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Getting to Know Giancarlo Esposito

Tuesday, April 9, 2024

TRANSCRIPT

Meghan Robinson: What do Breaking Bad's Gus Fring, The Mandalorian's Moff Gideon, and Do The Right Thing's Buggin' Out have in common? They were all played by the incomparable Giancarlo Esposito. Esposito's career started on Broadway when he was 8 years old and eventually transitioned to TV and movies. While fans are quick to name their favorite Esposito-portrayed villain, the actor himself can't name his own favorite character. He understands which roles have given him notoriety but prefers not to live in the past.

Giancarlo Esposito: Well, you dressed the part for Oklahoma, your cowboy boots. Oh yeah, I'm a cowboy boot guy. I'm an old cowboy at heart, I honest with you, I love it.

Meghan: Where does that come from?

Esposito: I don't know, you know, I started wearing cowboy boots probably when I was 12, 13 years old. I think it was from the first time I was in Indiana and I rode a horse that was probably seven years old and uh yeah, ever since then, I've just been a boot guy. I love that.

Meghan: Yeah, because you're not a country guy, you're more of a city guy.

Esposito: I'm kind of a little bit of both, you know. I have a home in Albuquerque, New Mexico that's that's kind of cowboy country in a way. Um, I grew up early years in Manhattan and New York and then migrated a little bit to California for work searches for my acting work when I was doing that, trying to find work back in the day, and uh and then was back to New York and then during I guess Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad time, I spent a lot of time in New Mexico. But I swore I'd never have a place there, it's like it's just a little too slow, a little too behind the time, little too small town in Albuquerque. And then I came up on Better Call Saul and I decided I want to be in a hotel so I got a place there and then I had my, I call them different rises to start them, so I think I had my third rise to start them and I realized um, I couldn't just could live anywhere but it's being recognized everywhere you go is just a different feeling and I needed a place to feel like I could just be under the radar and so that wound up being Albuquerque. So I don't get there too often but when I do it feels like a sanctuary.

Meghan: You mentioned some of your roles, we're going to get to that in a second. I want to go back to the beginning. How did you first get into acting?

Esposito: Uh, I got into acting for survival reasons really. My mother was an opera singer and she, and my father was a stage technician. And they met, he was a carpenter flyman when he have had the fly floors back in the old day in the Opera House, you fly the scenery in from the ceiling and so they met at San Carlo Opera in Naples, Italy. And my mother was sang opera and she won a Mary Anderson scholarship to go from Karamu House in Cleveland to Italy to do a tour of Porgy and Bess. So you know, I grew up, I was born in Copenhagen, my brother was born in Rome, and I grew up in Italy till I was 5 years old and came to America. And mother and father got divorced eventually and basically we were struggling and I was watching television one day with my brother and we were watching a show called Gigantor, an old comic kind of mechanical machine show. And the commercial came on and it was the first time I saw an African-American kid on a commercial and um, and I went, oh, I got an idea. I thought, well, I could do that and if I did that that would help us out of this situation, maybe we could eat steak instead of frank and beans. And so I mentioned it to my mom and she took us to an agent. I sang "Happy Birthday" for the agent and two days later I had an audition for a Broadway show. And at that audition for Morton DaCosta for a show called Maggie Flynn that starred Jack Cassidy and Shirley Jones, I was off and running. I got that Broadway tryout and I was in a world that took me away from the kind of struggling world of the moment that I was in with my family and that started a great run. I don't think I've stopped since. I did 13 Broadway musicals back to back and I had to make certain decisions in my early career about whether or not I was going to stay in that world and just be a part of that smaller world of entertainment or whether or not I was going to dream, hope for, and go after something bigger which was the world of the media, the world of television and film.

Meghan: How did you balance working on Broadway with also being a kid at the time?

