GMA Brandtalk
Tracking
Archives
Darren Criss on being half-Filipino, playing Andrew Cunanan, and opening a piano bar
Los Angeles — Darren Criss, 31, became the first Filipino-American to win an Emmy in the Primetime Lead Actor category in the recently concluded 70th Primetime Emmy Awards held at the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles.
The talented and charming actor/singer/songwriter recently bagged the much-coveted Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie Award for his portrayal of the serial killer Andrew Cunanan in the award-winning Ryan Murphy-helmed “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.”
RELATED: Fil-Am actor Darren Criss wins historic Emmy for ‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’
It was a tough category to be in as Darren was in very good company. Other nominees included John Legend (Jesus Christ Superstar Live In Concert), Antonio Banderas (Genius: Picasso), Benedict Cumberbatch (Patrick Melrose), Jeff Daniels (The Looming Tower), and Jesse Plemons (Black Mirror, USS Callister).
In our interview, we talk about his critically-acclaimed performance in the award-winning FX series, his being Filipino-American, his recent engagement to his long-time girlfriend Mia Swier, his tour with ex-“Glee” colleague Lea Michele, his childhood in San Francisco and Hawaii, his musical inclinations, his new piano bar in Los Angeles and how he sees himself 10 years from now.
Below are excerpts of our conversation with Darren:
On his much-praised performance in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace”
I think Ryan Murphy always had me in mind, which I'm very fortunate to say. I think he said he's always wanted to do this story in some way or another and he brought this up to me before the first series even came out — “The People vs. OJ Simpson.”
He was shooting the pilot for “scream queens” in New Orleans, this was about maybe four some odd years ago and he was about to go into pre-production for “OJ” and I think they had just maybe cast "Cuba."
It was still very much in the fetal stages of production, and he mentioned this to me and how he wanted to do it. I obviously was very excited by it because it seemed, you know, it's an endlessly interesting and compelling story — not to mention the endlessly compelling character that for obvious reasons, whether it's me being half Filipino or looking like the guy or being in the same age range, it seemed almost too serendipitous of an opportunity for me not to be extremely excited about it.
So he brought it up and he was the one that said he wanted to do it and he wouldn't do it without me, which I appreciated. I had to wait three something years until he did it. The man keeps pretty busy.
There was a while there where I didn't think he was going to do it because at one point “Katrina” was going to be the second season. Things got moved around and just by series of events that became the second season.
And there we were. But I was always very, very tantalized by this opportunity and by the story. I can't believe however many years later here we are talking about it. I'm very proud of what we did.
On how he prepared to play serial killer Andrew Cunanan:
Everybody asks me that because I think there's so many wonderful actors who I love and artists that really live deeply in their roles and then they have trouble getting in and out of it. And my joke is that it either makes me a good actor or a bad one. I don't know the answer, the jury is out on that one, but for me, it lives and dies between action and cut.
I think there's a couple of reasons for that. It might be my own self-preservation and defense mechanism from having to live in any particularly dark place. He also turned on a dime. So, I sort of likewise, followed that sort of behavior where you could disassociate and compartmentalize feelings and behaviors because that's just how he was.
So, for me, I kind of weave in and out of that. I also think the best parts of Andrew's saved me from the worst parts of him in the sense that we're not just looking at a horrible human being. We really see and explore and almost celebrate the more redeeming qualities of him. I'm not saying that that forgives or exonerates the horrible things he did. But it certainly makes you balance out some of the more difficult things and makes us question our own senses of compassion.
It becomes a real conflict, which is where the drama lies, and that's what's enjoyable as an actor. It was nice that I could sort of step out of it. Also, I was in a comfortable environment. I was with people that I'd worked with for years on “Glee” or otherwise and it made for a very comfortable, loose atmosphere, which was almost necessary because otherwise you'd just be living in this dreary space for a while.
So, we kept it light onset and that made it easier to bring darkness when we needed to but step out of it just as quickly. My guiding light at the end of every project is the script. Although these are real life events, I'm not doing an imitation of Andrew. I don't know Andrew, I'd never met him. I've never seen any video footage of him. You can only go off of what you've heard from other people and even then, is it more important to copycat what his characteristics were like or is it more important to bring to life an emotional content?
And that, to me, was more important. But we know the facts of the show is based off Maureen Orth’s book, which is an extended version of her Vanity Fair article that she did when she was following the case. We have a bunch of A, B and Cs as far as actual things that happen, and then we have to connect the emotional dots in between. That research is more or less about knowing Andrew and knowing the darkest parts of ourselves and sort of trying to relate that to someone like Andrew.
On being half-Filipino and portraying Andrew Cunanan who was also half-Filipino:
It's a very strange irony. It's not beyond me how twisted it is that this very exciting moment in my career, having this very conversation, being in this room with you and being among these people who are interested in a certain echelon of pop culture.
It is not beyond me that this is directly linked to something horrible that really happened and if it wasn't for a lot of this destruction, would I be having this conversation? And the answer is no.
And so, while I'd like to think that if I was in any position to prevent any of these things from happening. If I was there, if any of us had any opportunity to stop any of these murders, we would have done something. I'd like to think I would have tried to intervene in some way, but unfortunately, I can't.
