Giancarlo Esposito Is Ready to Play the Leading Man in AMC’s ‘Parish’
There are few actors who have a busier 2024 than Giancarlo Esposito. On the big screen, Esposito is starring in four projects, including the final installment of Ti West’s X trilogy, MaXXXine, and Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited sci-fi epic, Megalopolis. It’s a similar story on television, where Esposito has already featured in the small-screen spinoff of Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen and teased the return of the sinister (and recently ousted) corporate executive Stan Edgar in the fourth season of The Boys. But it’s Esposito’s work in the new AMC series Parish, premiering on Sunday night, that adds another intriguing feather to his cap: the role of a leading man.
While Esposito has long been a go-to actor in high-profile dramas, those roles tend to fall into a familiar wheelhouse. Whether it’s the notorious drug kingpin Gus Fring from the Breaking Bad universe, the Darksaber-wielding Moff Gideon of The Mandalorian, or the aforementioned Edgar in The Boys, there’s no one else you’d rather see morph into a cunning villain—the type of character whose eerie presence always makes it seem like they’re two steps ahead of everyone else. With Parish, however, Esposito gets to play the other side of the coin: a good man thrust into making bad choices.
In the series, which is a remake of BBC One’s The Driver, Esposito plays Gracián “Gray” Parish, a family man from New Orleans whose black car limousine service is at risk of going out of business. The dire situation leads Parish to return to the criminal life he’d left in the rearview, finding himself entangled with a Zimbabwean mobster who specializes in human trafficking. Naturally, Parish’s conscience begins to gnaw at him, leading to a collision course (pun unintended) with the city’s underworld.
“He’s in a predicament,” Esposito tells The Ringer. “I think it serves the show well for our audience—deep down, we know he’s a good man, but we really want him to get back on the good foot, and we’ll root for him to do that.” Indeed, after he’s portrayed so many villains we couldn’t look away from, it’s easy to embrace Esposito as television’s latest brooding antihero. Below, we discuss Esposito’s work in Parish, the qualities that make him such a memorable antagonist, and how fatherhood has changed his life—and his approach to acting—for the better.
You’ve been so prolific of late, especially on television, I have to imagine you can be selective about the roles you choose. What drew you to Parish?
Well, it came to me from my producing partner and now-manager, Josh Kesselman, who was a fan of the British version of The Driver. It was in turnaround in America. They wanted to try and make it here and asked me if I was interested. That started an eight-year journey of me getting involved in regard to the story, where to place it, hiring a director, hiring a showrunner, getting [The Driver cocreator] Danny Brocklehurst to cowrite with us, and placing it in this new setting.
Then it went through maybe seven or eight incarnations in terms of what Parish’s journey would be. But we pick up with a man who’s in turmoil: a broken man who has lost a son. He also has a business that’s failing, and he has a marriage that’s not working out and another child who he has not been able to pay much attention to because he’s so busy trying to make a living. What I liked about it was that there was a man who, in many ways, had all the odds against him, and he had to find a way to recover. Part of that story is reflective of my story, and I realized it would be more personal if I was able to find a way to exemplify some of what has happened to me in my life, because it would make it more real and more organic and more truthful.
It’s interesting, someone like Gus Fring has the facade of an everyman, but here you actually get to play one. That must have been a nice change of pace.
Absolutely. Gustavo Fring is rich, so he’s not an everyman at all. He’s posing as that, but he’s actually something else. If we go back to his roots in Chile, I always had the idea that he came from a military family. He probably could’ve run for the presidency and probably would’ve become a dictator, but he wanted his own life away from that world. He went into the world that he graduated into, and he’s in control. The juxtaposition to that is that Gracián Parish is not in control at all. He would like to be but is unable to be.
Through the circumstances of his life, he finds himself in a position where he’s faced with doing something that he doesn’t want to do once he finds out that he’s working for someone who is a criminal. He’s faced with his conscience. What we start to find out is that he has a criminal past himself, and he’s been hiding that. And then being placed in New Orleans, which I feel represents the ghost of a city—not only because of its larger history, but also because of its turmoil in the last number of years. It’s a much smaller city than it was after Katrina. All those ghosts are still haunting New Orleans in a way; I felt like this city could represent Gracián Parish’s turmoil in a really fantastic way.
With a show like Parish, which as you mentioned is a remake, do you look back and study what’s been done before, or do you prefer to tackle the material and the character with fresh eyes?
Oh, I’m such an original in what I do—at least I strive for originality and strive for organic newness. Even the word remake; this is a reenvisioning on a theme, is the way I would put it. I loved what I saw in the original and was intrigued by it, but it was really the story and the journey of the man and the family that attracted me. Naturally, when you start writing it, the original was so good, and it was three two-hour movies, but we were asked to create six episodes. We were already in a land that’s different in terms of length and timing than the original, and we had to create a bible for more than one season.