Esposito: Well, you know, it was hard. I think a certain part of me kind of gave up that that idea that I would just be a regular kid. You know, I was I was already after my first Broadway show, I was in the world of adults and in the world and my first Broadway show was 65 people in the cast, which is kind of rare. I think you know Wicked and a couple other shows of they we returned to larger casts but during the 90s, late 80s and 90s, the casts were shrinking because it was economics on Broadway weren't quite matching up. So if you had a large like a large tent pole movie, a large tent pole Broadway show where you're filling the house every night, you can you know the producers could cover that. So I think I kind of let go of some of my childhood. I went to Professional School. I wound up in professional Children's Schools because there's rules, at least there were then and I think they're even more stringent now surrounding child actors and actresses so you have to be able to show that you're doing a certain certain hours of education, which for me in the beginning it was a way out of school, a way out of that whole world of having to kind of do what kids do. Now I can't say I didn't I don't miss it, I didn't miss, I missed it eventually of having kind of a regular childhood but I also became kind of a breadwinner. My brother and I were in, he did two Broadway musicals and uh he no, he did one Broadway musical and another play and he dropped out and decided he didn't that wasn't the world he wanted. But I stayed in it and it was good because it allowed me to travel the world and see different cultures and really learn about the world early on and formulate an idea about how I wanted to have a career. So I made certain decisions along the way to switch and change and not stay in the Broadway world like there are actors I know today that can be in that wonderful world of Broadway for their whole life or even community theater or you know stock theater, do it on the side of a regular job, do it in the summer, you know, if you're a school teacher you can go off and be an actor in the summer. But I wanted something more so I made a switch from being because I'm a singer and a dancer as well and I just switched it all up and decided I wanted to do drama which was a whole another education to do straight drama than musicals because one is very large and very articulated in its volume and the other is smaller for the camera because you the camera is right here in front of you so it was a different learning curve. But once I started to do television, I started in soap operas and and then eventually did some network television, very little of that because that that felt as if it was also another prison. I always wanted to do film and so then I I got my first large studio film called Taps for Paramount and and that was a whole different world from just television. Film was the world where you told a longer story and you had two hours to tell it and so to me it it was more of an actor's medium.

Meghan: You've been on Broadway, been in TV, been in movies. What is your favorite role that you've ever played?

Esposito: I don't have a favorite. I love what I do and so if I'm able to act today I feel like it's a gift and I'm normally in front of the camera when I'm not speaking at a college or university or promoting, doing promotion, that's part of my gig now because I have to. This month for example, I have two premieres, I had the premiere for The Gentleman and the premiere for Parish. But you know, I hate answering that because it feels like sort of like a buzzkill when I don't have the favorite role but it really is my honest answer because I feel as if I I don't live in the past. Certainly there are roles that have broken me out. I can name movies that really changed my life in the process of making them and television shows as well and some that have given me incredible notoriety but that that they're not that was yesterday, you know. So I could name some favorites for you. I love a film I did with Jim Jarmusch called Night on Earth which few people have seen, he's a great independent filmmaker and it's originally was titled LA, New York, Paris, Rome, Helsinki, it was all these vignettes from all these cities but it's a wonderful movie with Arman Mueller-Stahl who is a German actor who's now 92 years old and retired. And of course my films with Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing really catapult me to another level. Of course there's Breaking Bad, a great experience with Vince Gilligan at the helm and great co-stars and so they're they're those shows that I could claim as my favorite because they have made me famous but I don't depend on anyone to to be to make me more famous than another it's just sort of what what becomes indelible for certain groups of people that watch them. Now certainly Breaking Bad is in the Smithsonian and you know it's everyone in in the world knows me from that show but also I have some other shows that people really know, it's The Boys, people are awaiting that fourth season of that show. And this month The Gentleman is number one on Netflix and you know 6.5 million viewers per episode as of yesterday. So now people will know me is Stanley Johnston with a T. So you know, the media is a powerful instrument and and how we use it is also can be you know very demonstrative in regard to all walks of life.

Meghan: Now you will forever be Gus Fring to me, so I I'm amongst that Breaking Bad Club for you. You have a tendency of playing a villain in a lot of your roles. What are the keys to being a convincing villain on screen?

