‘Parish’ helped Esposito understand himself
Actor interested in how Everyman can end up extraordinary
When the character of Gus Fring in “Breaking Bad” stumbled out of the nursing home with half of his face gone from a pipebomb, it marked an explosion of another kind.
Giancarlo Esposito, who played Gus, says that role detonated his life. It wasn’t that Esposito had languished in the background of show business for years. No, he had co-starred in shows like “Homicide: Life on the Streets,” “The Mandalorian,” “Revolution,” “Ali,” “Waiting to Exhale,” and countless TV series. In fact, Esposito has been acting since he was 7 years old.
But, he says, “People didn’t realize that the same man who played Gustavo Fring was the same man who played many different roles. It changed my life because people began to realize the versatility that I had. They thought, ‘Who is this guy, really?’ ”
Who he is really has troubled him all his life. He says his latest role as Gracián “Gray” Parish in “Parish,” now airing Sundays on AMC and streaming on AMC+, helped him understand himself and his past. “I was really interested in the Everyman in ‘Parish,’ and how that Everyman could find a place to become an extraordinary man. And what does that really mean? What does it mean to be a success ? What does it mean to be a good father? What does it mean to fail?”
Those are questions we all ask ourselves. He says his began when he became an altar boy in the Catholic Church. “I was introduced to the church and the iconic vision of what God was; the fear of it changed my life because I realized there was something special there because I felt protected and safe, and I didn’t feel that way at home.”
His parents had divorced. And, out of necessity, he began working as a child actor. “I was the breadwinner for my family. So I supported my mother and my brother ... I was the golden goose . ... Being depended upon in that way was really way too much for a kid. But it also made me feel like the hero. See the flip side of the coin? I was a child actor and am still a child actor. But I acknowledge it and realize it and my growth has helped me understand it.”
Though Esposito’s resume is teeming with enviable roles, a crisis erupted in his 20s, he says. “That (work experience) led to great disappointment and a rough moment in time where I was completely drinking too much, doing too many drugs and wanted to kill myself,” he confesses.
“I was acting. I was depressed. And I was killing pain. I was saved by a friend. He got into my apartment, broke down the door of my bathroom where I was sitting on the toilet pointing a shotgun into my mouth,” he pauses. “Sorry,” he says, tapping the table in front of him and laughing. “I’m good now.
“So I went away and rehabbed and learned about what substance (abuse) does to me. I learned yeah, I could have a glass of wine once in a while, but I learned that was a way for me to kill pain.”
Then a friend gave him the book, “Who Moved My Cheese?” “It’s a small, skinny book that talks about the hunter-gatherer father who goes out in the world, and when things dry up, he has to find the cheese somewhere else. It’s a kids’ book,” says Esposito, who’s dressed in a black dress shirt and black suit.
“I said, ‘What is this? A book about a mouse finding the cheese?’ He said, ‘Keep reading.’ I read it and realized I had to pivot and make a change. I had to move in a different direction and had to start to create what I saw for myself. And it changed my life. Because then I started to say, ‘What do you want to do? What kind of character do you want to play?’ Then ‘Parish’ came around I said, ‘I want to play that. I want to play someone who’s not so confident, not so powerful, who’s vulnerable, who’s at risk even. I wanted to show characters that people can really relate to, to find a correlation to something that strengthened their lives.”
That’s the whole reason he’s an actor, he explains. “Because storytelling to me is all. It extends your imagination. It allows you to go places you would never go otherwise. It allows you joy. It gives you deep poignant moments of peace. It allows you excitement. It’s like when you go to a movie, you’re living your whole life if the movie is really good and captures your attention. And can you leave that movie and feel like you’re a hero too? Yes! And you’re going to tell yourself, ‘I’m going to start doing that tomorrow because that’s going to strengthen my life. I’m going to change and stop talking about what I want to do, but actually do it.’ ”
He did the same, he says. “I mean, what do I have to lose? I want to work with people I really like . ... So something happened to me one day. Yes, I do meditate. Yes, I do pray. Yes, I live a clean life that attracts good people, heartfelt people who are smart and are really like-minded to me. I’m realizing more and more that this is the one shot I have to live a good life. Why not live a good life?”