You’re also an executive producer on Parish. How, if at all, did those added responsibilities inform your experience on the set?
I’m blessed to have produced and starred in two movies independently. It gave me an example of what that experience might be. It’s a heavy lift when you’re involved in something that is so close to you—this piece became very, very close to me on many levels. I mean, I love driving. I love cars. I do all my driving in the show. That was the root of things, too. I was very particular about figuring out how to be able to drive this in a new direction, just in the vehicle sense of it, but then it’s not lost on me that driving the project has to come from a very strong leader.
On this project, I realized very quickly that my goal was to be in synchronicity with others. The best leader you can be is to empower people to share what their thoughts are on their creation. I’ve always been this way as a director. On my first feature film, I remember giving the script to everyone and encouraging them to read it and give feedback to me because I wanted to know how they felt about the piece. That was a way of creating a habit of asking and inviting as opposed to telling and ordering.
Most other businesses—I’ve been in the restaurant business, I’ve driven a taxi, I’ve driven a school bus, I’ve done a lot of different things in my life. I realize that the way you do anything is the way you do everything. If you’re inviting people to be a part of it, it creates a stronger company. It creates a stronger environment, and it creates ownership. My ownership stepped up on this being a producer because it started to resound for me on a very deep level.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this, but a few years ago, the satirical news site The Onion published an article with the headline “Introduction of Giancarlo Esposito Suggests Main Character Now Totally Fucked,” which is really a testament to how your villain roles have penetrated the zeitgeist. As a performer, what are the qualities that make you such a compelling antagonist in so many different projects?
I believe that part of what I do, if I allow it to be available to me, is to exorcize some demons that are within. I believe that human beings are not just all light, but they’re also a little dark. I believe that we are a balance on the gray scale in between, and I believe that you choose what you want to be. I come from a background of a multiracial marriage, but I grew up poor, struggling, and always on guard in this place we call America because I have brown skin. I’m also a control freak, so that lent to my figuring out how to play a villainous character because they want to control everything, including you.
I could take on the garment of someone good, bad, or indifferent very well and nuance my performance in a way that could be frightening. That’s my job as an actor, and I have a very resounding voice and great expressions that can switch from being kind to not kind in a heartbeat. People sometimes ask, “Where does that come from?” Sometimes I don’t know where it comes from, but I know I can try to identify it. Some of that can be anger, a little bit of an edge that people didn’t always acknowledge that I’m intelligent and smart and graceful.
I think it’s my Italian heritage that goes back to my father, who wanted to control everything and who had a big voice and who was very passionate. Sometimes that gets taken as being angry, but he had an edge. I do it well, and I’m now able to recognize where it comes from and how to control it because that’s not really me. I have a daughter who’s so tenderhearted, and if I speak to her the way I’m talking to you now, I’m yelling. [Gentler voice] So I’ve got to talk like this. I don’t want to intimidate her, but I have a big personality. My other girls really put me in my place. They just look at me and go, “Papa, you’re extra.” I like that because I am extra. Can you deal with the extra? [Laughs]
I can relate to that. Not Italian, but I’m half Greek on my dad’s side of the family, and a lot of relatives are still in Greece. There’s a certain boisterous quality that—sometimes people are so reserved, they can find it off-putting. But when you’re in that environment, it’s almost infectious. It’s like you carry that energy with you.
I would agree with you. It’s a realness. I do acknowledge there’s a fierceness about me, but I developed that fierceness trying to get to where I wanted to go. It took me a long time to not be passive-aggressive and really speak up. I had a conversation with someone the other day, and I went, “I have a resentment I need to tell you about.” That was really huge for me, as opposed to holding that resentment and hating that person and being in this funk about it, which would eat me up and be scary to all those around me. I went, “You know what? I can let this go. I can be clearer about my communication.”
As my life gets healthier, I can turn on my acting chops. This role in Parish and even my role of Gustavo Fring, I feel my characters because I feel like I’ve got to give my heart and soul to them. I’m a painter, I love art, I collect art. I love things of beauty. I believe inside me, I’m an artist, and artists are different. We’re temperamental. We go through stuff, because I don’t just go and phone it in: I live it. I think that’s necessary for an artist. When you’re breathing life into a painting, you’re living that motion, you’re living that color, you’re living that vision, you’re living that dream.
I think that leaves me with a full life, but again, I have to be careful because I’m not the only one in my life. If you have a very intense personality, sometimes you can push people away. I’m learning that from my daughters. I don’t have to be intense anymore because I’m more secure in who I am at heart.
I also wanted to talk about Better Call Saul. I love the final scene we have with Gus at the wine bar—there’s a warm intimacy between him and the sommelier before Gus decides to leave. In hindsight, it made me realize that, while lots of people like to compare Walt and Gus, or Walt and Saul, there’s also some similarities between Gus and Saul. Both characters channel the pain of losing a loved one—Max in the case of Gus, Kim in the case of Saul—and it consumes them. Do you see Gus Fring’s story as something of a tragedy?