Esposito: I think it's the same key that that is connected to being a good actor is to committing. I think for me the keys for me is to are to make my villains human and make them real and not stereotypical and it's also to be relaxed enough to take your time with the material. For example, you know, I played some bad guys and I played some bad guys but to me a villain the key for me is to play someone who's a complete human being and is cultured and has uh is informed, the role, the character role is informed by an intention. And so of course Gus had a certain intention and his intention was to take over the Salamancas' business because for a lot of reasons, so you have to think about what are those reasons, well because he's more efficient and can do it better and and they're sloppy and they they're disrespectful and they're bullies and so all all of that I think about when I'm creating a role. And Gustavo is the ultimate misdirect, you know, when you see a guy who gives to the Fun Run of the police department and gives to the you know the cancer unit at the hospital, you believe that guy to be good but the things aren't always what they seem and so that was part of my characterization too because Vince had written a stage direction that really inspired me early on when I did, I did two guest spots and they asked me to come back and I said let me talk to Vince to see what it's going to be because I don't want to just, I don't want to play into stereotypes, I want to play someone who's real. But the idea for me in the stage direction that he wrote was hiding in plain sight and to me that was intriguing because you meet people every day in your life who you think they do one thing but you kind of I started to wonder what else do they do? You know, what is their side gig, what is their sideline, what are they hiding, what is the mask that they're wearing because many many of us wear masks. You think someone's one thing and then you get to know them and you realize there are many things but that's all human beings so to me it's discovery of and to uncover what the illusion really is about someone. And sometimes you know it as an audience because it's written it's told to you but most times it's most intriguing when you don't when you know there's something else and you have to figure out and look at it and and uncover it and be intrigued by oh I know there's something else about this person but you don't know quite what.

Meghan: How much work do you put in to becoming a character?

Esposito: Quite a bit. I think about the whole project like what the piece is saying and believe it or not, part of the reason I did Breaking Bad and agreed to a contract. I mean, I declined the offer of a contract after my first two episodes, they wanted to offer me a contract and it was they were just going on hiatus from the second to the third season and I said what, I wouldn't I didn't take it. I said, why don't you just call me when you're ready to go back? I'm back in the writer's room and then let's talk about what your intentions are and all that because otherwise I'll be tied up in a contract that would give me some remuneration but put me on hold from anything else I could do because I didn't know them then. And in Hollywood a few back at that time in TV series, someone can be in first position in second position so you have a contract they're holding you so I'd have to go to them and say can I do something else? And what if a movie came up and you know, would they say no, they can deny me the right to do that so I said no because I also didn't know what they were after. And so they came back to me later. So all that to to answer your question, I do a lot of work to see what, to understand what the the complete Project's trying to say but then to figure out how the character fits into it and how I personally as an actor with my skill, how I can deepen that and then I suggest things. Now, you know, a lot of the time if you're coming in for a role that's a week or two days or four days or a three scene arc in a film, they have the director will have an idea what he wants. They don't want to discuss it, they want you to come and do your lines and just do it. But I've been doing it long enough that I have to think about what it means for me and I think and I suggest that for most people in any walk of life, you know, I believe that we go for a job interview and we want the job so badly that you know, we get interviewed and we answer all their questions but when do we say oh, okay, they they'll say thank you and you're going to walk out of the door but I suggest you ask what their company can offer you like what do you have to offer and are you collaborative and you know, do you take suggestions? I mean as a company and when you think about it, you know, the way to to to gracefully say that is I have something to offer and if I have these great ideas or will you listen to them? So then you see if it's a good fit for you but you only get to that point when you're relaxed enough to to be able to to make that decision weigh against what it has to offer you and how much remuneration it's going to bring you. Knowing your value is important.

Meghan: You've been working in this business for almost your entire life. What role haven't you played that you would like to play in the future?

Esposito: You know, I I I'd love to play a poet. I I always think of Pushkin when this question's answered me. Pushkin was a great poet, artist, writer, who was a mixed race Russian man. And so I think of stories that would allow me to play. I'd love to play in Native American, I'm part Choctaw on my mother's side. You know, different, you know, I'd like to do things that are different. And when in my business when you do something well, people want you to do that over and over again and I shun that. I want to do something different. I want to play someone else and so I'm I'm I'm happy to create create the opportunities for myself now that will allow people to see me in a light they've never seen before, which would be you know, pretty phenomenal.

Meghan: Who would you like to work with?

