new medications were kicking in and some people had access to it. People weren’t physically condemned to death at that time, but socially they were still condemned to death, to death socially,” he said. “Part of what we wanted to explore is all the prejudice, all the misrepresentation and all the stigmas that lead up to his assassination.”
The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story premieres Wednesday, Jan. 17 at 10/9c on FX.
The Assassination of Gianni Versace Will Expose the Stigmas of the ’90s
[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
Darren Criss, Edgar Ramirez, Maureen Orth 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.
ACS news 