[Gus Fring voice] We are not alike.
You’re asking a very big question in terms of the whole show. Do I want to agree with you? Not really, but maybe I have to, because does Gus really get what he wants? He’s another lonely man who doesn’t really get the relationship he wants. He’s driven by his work and by his business acumen. He feels like he can do it better than the Salamancas. He can, but no one’s acknowledging that, so he steps up and takes the reins. He comes from a very brutal culture of drogas—he’s lived through it and made it up to a certain point, and he wants more.
Is it a tragedy? I think it might be because he has to hide his whole life. We don’t really know, is he straight or gay? We don’t know, really, where he comes from. He’s hidden everything about himself, and that’s a character who’s holding it very close to the vest. I love this character, of course, because I was so invested in creating him and in hiding who he really was from most everyone, but I think that also played into part of my own life again.
In a way, I wear a lot of masks, and if I believe those masks, then that’s who I become. That’s why I’m a good actor, and I think I’m a better actor now that I understand that I can take these masks on and off at will. I can do it without having to live it. I’m getting closer to the essence of who I am. I can’t wait to do a comedy.
To show this other side of yourself that I can just tell from this interview is so exuberant.
When I’m playing a role, I don’t go see any other movies. I don’t go out, I don’t allow myself to see other entertainment because I’m so into it. It may be a very Method way of working, but I don’t want to be stimulated in any other way because I want to serve the writer’s intention and serve the assignment I’ve been given. But I don’t want to ever become one of those actors that believes that’s who I am. I already have enough of my own pain; I don’t need to deal with Gus’s pain and all these other people’s pain. I got my own shit, you know what I mean? In a way, every role exorcizes me further, to a point where I can really understand myself on a deeper level.
Of all the projects you’ve got lined up in 2024, I’m so excited to see what you end up doing in Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. What can you share about your experience on the film and working with one of our greats?
I think Francis is a genius. It’s my second time working with him; I did Cotton Club with him. To be able to work with him on this has been a special event. He’s been working on this for 30, 40 years; I did a reading of it many, many years ago. It all came back around through many different circumstances that I would be cast in this role. When you see the film, the character I play is named after him, a guy who has a New York feel to him. This is the essence of Francis.
I feel honored, number one, to be in the film and to be able to work with a man who doesn’t know how it’s going to happen or play out. He has a script that he’s written but is willing to go away from it, is willing to deepen it along the way—similar to working with Guy Ritchie recently on The Gentlemen. He’s not attached; he just wants to make it better. Francis is very much his own man, his own director with his own very specific vision, so you’ve got to find a way to fit in and be in concert with that.
I enjoyed being in this place where I played the mayor of New York. I played the guy who’s got to make hard decisions and figure out how to lead people in a graceful way. I mean, it’s all based on Cicero and Caesar. When you go back to the Roman story of Cicero and Caesar, Caesar tried to get into the Roman Senate six times and was denied, and Cicero was at the forefront in denying him. This is the mythology that this movie is based on: two men, one man with new ideas, one man with old ideas. I love this story because, in the end, we’re looking for a better world. Through Francis’s story, he’s trying to show how that better world comes about, which means something has to give; someone has to give. At the crux of it, I feel like I represent the old-school world in this movie.
I’ll end this by saying that for me in my life, I think when we become more mature, we think we know a lot. My mother used to say, “You think you know more than me? I brought you into this world, I can take you out of this world.” What an awful thing. I don’t want to repeat that. I’ve got four daughters who are really smart, really brilliant, and really vocal. At what point in your life, when you’re a mature man coming from a male standpoint with four girls who are progressive, do you allow space for them to tell you? When I grew up, you were supposed to be seen and not heard. That’s how I was parented, and that was not their fault; they came from a different time. Now, I’m with my children and I can’t pull that card because I respect them.
You start giving them credit as they grow into adults. I want to empower them. For years, I was responsible for keeping them safe: crossing the street, what they eat, what they’re exposed to, all of that. Now they’ve got it and they’re on their own. I can’t be that same father. Now, I got to be the guy that hears them, that listens more than I talk, right? It’s changed my life. It helps me be more progressive, more witted, more youthful, more giving, more compassionate, more loving. I can’t stay in the same role I was when they were 2, 3, 4, when I had to teach them, because now they can teach me.
It evolves.
It evolves. That’s how I feel current, and that’s how I feel about my work. I’m about to venture into a whole new world in my work that I feel really excited about. Don’t get me preaching now, I’ll keep going! I loved being with you today, and I thank you for this great interview.
Thank you so much, Giancarlo. For what it’s worth, you sound like a wonderful father, and your daughters are lucky to have you.
Thank you for saying that. I’m lucky to have them, too. It’s a great journey for all of us.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