The only thing I can do 20 years later, being very helpless, is to try and not exploit this story, not to sensationalize or make a spectacle out of these tragedies, but to tell a story, to sort of raise questions and to get us to think about perspectives we may have missed. That's the only power I really have.
I often think about the people who are still around that. I mean often, it was every day. That was the heaviest weight on my shoulders. I was thinking about not knowing the Versace family, but the lives of the sons and daughters and family members and loved ones of the people that we talk about in our show that I think before the show didn't really have a whole lot of spotlight and in pop culture or society at large in general.
I think about the way something like this would affect them. A hot-topic water-cooler television show and what that must be like for them, wherever they are, to have to deal with this after having trying to cope with it for twenty years.
Like I said, the only thing that I can hope I'm doing is trying to create some kind of light from so much darkness. So yeah, the irony is not beyond me that here I am, almost custom built, just by sheer providence for this role. How do we bring justice to something that is so devoid of justice? And the only answer to that is trying to bring a conversation that can help us understand how these things can happen and how we can avoid it and how we can process a tragedy in terms of how did we get there and how we can avoid it in the future. It is a strange, cruel irony, isn't it?
But again, it's the first time I've ever played anybody that was close to my… it's the first time ever anyone's ever really asked about my ethnicity.
It's never really come into play except for folks like yourselves because we have some Filipino friends and connections obviously. So that's something we celebrate, and we like to talk about.
But I think other than the Filipino community, it's something that hasn't really come up a lot and in that regard, it is exciting to be able to celebrate that and talk about that because it's just never something that has come up before.
And so, if that sheds any positivity towards people who maybe feel more represented, especially when you talk about people like Jon Jon Briones who's from the Philippines that has a wonderful role and does an excellent job.
This is a show that is showing, probably first time in my memory, a really complex Filipino character who was a real person and peers into a real Filipino family’s life. To be able to shed light on that is very exciting. I'm very proud to be part of that.
On his childhood growing up in San Francisco and then Hawaii:
I hated performing for my family friends. I really did. I had my aunties, my Filipino aunts, would always make me perform and I hated it. I just couldn't stand it. Mainly I think it was less about performing and more about being told what to do. I think if it was on my own fruition to do a song and dance number, then I'd be happy to.
I guess I always wanted to because I enjoyed it, but if you told me to do something, I was like, no way. I remember even as a kid growing up if I was going to go home and I just really needed to take a shower and clean my room. If I got to the door and my mom said, take a shower and clean your room, I’d be like, well there goes to that. Not doing that anymore. I can't do what you asked me to do which I'm sure is tied to some more stubborn psychological background that I have about my own decisions in life.
Some people need to perform and for whatever reasons that might need to happen. There's no right or wrong reason to that. I never had this need to and I think I have the luxury of saying that because I've been very lucky with given opportunities to do that, so I've never felt the pang of what it is not to perform.
I think I have a need to connect people. I have an insatiable desire to bring people together and to have people share a common ground. That has manifested itself in so many different ways in my life, whether it's just being a general Pied Piper of the party.
I like bringing people that I like together. More recently, we’ll talk about it later, opening a bar with my fiancé. Whether it's just having a singalong with the guitar, it's less about me having attention… because I've never been someone that needs attention on me. It's more about, if I'm going to be really sort of holistic and new-age about is, I'd like offering group community and catharsis and making people feel good about themselves and about life. If I can be some kind of significant contributing factor to that then I'm all about it. So, as a kid though, if you told me to do it, I wouldn't do it.
On his musical inclinations:
It's funny, I was watching something the other day that the number one export of the Philippines is people and a lot of that is in all kinds of jobs around the world, particularly in Southeast Asia, and a huge percentage of that labor is actually musicians. It's a guys and girls who are great singers and whether they're in the recording industry or in bands and they're playing all over the place.
But it was a really a staggeringly awesome percentage of people who are literally exported from the Philippines to provide music. I thought that was so cool. So yeah, my mom has always been a bit of a performer herself. She's a very charismatic, fun lady that is a natural performer in her own right. I think maybe in another life she would have been in performing, but she has sort of a lot of stage fright so I guess that might've stopped her. She's very musical and loves music and raised us with music everywhere.
My dad is a bit more of the sneak attack musician. I have this whole theory about people who have musical ability that don't play music. I think there's a huge percentage of people on the planet who have sort of genetic inclination for music unbeknownst to them, and I think my dad has one of those things. Singing in church he’d always sing on key. If it was too high, he would go an octave lower, which takes a little bit of inbuilt ability. And he always sings. My dad always jokes he knows the first five words to every song. We grew up in a household where a lot of singing and music was around. So, I'm definitely the combination of both my parents. My mom’s drive and my dad's enjoyment.
On doing a tour with Lea Michele:
Yeah, Leah and I have always been close and we've always enjoyed playing music together. We've done a lot of one off performances, whether they'd be for philanthropic events or things like that.
I had her perform at a music festival I started about almost four years ago called "The Elsie Fest." It is an outdoor sort of cabaret music festival that we do in New York City, and we have a lot of crossover artists from Broadway, film, TV and pop culture who come up and do their repertoire or whatever they want.
