Giancarlo Esposito (‘Parish’ and ‘The Gentlemen’): ‘I live through my art. I have a full life’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
Giancarlo Esposito doesn’t seem to have a lot of trouble finding work. The character actor extraordinaire boasts more than 200 credits on his IMDB page going back to the 1980s, and just in the past few years he’s recurred on “The Mandalorian,” “Godfather of Harlem,” “The Boys” and “Better Call Saul.” He’s a performer whose reputation precedes him, his screen presence consistently magnetic and oft intense. His career was supercharged by his portrayal of chicken entrepreneur and drug kingpin Gus Fring – first of “Breaking Bad” and then on “Saul.” Of his portrayal of Fring, he says, “I wanted to create a character who was formidable but who was (also) polite and graceful and who took care of his business family in a certain way. It re-enthused me that there was a complete and very complicated character that I could develop with this team of writers. I recognized what they were doing as very edgy, dangerous, forward-thinking filmmaking. It felt like they were making films every week. That’s why I wanted to be a part of it.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
His incandescent performance on that show would earn Esposito a pair of Emmy nominations (he has a total of five to date). But what many don’t know is that has had to fight significant demons to get where he is. During our conversation, he spoke at some length about the dark places he’s resided and what he’s had to overcome logistically and emotionally to thrive in his industry. There have been issues with drugs and alcohol, a painful divorce and a bankruptcy. He drew on these experiences to portray Gracian “Gray” Parish in the six-episode AMC crime drama “Parish” that’s based on the BBC One series “The Driver,” portraying a New Orleans-based former getaway driver whose life unravels following his son’s murder and who entangles himself with a violent African criminal syndicate.
It’s a role close to Esposito’s heart for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact he’s the star and personally fought so hard to bring it into being.
“It’s been an eight-year journey to bring this project to the screen,” he emphasizes. “I’m not only Gray Parish but I’m also the executive producer. And so I cast myself, a powerful lesson for me and for many actors who (say), ‘They wouldn’t let me, they didn’t give me that role, they they they. When do you give yourself the gift of creating something for yourself and not giving up on it. Eight years for me to get this to you as an audience, many many pitches, many different networks, many ‘no’s,’ eight different drafts, many different partners. The process was arduous, but I believed in it. Then as I started to move through it, the effort became more about revealing my own personal situation of bankruptcy and divorce and straying away from my family. And that all felt like a secret.”
Esposito explains that, like the man he’s playing, he harbored a secret. “When the bankruptcy happened and the divorce happened, I was afraid to talk about it. So that became another compartmentalized part of myself. And as I started to sprinkle and pepper these elements of my lifer into Gracian Parish, it all came together and it feels like a victory to be able to be organically truthful about who I am and also about who I was…The journey for me has been phenomenal to realize not only the healing of a past life, but also the hope of a future one.”
The dovetailing of his “Parish” character with issues that have cropped up in Esposito’s own life have proved to be cathartic for the actor. “(Mine) is a story of survival because I live through my art,” he maintains. “I have a full life. I want people to know they can be empowered by what I’ve done and where I’ve come from. You never know when your story may help someone.” That story is coming out now because he understands there can be healing in disclosure – and that we are only as sick as our secrets. “I realized my years of misusing alcohol and tobacco and drugs was because I was in pain – because I couldn’t talk about it. I didn’t give myself the permission. I didn’t feel like I was ready to. Having come through the other end of all that and understanding there are different things I can do to manage my unhappiness, to manage my anger, has helped me.”
The actor also talks about growing up in a nearly poverty-stricken environment where he wasn’t nurtured by his parents. The irony of that is he’s now also portraying a character in a second series – the Netflix action comedy “The Gentlemen” from Guy Ritchie (spun out from the 2019 feature) – in which he portrays a billionaire wine mogul named Stanley Johnston. “To play the richest man in the world who is a connoisseur of wine, of watches, of women…I’ve had a ball with Guy Ritchie.”
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