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New promo for Assassination of Gianni Versace featuring new clips with Darren Criss and Cody Fern | 12 December 2017

Daily Beast wrote:
‘Versace: American Crime Story’ Will Actually Be About Being Gay in the ‘90s


12/12/17

Sex oozes everywhere, from the sweat of the South Florida beach setting to the lingering gaze on star Darren Criss’ exceptionally sculpted (briefly nude) body.

A hypnotizing, wordless first act, backed by a rousing string-heavy score, gives a Shakespearean start to the whole endeavor, echoed, of course, in the horror of the murder by gunshot that left Versace bleeding to death at the front gate of his home in 1997.

[. . . ]

Only the first episode of FX’s newest installment of its American Crime Story franchise, the first follow-up to its awards-guzzling People v. O.J. Simpson season, screened Monday night, for a room packed with curious celebrity fans including Glenn Close, Patricia Clarkson, and Andrew Rannells. That’s not enough for a proper review of the new series, which officially premieres Jan. 17. But creator Ryan Murphy, the producers and writers, and stars Criss, Edgar Ramirez, and Ricky Martin were on hand to tease the season and its perhaps surprising greater message.

More than a murder mystery or a lavish look at the life of a fashion legend, Versace will tackle what it was like to be gay in the 1990s.

“Like in O.J., the themes we’re tackling in this show seem so modern to me,” Murphy said, referring to how the American Crime Story found renewed resonance in the identity politics, race and class bias, media circus, and misogyny surrounding the O.J. Simpson trial. “They don’t seem like they’re frozen in amber,” he continued. “They feel very alive and plucked from today’s headlines.”



The Versace season is heavily based on journalist Maureen Orth’s book Vulgar Favors: The Assassination of Gianni Versace.

Orth had been investigating serial killer Andrew Cunanan (played by Criss in the series) for months before he murdered Gianni Versace (Ramirez) on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion while Versace’s partner (Martin) was inside. Cunanan had evaded police while successfully murdering five men that he knew, the last being Versace. Orth’s reporting revealed a highly intelligent sociopath—he once tested at 147 for his IQ—with tortured feelings about being gay, and perhaps even jealousy that he had all these gifts and promise yet somehow wasn’t succeeding in the same way as these other men.

“We didn’t understand, and you’ll see as the show goes on, that Versace was the last victim, and Andrew had killed people that he knew before this,” executive producer Brad Simpson said. “As we began to unpack the show, we realized this was about the politics of being out in the 1990s.”

Murphy revealed that the season will be telling the story backwards. The first and second episodes deal with the assassination of Versace and the manhunt for Cunanan in Miami, and then the series will head back in time so that, by Episode 8, we are seeing Cunanan as a child. Then the final episode will deal with his eventual demise.

Broad cultural themes will of course be explored along the way. Said executive producer Nina Jacobsen, “I think what we realized during the first season is that we wanted every season of the show to ultimately be about a crime that America feels guilty of, and find a way to sort of explore what is a cultural crime as well as a specific crime, or in this case a series of crimes. In this case, to try to explore and re-conjure what it was to be gay in the ’90s.”

Orth explained that Cunanan was from San Diego, a big military town, growing up while “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was in the news, which created agony for people who were conflicted over how they felt about being gay, whether they could express themselves, or whether they could be publicly out. The parents of two of Cunanan’s victims didn’t even know their sons were gay until after they were murdered, for a sense of the environment.

Equally fascinating was the incompetency of the police and investigators pursuing Cunanan, who struggled with infiltrating the gay community and understanding its nuances, something Orth said didn’t necessarily reflect a homophobia, per se, but an ignorance.

Then of course there’s the ever-resonant idea of fame, and the craven pursuit of it that is very much embedded in the fabric of today’s culture.

[. . . ]

Murphy first dangled the idea of playing Cunanan in front of Criss, whom he had worked with on Glee three years ago, going so far as to call it the role of the young actor’s career.

There’s an uncanny resemblance between Criss and the real-life Cunanan, down to the fact that they are both part Filipino. With just the first hour to judge by, Criss is extremely watchable in a complicated and potentially off-putting role: a sociopathic narcissist, whose gay self-loathing manifests in an unsettling violent streak.

“I think stories that bend people’s sense of empathy are what really interest me,” Criss said. “It’s Shakespearean. Is has this very operatic feel. It’s Greek in scale. I’m a good, old fashioned acting student. Put me in a Greek tragedy or a Shakespeare play. If I get to do that on FX with Ryan Murphy, then fuck yeah, let’s do it.”

Vogue wrote:
Inside the New York Preview of Ryan Murphy’s  The Assassination of Gianni Versace:  American Crime Story

December 12, 2017

A few lucky New Yorkers got a sneak peek of Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace Monday night at Metrograph. The cast including Darren Criss, Ricky Martin, and Édgar Ramirez attended the special screening along with Murphy and executive producers Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson.

The second installment of Murphy’s anthology series, premiering January 17 on FX, follows the murder of Gianni Versace (Ramirez) and the nine-day manhunt for Andrew Cunanan (Criss) as well as the personal lives of each man.

Criss had previously worked on two of Murphy’s projects (Glee and American Horror Story), but hadn’t had the opportunity to work directly with him. “I’ve always appreciated his tutelage, his insight, and his encouragement,” the actor said. “Everyone knows him for the quality of his work so to see him and work with him in tandem was really surreal and a real thrill for me.”

To prepare for the role of Cunanan, Criss read Maureen Orth’s book (which the show is based on) and spoke to people who knew the murderer. “Unlike the O.J. case where there was an overwhelming amount of information, this was very limited. He was a thousand different people with a thousand different people,” he said. “You had to speculate a lot of things; at one moment he’s ‘A’ and at the next moment he’s ‘B’.”