the assassination oF gianni versace
American Crime Story creator Ryan Murphy is following his acclaimed O.J. Simpson series with another gripping true tale of celebrity and murder. Total Film meets Murphy and his cast on the history-soaked set of The Assassination Of Gianni Versace.
On set with the cast of Ryan Murphy’s latest American Crime Story.
After the phenomenal success of the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning miniseries The People V. O.J. Simpson, creator Ryan Murphy knew the bar was set high for his second season. “O.J. was a courtroom show and we didn’t want to do that again, so it had to be very different,” he explains.
Enter The Assassination of Gianni Versace, based on Maureen Orth’s book Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace And The Largest Failed Manhunt In US History. The nine-episode tale starts with serial killer Andrew Cunanan (Glee alumnus Darren Criss) murdering Gianni Versace (Édgar Ramírez) on the steps of his Miami mansion in 1997 and traces the path of both characters in reverse.
Filming took place on Fox soundstages in LA, but for two weeks, the production took over Versace’s former beachfront home in Miami, now operating as a boutique hotel, The Villa Casa Casuarina. Inside the 19,000-square-foot mansion, scenes were filmed with Versace’s sister Donatella (Penélope Cruz) and his long-time boyfriend, Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin), while the brutal murder was reenacted on the front steps where it happened. This opulent, history-drenched location is where Total Film sits down to talk with Murphy and his cast on the back patio, overlooking Versace’s gold-laden mosaic pool…
Casting back
Darren Criss: I was having lunch with Ryan in New Orleans almost three years ago and jokingly asking for a role as a bellhop in American Horror Story just to be in a scene with Lady Gaga. He said, “No, but there’s this other thing I’m thinking about you doing – look up Andrew Cunanan.” So I looked him up and was spooked because he looked like me! Then I spent a lot of time diving into the research not knowing if the show would ever get made and wondering why I was the first person that Ryan thought of to play a serial killer! [laughs]
Ryan Murphy: When everything finally came together to do it, I knew Darren was in and I had talked to Gaga for Donatella, but she was filming A Star Is Born and couldn’t push it back. So, I reached out to Penélope Cruz, who I knew because [her husband] Javier [Bardem] did Eat Pray Love [which Murphy wrote and directed]. I thought, because she was friends with Donatella, she could be an advocate for her and she has been.
I had always thought of Édgar from the start, because he just looked like Versace so much as well as being an amazing actor, and then I called up Ricky Martin and asked to meet with him to offer him the role. At the end of the meeting we both got really teary because he hadn’t told me that he and Édgar were close friends and Édgar had told him all about the part and he had wanted to do it so badly, but wanted to earn it without Édgar saying anything to me.
Penélope Cruz: When Ryan called to say he wanted me to play Donatella Versace I was completely shocked because I had no idea that they were going to do this project, and I think there was 20 seconds of silence, with my brain going, “What about Donatella, would she be happy with this?”
Then I started listening to what he wanted to do and he said, “I don’t think there has ever been a project that shows what a heroine this woman is because of everything that she went through.” She went through that pain and loss but had to get strength to keep the House of Versace going so it’s a beautiful love story between brother and sister too.
The real deal
RMU: I had sold my first script in late 1996 and Versace was killed a year later so I never got to meet him. But I’ve worked with Naomi Campbell who was very close to him, and she told me a lot of very interesting things about him. There is the Madonna guest suite upstairs, which was the first place I went to when we came to film here. I heard she used to sit in the bathtub and stand up naked to tease them out in the courtyard at night drinking.
PC: I’ve worked closely with the House of Versace over the last 15 years and I always liked Donatella. She’s a very strong, affectionate, generous woman. It’s a blessing to be able to play someone in depth and not be doing a film where you have two hours maximum to tell who that person is. It was my first TV role and I couldn’t have been in better hands with Ryan Murphy. It was also a three-hour process to play her. There were a couple of different wigs and coloured lenses because my eyes are brown and she has a greener honey colour, and it was very important to get the eyebrows too.
