When the character of Gus Fring in "Breaking Bad" stumbled out of the nursing home with half of his face gone from a pipe bomb, 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'd co-starred in shows like "Homicide: Life on the Streets," "Revolution," "Ali," "Waiting to Exhale" and countless TV series. In fact, Esposito has been acting since he was 7.
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 really is has troubled him for a long time. He says his latest role in "Parish," which premieres Sunday 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 and supported his mother and brother. Being the breadwinner, he felt a lot of pressure knowing that they depended on him. "But it also made me feel like the hero," he says.
He went through a rough patch in his life in his 20s when he was into drugs, alcohol and wanted to kill himself.
"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.
He learned what substance abuse can do to him when he got treated for his addiction.
Then a friend gave him the children's book "Who Moved My Cheese?" about a hunter-gatherer father who needs to find cheese somewhere else when things dry up.
"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?'"
When the role for "Parish" came around, he seized upon the opportunity because he wanted to play a character who's not so confident or powerful and feels vulnerable.
"I wanted to show characters that people can really relate to, to find a correlation to something that strengthened their lives," he says.
That's the whole reason he's an actor, he says, because storytelling extends one's imagination and gives joy.
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?" he says.