Lea is sort of a perfect fit for that. So she came for it this last year and we did some duets and were working on her set and working on my set and we always talked about this is so much fun, this is so easy, this would be a really great thing to take to a lot of not "Glee" fans, but Broadway fans that maybe haven't had a chance to see any "Glee" performances since our tour in 2011.
I enjoy going out in the road like, you know, this is tied to my thing earlier about enjoying bringing people together. I enjoy doing that and sharing that with Lea Michele is very exciting. We share a lot of musical history, you know, obviously between "Glee" and Broadway, but she has her own solo records, I have my own solo records and she's sung songs that I've written so seemed like a natural fit.
We had some free time and I wanted to take it on the road. It’s very fun and I'm excited for folks that haven't had a chance to experience that to get to because we're going to places that I've been a lot of places and I'm going to quite a few that I've ever been to, which is, which is a great thing.
On his engagement to Mia Swier:
Well, we've been together for a long time and I think a lot of great relationships. We were friends first and we've been through everything together and that only fortifies the relationship more. It’s not without its ups and downs, for sure, but such is life and such is love and we've had sort of a wonderful partnership these past many years it was about time.
On his new piano bar:
Well, I used to say it was a pipe dream, but now we're doing it so I guess we've done it. It was always a dream that Mia had, I have little to nothing to do with the bar. I'm literally just the pianist and people say, “oh, that can't be, you're the actor. You must have had a strong hand.”
I mean, to be crass and talk about money for a second, I put so much of what I make back into my personal projects. I was like, oh my God, how am I going to help with this bar? So it's mostly Mia because I'm running around spinning all these other plates.
She comes from a venue family. Her father and uncle are a part of it. She grew up in bars and venues so this was something she always wanted to do. She always wanted to call it “Tramp Stamp Grannies.” I have a personal history with piano bars.
We share a personal history of loving many piano bars in New York and in San Francisco and it's just something we’ve always wanted to bring to Los Angeles. At least the kind of piano bar that we're interested in. The old adage of “if you build it, they will come” has been really true. It's been a delight in the past month to see the kind of folks that show up and tell us how much they've really been longing for a place like Tramp Stamp Grannies.
But to get to the details: it's a piano bar and instead of a DJ, there's a pianist. So if you want to hear a song the pianist will play it. They're just playing a really great mixture of tunes. We lean towards show tunes, but of course there's a lot of pop contemporary standards played all night and people gather around. It's like our living room at home.
For the longest time, at the end of every party would end up at our house and it'd be me on the piano or guitar or leading a sing along and however many dollars worth of alcohol later and broken glasses Mia and I said, “you know, we should probably start charging for this.” So, that was the reason we finally went to first gear with opening this bar and she's done a really magnificent job.
I wish I could take more credit, but again, I'm just the pianist. It was her vision and it really does look and feel really beautiful and like the dream that she always had. So we're so proud to share it with people.
The name of the place is “Tramp Stamp Grannies” It's in Hollywood Cahuenga and Hollywood. I think they call it the Cahuenga corner. I think that's the proper name. But yeah, I've feel like I've exhausted my crediting Mia but I really can't praise her enough. Our business partner is this Guy Danny Mazzari, who's sort of the business end and Mia as the creative and I just hit the keys.
On how he sees himself 10 years from now:
I keep joking with people because I've had such wonderful a reaction to Versace not only for the performance but just for the project itself. I'm just so thrilled people watched it. There are a lot of things I've done that I'm very proud of, but I don't expect people to have seen it at least at the level that they've seen this show. Not even seen it, but wanting to talk about it.
It's not like you're competing with yourself because that's a really unhealthy way of thinking about your work, but I certainly would be hard pressed to try and match how many wonderful boxes were ticked on this show, that hopefully I can just tick boxes I didn't even know existed.
But the goal I guess would be to, as I was saying before, is to break out into other things and to keep myself and other people off balance. I am a devout fan of the human race. Despite all our flaws, warts and all. I love all the different colors we have in our palette and all the wonderful and terrible things that were capable of and to be able to represent and bring to life all those things to me is the goal. I’m in it for the long game, I'm all about not these quick hits and quick fixes. Everything is connected to each other. So it all has to be a departure from the last thing. And where does that stand in the canvas of all the other colors we painted thus far?
That's the way I look at everything. But my joke I've been saying is because it's so hard to meet something like this because thus far I wouldn't say this is the role of a lifetime because hopefully, you know, there's many more things to come in my lifetime, but as of yet, this certainly has been the project of a lifetime. So much so that I joke that in ten years, I’ll be the forgettable villain in Batman 12 and then everyone's going to go, “Oh God, you know, it's really too bad would happen to that guy” and I’ll be like, “but guys, remember Versace? That was good, right? You like that?” And they're going to be like Darren, that was ten years ago. Get over it, quit living in the past.
So, I don't know, hopefully keep breaking out in new ways in different areas. I fancy myself or my goal is a character person. I enjoy character acting and if I can keep diversifying that portfolio that would be a total goal. Yeah. — LA, GMA News