Her eyebrows were so white you almost didn’t see them and that really changes the eyes and expressions a lot.
Édgar Ramirez: I didn’t understand until I played him that Gianni was a real disrupter and had a rock star vision of couture. He was very polarising and that is what I think made him so interesting, because he was never boring.
Memories of murder
Ricky Martin: I was living in Miami at the time [of Versace’s murder] and it felt very personal. I remember the atmosphere in Miami changed completely and people were living in fear because there was a man on the streets killing people randomly.
PC: I think I knew every single piece from Versace by the time I was 15 because I was a really big fan and I dreamt one day I could wear his designs, but I was studying ballet and English and doing some movies in New York when he died so I never got to meet him. But I remember well that day and I couldn’t believe it because he was so young and everyone who knew him loved him so. Experiencing it now, being in this mental space as this character, is like a dedication to him because he’s present around every corner.
DC: I knew about the Versace murder and the first time
I went to Miami, I looked it up and stopped by the house and I remember seeing the steps and feeling how eerie it was that they were still there. I also vaguely remembered that Andrew was half Filipino because, growing up half Filipino, if there’s any half Filipino in the media you tend to pay attention to it!
ÉR: My parents were living here in Miami at the time when Gianni was assassinated, so every time I came to visit them, I would go walking on the beach and end up in front of his home because that was the place to be and a lot of people would stop by and look at the house and imagine this terrible thing that happened right on those steps.
RMU: I was at a restaurant called Off Vine in LA when
I first heard the news. And weirdly, I was also at the same restaurant when Princess Diana died, so I’ve stopped going there! I remember I was just very moved and shattered by it because he was somebody who was big in the gay community and that hit me very personally.
A death relived
RMU: It was not inexpensive to buy out the hotel for two weeks [to shoot the assassination sequence] but we decided we had to get in there. The house is unchanged since the day Versace died, except for the furniture and art, so we got permission to reproduce all the artwork and antiques and you can feel his soul and the sadness in every room. I don’t think we could have done it if we weren’t allowed to shoot here because this house is him.
RMA: It was a luxury to be able to walk into a room that helps you to find your emotion and all I had to do was touch the walls because his life was here and it’s so vibrant. I don’t want to sound cheesy, but I got there at 5 o’clock in the morning on the day we were shooting those scenes and I started working on my emotions, so when I finally got outside and saw my friend Édgar lying on the steps covered in blood I just started hysterically crying.
DC: I can’t tell you how weird it felt to be walking around this house dressed as Andrew Cunanan. I’m wearing the outfit that he murdered Versace in and I’m inside, walking around and taking pictures, but when I took a picture of the pool and saw myself in the reflection, sprayed with blood, I said, “Oh my God, I’ve got to delete this photo, it’s horrible and irreverent because Andrew never made it inside…”
ÉR: It was a very interesting exercise of abandonment and trust, filming the assassination, because I spent days and days with my eyes closed, being handled by all the paramedics and witnessing all the emotions that Ricky put into it as Antonio holding my body and screaming. I put myself into a meditative state and tried to be as quiet as possible, but when they put me on the gurney for the first time, I did have a panic attack. My mind knew that it was fine but my body was reacting in a surprising way to what everyone was saying around me.
There was only one Gianni Versace, and my character is based on Gianni, and I am trying to get as close as possible, but in a respectful way that doesn’t feel gimmicky or doesn’t feel like imitation. Because imitation is flat, and it has to be alive and it has to be creative.
RMU: I’m sure it will be incredibly difficult for the family to see. But in a weird way, I hope that the family can see it because it really is a tribute to his genius… I think, hopefully, this show will remind people of what a genius he was.
THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY AIRS ON BBC TWO AND BBC IPLAYER FROM THE END OF FEBRUARY.
‘I don’t think there has ever been a project that shows what a heroine this woman is because of everything that she went through’ Penélope Cruz