S.F. upbringing helps ‘Versace’ actor thrive
Criss, a St. Ignatius grad, honed his skills on local stages
Darren Criss is pleasant and dutiful during an interview on a recent Thursday afternoon, answering questions about his role as serial killer Andrew Cunanan in the new FX miniseries “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.”
But when the subject shifts to his childhood in San Francisco, the actor is downright joyous.
Criss happily remembers stories that have been buried for a while, including the time he called San Francisco actor Peter Coyote, whose son was a classmate of Criss’ brother, for advice about getting into acting. Criss was 7 years old.
“The synapses in my brain are suddenly awakening,” Criss says, talking faster. “I remember really, really nervously looking at the school roster, getting the number and going into the closet and shaking nervously, and saying, ‘Hi, is Mr. Coyote there?’ For a child to be talking to an adult on a level other than, ‘Can so-and-so come over to play video
games?’ it was a nerve-racking experience.”
Criss says Coyote gave him a vote of confidence, and talked to him about enrolling in the Young Conservatory program at the American Conservatory Theater. Criss flourished there, and appeared in the musicals “Fanny” and “Do I Hear a Waltz” with 42nd Street Moon when he was 10.
The St. Ignatius College Prep graduate went on to University of Michigan, where he cocreated “A Very Potter Musical” in 2009. It became a YouTube hit, and he has since glided effortlessly between film and stage, performing as openly gay singer Blaine on television’s “Glee” between 2010 and 2015, and in a “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” revival that started at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre in 2016.
But his most challenging performance — maybe anyone’s most challenging TV performance this year — is as Cunanan, the designer-obsessed serial killer in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace.”
Criss is onscreen more than anyone in the highly anticipated follow-up to “The People Vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” which won nine Emmy Awards in 2016. “Versace” co-stars Edgar Ramirez as Versace, who was shot by Cunanan in 1997. Penelope Cruz plays Donatella Versace, the designer’s sister.
Told in a challenging but rewarding reverse chronology, Cunanan comes off at first as a monster. But the pulpy exterior also gives its lead characters nuance; the series presents Cunanan and Versace as talented gay men with parents born outside the U.S.; with one finding the American dream and another becoming a living nightmare.
Speaking by phone from his Los Angeles home last week, Criss is reserved about his performance. While most reviewers have already seen all eight episodes, Criss had only seen four — and binged those the night before.
“It’s hard to watch anything you do objectively,” Criss says, when asked for his first impressions. “That sounds so unenthusiastic, but I promise you it’s not. I’m thrilled with how a lot of things turned out.”
One thing Criss insists is that he didn’t follow the dark character — there are scenes of physical and emotional torture by Cunanan, followed by an alarming lack of empathy — into the abyss.
On the worst days, Criss says, he would execute a pratfall down a stairway on set or provide other blooper reel material to lighten the mood. And he insists that while the victims of Cunanan both living and dead weighed on his mind, the most violent scenes were not as harrowing to perform as they look on screen.
“You have to remember that, (A) of course, it’s fake, (B) there’s not this creepy music looming in the background,” Criss says. “And there are 30 or 40 people around you who you can crack jokes with and grab a tea with, and give you the sort of necessary levity.”
Levity seems to be Criss’ default position, especially after the questions about Cunanan end and the San Francisco conversation begins again.
Criss and his musician brother, Chuck, who put out a pop album together last year under the band name Computer Games, took every advantage of the San Francisco art community. Criss says he hung out with theater performers in their 20s and 30s when he was a preteen; and their lessons were in the forefront of his mind as he created “A Very Potter Musical” and subsequent musicals.
But his parents recently moved out of San Francisco after 40 years, seeking a warmer climate in Southern California. When Young Conservatory director Craig Slaight retired after 29 years at ACT, Criss says, Slaight’s party doubled as Criss’ own goodbye.
“It was a nice time to get a couple of drinks, and say, ‘Fare thee well, San Francisco,’ ” Criss says. “When I go back, I’m a stranger in a strange land — I’m on Yelp, I’m on whatever hipster blogs. I treat it like a true tourist.”
There’s no bitterness for Criss about the changes in San Francisco or in any other part of the interview. Criss says that during the 1990s, there were probably a lot of natives from the 1950s and ’60s who were angry. That won’t be him.
“It’s always going to be different, everyone is going to hold their experience of a city higher than the people ahead of them,” says the 30-year-old actor and singer. “I try not to be a curmudgeon, because to me that’s the fastest way to be old.”
And that San Francisco childhood will always be with Criss, as long as the synapses are still firing. Asked if he remembers co-starring in “Fanny” when he was 10 years old, he provides a couple of warm stories, then sings a few bars from his 20-year-old performance. (“Be kind to your parents/ Though they don’t deserve it …”)
“ACT is such a huge part of my life, and I’m so forever grateful for them existing,” Criss says. “If I grew up in any other city in any other circumstance, I don’t know if I really would have had the support system in place to make this dream a reality.”