With Breaking Bad, the audience's favorite Giancarlo Esposito plays the lead role in Netflix's new heist series Kaleidoscope. Let's get to know him better:
Esposito made this questioning in supporting roles for most of his career and even quietly captured the scenes of famous stars. In Kaleidoscope on Netflix, he is at the center of the events and heads the criminal organization and the cast of Paz Vega, Rufus Sewell, Rosaline Elbay, and Jai Courtney. It's a rare opportunity to see a popular character actor in the lead role.
Of course, Esposito did not shine in supporting roles. With his participation in Breaking Bad in 2009, a new era began in his career; Esposito, who was nominated for five Emmy Awards during this period, presented the good and the bad to the audience in an intriguing but meticulous way. Fring, the cold-blooded killer who never left his businessman character, became one of the unforgettable villains on the screens. The character Gideon, who introduced Esposito into the hugely popular Star Wars universe, was a war criminal who believed in law and order. The Republican Adam Clayton Powell Jr, played by the Godfather of Harlem, whose third season started on January 15, is someone who does not hesitate to make moral concessions.
Demons in all of us
Kaleidoscope is a series that you can choose and watch the episode you want due to its non-linear structure; Esposito's character also has two different identities and names. One is Ray Vernon, a disgraced family man, and jewel thief; who eventually goes to jail. Years later, he escapes prison, struggles with Parkinson's disease, and turns into Leo Pap as he nears the end of his life. Burning revenge on his former accomplice, Leo engages in a heist movie cliche as he assembles a colorful crew for One Last Job. Typical Esposito role: good bad guy, mean good guy; or a clear mirror that shows we all have demons inside us. Even though the Tony Soprano and Walter White eras are long gone, the popularity of Esposito's comfort in these roles is proof that television audiences love anti-heroes.
Esposito, 64, is one of the early adopters of acting. Born in Copenhagen, the son of an Italian stagehand and carpenter father and an African-American opera and club singer mother, he made his Broadway debut as a child. He starred in the musical Maggie Flynn, about the 1863 uprising in New York City against the military enlistment decision. He was immediately hooked on the stage. “I got the feeling that the world I live in is different from the world most people live in,” he says.
His early roles in Spike Lee films such as The School Years, Between Two Women, and Choose the Truth were filled with youthful enthusiasm. Think of Fring, straightening his tie in the last scene of Breaking Bad, with half his face gone. According to Vega, who plays Leo's lawyer on the show, Esposito “always tries to act in the most positive way to create a calm and good atmosphere around him. It's nice to have someone like him in an environment where you have to work, to be in a hurry all the time.”
What does he say to the protagonist? Sure, it's nice, but it doesn't seem like it's putting any extra pressure on Esposito. He doesn't look like someone who has a hard time finding a production he wants or getting the recognition he deserves. His schedule is full again; he will even star in the Netflix movie The Electric State, directed by the Russo brothers. People who make you think he's talking about nothing but his job. "I love my job. I had the opportunity to play many different roles. That's why I feel very lucky.”