LOS ANGELES — Has television’s long-awaited fashion moment finally arrived with the docudrama “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” the highly anticipated chapter of “American Crime Story” premiering Wednesday on FX?
Not quite.
The series doesn’t revolve around Mr. Versace, the legendary Italian designer who was fatally shot on his Miami doorstep at age 50 on July 15, 1997. Instead, it centers on his murderer, Andrew Cunanan, whose three-month killing spree ended with his suicide at 27 a week later, leaving his motives unclear. Mr. Versace is absent from some episodes entirely. Much of the season unfolds in reverse, starting with the murder and then tracing Mr. Cunanan’s backstory, all the way to his childhood.
It’s grittier and more violent than its predecessor, “The People vs. O.J. Simpson,” which omitted the brutal deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, focusing instead on the chaotic trial that followed. That approach set ratings records for FX and earned numerous Emmys and Golden Globes.
“We knew we didn’t want to do ‘O.J.’-lite,” said Brad Simpson, an executive producer of the series. “We didn’t want the exact same tone or vibe because we felt that was something we couldn’t replicate. This is much more about crime.”
“‘O.J.’ was very frenetic,” added Ryan Murphy, another executive producer. “‘Versace’ is much slower and grander in its compositions. That’s one of the show’s appeals for me. Every season, we’ll take on a crime, examine broader social issues, and each season will have a different tone.”
This season has a dual nature. There’s the vibrant world of Mr. Versace (Edgar Ramirez), whose extravagant style drew celebrities to the front row and helped elevate his younger sister, Donatella (Penélope Cruz), into a star. In the series, Mr. Versace’s life is improving before his death: his fashion house is about to go public; he is openly gay, a rarity for high-profile gay men at the time; and although he is H.I.V. positive, new medications are strengthening him.
Then there’s the darkness of Mr. Cunanan (Darren Criss), who craved the high life but seemed to make little genuine effort to achieve it. The series chronicles his horrific descent from social climber to killer. In total, he murdered five people, including two friends, and at least three, possibly four, gay men.
Much of the series draws from “Vulgar Favors,” Maureen Orth’s 1999 book about Mr. Cunanan, from which the Versace family has distanced itself. “The Versace family has neither authorized nor had any involvement whatsoever in the forthcoming TV series about Mr. Gianni Versace,” the fashion label said in a statement last week. “Since Versace did not authorize the book on which it is partly based nor has it taken part in the writing of the screenplay, this TV series should only be considered as a work of fiction.”
Regardless of its genre, ratings estimates suggest that about half the audience that watched “The People vs. O.J. Simpson” will not return for this season, said John Landgraf, the chief executive of FX, and he’s fine with that.
“We’ve made a show that by definition a gay man who lived through this experience will have a richer, deeper connection to this material than a straight guy who lived through that period of time,” Mr. Landgraf said. “That’s probably not the most commercial choice you could make in America, but the way you get to great television is to ask people to go into experiences that are compelling but challenging.”
Such experimentation makes FX an attractive asset on the list of properties the Walt Disney Company is seeking to buy from 21st Century Fox, a deal pending regulatory approval. Mr. Murphy, a hitmaker whose contract expires later this year, has said he’s unsure whether he’ll stay with Fox after the Disney sale.
He said he was motivated to create the show because he was living in Los Angeles at the time and gay men in all major U.S. cities were captivated by the story, terrified that Mr. Cunanan might arrive in their city next. But when Mr. Murphy proposed a season about Mr. Cunanan three years ago—well before the Simpson series aired—it gave his colleagues pause.
Nina Jacobson, a producer of the series, politely nodded along before going home to Google the killer. “I was pretty much in the dark,” she said. Brad Simpson, another producer, had only a vague memory and wondered if there was “enough meat on the bone.”
Compared to the extensive coverage of the O.J. Simpson case (countless books, vast archives of material), public fascination with Mr. Cunanan’s killing spree had faded like a pair of acid-washed jeans.
But the producers saw larger themes in Ms. Orth’s book. If Mr. Simpson’s trial touched on racism and sexism, the Cunanan story connected to something else: the shame of the closet, the immense difficulty of being openly gay in the 1990s.
“‘American Crime Story’ at its core only works if you’re telling a bigger story about a societal ill,” Mr. Murphy said. “So I thought, ‘Can we do something on homophobia in the ’90s and the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies at the time that I think ruined so many lives?’ And it’s more topical than ever now with this president who is all about discrimination and exclusion.”
Ricky Martin, who plays Mr. Versace’s longtime partner Antonio D’Amico, was himself in the closet in 1997. Through multiple time jumps in the series, Antonio is shown as both a devoted lover when Mr. Versace was closeted, and then a devoted and even happier lover after he came out.
Mr. Martin said his performance was shaped by two things: how much better it is to be proudly out now, and the embarrassment he felt considering how he treated his former partners while keeping his sexuality secret.
“I went back to my life and what my life was in the ’90s: big closet,” he said. “I made my lovers be like Antonio where he was kept in the shadows and kept in the dark back in the ’90s. It took me back to a place where, see, it was not necessary. I go back to Harvey Milk where he said everyone has to come out and we have to normalize this. So for me, I was playing both roles. I was playing the man coming out and the relief of it, and the lover, the victim.”
It wasn’t hard for Mr. Murphy to secure Mr. Martin’s participation.
“I used to live in Miami when the actual crime happened,” Mr. Martin said. “Although I never met Gianni personally, I was invited to that house many, many times. And for some reason I never went. I had a Giorgio Armani campaign back in the day, so I’m sure that didn’t help!”
Never one to miss a red-carpet opportunity, the house of Armani last week sent out a news release announcing that it had dressed Mr. Martin, Mr. Criss, and Finn Wittrock, the actor who plays one of Mr. Cunanan’s victims, for the Los Angeles premiere of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace.”
Ms. Cruz chose a Stella McCartney dress for the premiere. A 2009 Academy Award winner for her performance in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” she contacted Donatella Versace, whom she had encountered “here and there” over the years, after being cast.
“She said to me, ‘If somebody is doing this and play me, I’m happy that it’s you,’” Ms. Cruz said. “We spoke for one hour. It was a very good conversation.” (Ms. Versace did make one request of the producers, which was granted: that neither of her two children be portrayed in the series.)
Ms. Cruz said she watched hundreds of hours of footage of Ms. Versace to master her Italian accent and mannerisms, and that her portrayal was intended to be one of “respect and love.”
And she said that early last week, Ms. Versace sent her flowers and that the two have been texting like middle-schoolers.
As for Mr. Ramirez, he found access to his character through compassion for the intense scrutiny Mr. Versace faced after his death. Mr. Versace “was killed twice,” he said. “He was killed physically, and he was killed so to speak morally and socially.”
The show’s main achievement, according to Mr. Ramirez? “I think it’s the redemption of Gianni Versace.”
John Koblin covers the television industry. He reports on the companies and personalities behind the scripted TV boom, and the networks that broadcast the news. He previously covered fashion. @koblin