Esposito: I I have, you know... there's some directors who I really want to work. Jonathan Demme was a director I really wanted to work with and he sadly passed away. You know, Altman was another really great director who I can't work with anymore 'cause he's gone. Kubrick, I auditioned for him for a film and didn't get the opportunity. I didn't get chosen and which is kind of a bummer. I want to work with real real artists that that have their that really have a vision for what they want to do and and outside of Hollywood you have to find that an independent film. You know, I've enjoyed my collaborations with Spike Lee, I think he's just been a really really just wonderful influence on my life and Brian De Palma, I I've always wanted to work with those guys from the 60s who you know did great films like The French Connection and really you know strong stuff like that. But I I have to think more about like directors today who I'd like to work with. I'd like to work with the guy who did Maze Runner, The Maze Runner movies. You know, I think he he's a young young directors who have a vision. I want to work with my daughter Ruby Esposito, you know, she's a filmmaker. I think she has really visionary ideas and so I've been encouraging her to you know, write a script, get an idea together and I would I would collaborate with her to do it. That would be amazing.

Meghan: Yeah, I'd love that. What are your hobbies outside of acting?

Esposito: I used to paint and I haven't had time to much anymore. Because I'm so physical in my acting work and do most of my own stunts, I I have a hobby of, well it's more than the hobby now, Pilates, like classical Pilates. I love how it just strengthens my core and keeps keeps me in balance. But I ride fast motorcycles with a helmet on so no one can recognize me. So I I get once in a while get to the racetrack and and see if I still have it in me if I had the guts to go around the track at you know 100 plus miles an hour with the bike leaning close to the ground because it allows me to do something that's against your natural instinct like whoever thinks that that's like something that anyone would do, it's kind of crazy. But I also cycle. I'm a I'm a wheel guy so I like bicycling. I like hiking when I do get to New Mexico. I like to hike because I find it very peaceful. I garden so that's a hobby I have. During pandemic I had a really you know phenomenal garden of tomatoes and kale and lavender and artichokes and I really enjoyed that that gave me time to realize how much I love that. Yeah, so I have a couple couple hobbies that I like.

Meghan: Yeah, heard you say you do your own stunts. What is the scariest stunt you've had to do?

