Darren Criss rose to stardom first on Glee and now in the new FX installment, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. But that doesn’t mean he’s comfortable with his celebrity status.
The 31-year-old actor recently announced his engagement to his longtime love, Mia Swier, on Instagram, and speaking withEsquire.com, he opened up about how that proved to be a difficult choice for him.
“It was a long time coming. We’d waited a while before we announced it,” he told the mag. “I had a whole thing written, like, ‘Usually I don’t like talking about my private life…’ which I really don’t – I was really allergic to it for a while. Eventually I got over myself and realized that it’s just the best way to let people know.”
Despite his quick start on Glee, Criss said he never got caught up in the widely rumored cast drama.
Kathryn Wirsing/Esquire.com 
“The thing that kept me stable on Glee was that I came in after the fact. It was already a massive hit, and then I joined, so I had a little bit more of a bird’s eye view,” Criss, who played Blaine Anderson on the show, explained. “I always felt like an outsider looking in, like, ‘Wow, guys! I’m on Glee! How crazy is this?’ I was aware of the animal going in.”
Though he performed on Glee for five years, Criss noted that he hadn’t worked with the show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, until this new project.
“I never actually worked with Ryan before this,” he said. “One time somebody was sick and he came on for one scene, and it was the most I’d ever worked with him.”
Kathryn Wirsing/Esquire.com 
Criss is portraying Andrew Cunanan, the serial killer who murdered Gianni Versace. The Versace family has publicly expressed their disapproval of the show, which Criss says he understands.
“If a family member was taken from me, I wouldn’t be very happy at all about their life being compared to the person that took it,” he said. “That seems sickening, and I completely understand that, but the important thing is that we’re juxtaposing a beautiful creator with a terrifying destroyer.”
For more from Criss, watch the clip below!
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