Giamatti hedges his bets on ‘Billions’
Actor relishes role as flawed U.S. attorney in season 2 of Showtime series
Paul Giamatti is a lot more casual than the character he plays on Showtime’s “Billions,” which is returning for a second season Sunday.
The Emmy-winning actor would rather be in a T-shirt and a hoodie, which is what he was wearing when he sat down for an interview, instead of one those natty power suits his character U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades wears on the show.
The series centers on Rhoades’ battle with hedge fund king Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis). When it debuted last year, “Billions” offered a fascinating look at money, power and the abuse of power.
Now, observes Giamatti, the series from Brian Koppelman and David Levien has taken on a new aspect in light of Donald Trump’s election.
“It’s funny how things look different
after the election,” the actor says. “I didn’t think things like that were possible.”
Best known for “John Adams” and “Sideways,” Giamatti calls this season of “Billions” a “focused thriller” and less about the financial aspects of Rhoades trying to take down the self-made billionaire Axelrod, who he is convinced is involved in insider trading.
Giamatti describes the show as a clash between two personalities with oversized egos.
While Rhoades is a pit bull with a kinky side, Axelrod is a charmer with a wife and child, and that makes it difficult sometimes for the audiences to decide who to root for.
“I think the point of the show,” says Giamatti, “is to flip-flop between the two to keep the audience a state of ambiguous suspense about which person they sympathize with.”
Interestingly, the two “Billions” stars have only a handful of scenes together, “but it feels like Axelrod is there all the time because the two characters internalize each other,” Giamatti says.
While some might see Rhoades as something of a bad guy because of his willingness to do anything to convict Axelrod, Giamatti doesn’t.
“I admire those guys who do what my character does,” says the actor. “They are ambitious, driven guys with human needs and desires, but they do believe in the law as a kind of instrument for doing good.”
As far as his character is concerned, he says Rhoades is “definitely a flawed person, but essentially I think my character is doing a good thing.”
Another reason that Giamatti was attracted to the role is because it was shot in New York City. “Some scenes are literally filmed blocks from my house,” says the actor who lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.
The actor has done television before, notably the limited series “John Adams,” directed by Tom Hooper, which he thinks of as a long movie. But “Billions” requires a six-month shooting schedule. So when it was picked up for a second season, Giamatti decided to take time off from acting, even passing on a play in London.
However, he hasn’t been idle. He has been producing, including the WGN series “Outsiders” about a closed-off Appalachian society in conflict with a coal-mining company.
Giamatti sees the series as evidence of changing tastes in television. “It’s not something you would have seen even two or three years ago,” he says about that series, which is in its second season.
“Because there is so much space and competition, I think people just have become more open and willing to go to places,” he adds. “There are more oddball shows.”
In fact, he is working on one about “a guy in Long Beach, California, who joins a fraternal order” called “Lodge 49.” “Basically, that’s what happens,” he says. “It could be a very particular, peculiar show” but says the writing is brilliant.
Written and created by Jim Gavin, AMC as already given “Lodge 49” a 10-episode straightto-series order, describing it as a modern fable.
Giamatti isn’t putting acting on the back burner, though. He’s doing two movies this year, “The Catcher Was a Spy” and “Private Lives.” The first is the true story of real-life baseball player Moe Berg who became an American spy in WWII, and the second is from Tamara Jenkins (“The Savages”).
Since he really enjoys playing Chuck Rhoades, the actor is hoping that “Billions” will be picked up for a third season, and because of the role, Giamatti says he finds himself looking more closely at financial headlines these days.
He notes Steven Mnuchin, who recently became United States Secretary of the Treasury, was a hedge-fund manager who has said he would like to roll back Wall Street regulations.
Somehow we don’t think Chuck would take that lightly.