Esposito: Um so I do my own stunts. I have a new show called Parish on AMC that comes out March 31st. So I do all my own driving stunts in that. I was just at NASCAR recently talking about that show because it seemed like the pubs for the show felt like it was a really good connection. My co-star's family, Skeet Ulrich, he's been in the Scream movies, he he comes from a racing family. So although that's not the kind of racing I used to do when I was a kid at 17, racing the souped up Street Rat late at night so we'd evade police capture, it was a different animal for me to go to the NASCAR races. But the scariest stunt I I think I've done was probably burning up in a film called Taps. I had to be on fire. I've had to be on fire a couple times and so that was kind of a dangerous stunt in that I had the fire suit on much like what you wear in the car. That's a suit that resists flame. They have a suit that is flammable on the outside of that suit that'll go up and if you're in a race car you have 3 minutes, that suit protects your skin for 3 minutes. So hopefully someone can get to you by then. But it was also so I did a scene at the boiler is Captain J.C. Pearson, Taps, where I had to trying to light the boiler and I in the basement of the military academy and I go up in flames and they take me out on a stretcher. But more recently last year I have a film, a series on on Netflix called Kaleidoscope and so in one of the episodes in that particular show, um spoiler alert, I'm I play a guy, Heist Master Thief and I lower myself from the ceiling into a secured vault and steal some jewels. It's at a country club where my wife worked so I and she wasn't supposed to be there that day but she turned out to be there and we have my partner in that, we get caught but my partner in that lights the the draperies on fire so the whole room goes up and the next room and I hear this voice and it's the my wife and I I I'm determined to save her and so I had to go down a corridor that was completely on fire and and kick a a door a gate and a door open that was completely on fire so basically you know. So my stunt guy did it and he and he walked up and he kind of kicked the door, they did a take and he was just looked like he was just didn't know what he was doing and God bless him you know he he was afraid I don't blame him but you got to act that you got to go through it. And so you know I said I wanted to do it and the producers came to me and said well we're I'm not we're not very comfortable with that and I said well you know I can do it it's got to it's got to look great. So the fire department's there so the fire department guy comes to me and he brings me a waiver which basically I have to sign that they're not responsible so I got that done then and oh I didn't mention I I I had to age and de-age 27 years so in the scene I was younger so I had all this prosthetic makeup on where I that was added to my face. It was a four hour makeup, we cut it down to two and a half hours so I'm in all this stuff on my face to have me look completely different. And then the makeup artist comes out he tell, he tells the first AD, you know, I got to I I I have to tell you this his makeup is flammable you know it's prosthetic so so I go oh another hurdle. So another 20 minutes of conversation conversation conversation and I went guys like let's just shoot this right 'cause at that point I'm like there's there's no going backwards. They wanted to call Los Angeles see if the studio is all right with it blah blah blah. I said let's shoot this before they make that call in the front office because you know that they're they're not going to they're going to say no. And then the one fire department guy came over to me and he had all these marks on his face, red marks. He said you see my face? I said yeah I do actually. He said this happened to me last week. He was like had some burns and some marks and I said well you made it through still you know you don't look like Gustavo Fring in episode four Breaking Bad so that's not so bad. And he takes says put your hands out and he puts this huge gel like huge I mean a pound of gel in each hand and it was heavy and he said hold this in your hands and you just hold it down and you pretend it's not there but you don't want to drop it. And when you go through if you feel like there's any any heat getting to your face slather yourself in it so I said okay. And they rolled the camera and held it down and I you know they lit up the whole hallway. I mean everything shit's burning you know and you know I rock my way down but you know you you can't be, it's I'm my intention is to get to my wife so I can't be like oh the place is burning I know it's burning right. You can't be afraid, it's basically it. And then I had to hit this gate and I hit it and it didn't freaking move and then I kicked it and it moved a little more and I just shouldered it and it finally opened up and now and it's burning all that is burning right. I'm hitting it hard and fast to get in and get out get in and get out right so I'm not staying close to those flames and then bam I hit it and went right through and the opposite side is burning and all that. I made it. They called cut, didn't have to use the gel all the chemicals to slather myself with but that was the most challenging and the most frightening because again the carpet was burning, the walls were burning, everything was burning. You got to pay attention to all of it and be really really safe but really acted but also kind of fierce you know but I'm kind of that fierce actor I'm not afraid of much.

Meghan: I know that scene, that scene is intense. Kid, intense. Very intense. Parish coming out. What's next after that?

Esposito: You know, I have two other openings. I have an opening every month now. I'm kind of blessed that all the product that I made before the writers and actor strike was held and so now I have stuff coming out. Abigail is a film that comes out with the Scream guys. It's a horror film that's a comedy and a drama all-in-one, getting really great pre-screening reviews from people. I play a very different character in that, you know, he seems like one thing and he's another. So I can't wait for that. I think that's April 17th that comes out. And then after that Maxine with Ti West and and Mia Goth in that whole series of movies that they're doing. I think it's the final series of the character that she plays and that's another great movie where you know, you have to look hard to recognize me because I'm really different in that. So it's nice to be able to start to play some characters that are very different than what you've ever seen. And of course Parish, Parish is an everyman guy who's not a guy in control of a situation and so you know, I think you asked me what makes a good bad guy, it's a guy that's in control of the situation, in control of people who thinks ahead of people. My character in Parish is not that at all. He's an everyman who's flying by the seat of his pants, who's a little bit lost in his world, you know, his family's falling apart, his business is falling apart, he's in trauma from losing his son. So it's a very, it's it's it's very intense and heavy. But I I'm hoping that the everyman of the world can recognize that person and and really watch the show. Couple all that with he's hiding a past which makes it intriguing right? He's been something before that even his family doesn't really know about and that all starts to come out in our show. It's it's an action packed really pretty great six episode series for AMC and it's it's appointment TV so you got to see it week to week and then it'll eventually go to a streamer and you can just binge it from top to bottom over and over again. But I'm very proud of Kaleidoscope, I'm glad you saw that. It's to me it gives you an opportunity to have an arc as an actor and to play a character who goes from younger to older is to me it's it's the juice of what I do as an actor.

Meghan: Thank you to the OSU Speakers Board for hosting Giancarlo Esposito on campus. His new show Parish airs Sundays at 10:00 p.m. Eastern on AMC.

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