When Gustavo Fring was introduced in the second season of Breaking Bad, he was a quiet, humble manager of a fast-food chain with vague ties to the largest meth-distribution ring in the southwestern United States. He was a man of few words, completely unaffected by the trials of running an operation that traffics in murder and deception. Outwardly, not much has changed for Gus; he’s still just as calm and calculated as ever. But the show’s fourth season, which airs its final episode Sunday, has offered a peek behind the curtain for Gus, and understanding the root of his actions has only made him a more menacing presence. Giancarlo Esposito, the actor who plays Gus, has woven his way so deeply into the fabric of the show—the future of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman can now be found in that cold, ruthless stare—that it’s hard to remember when he was a goofy presence in Spike Lee films like Do The Right Thing, or worked the other side of the law on Homicide: Life On The Street. Plus, when discussing his character with The A.V. Club, Esposito is infectiously warm and audibly excited—a stark contrast to the bleak Gus Fring. In this spoiler-laden discussion, Esposito talks about Gus’ master plan, the nature of his relationship with the other hermano from Los Pollos Hermanos, and what it’s like to watch Breaking Bad with his kids.
The A.V. Club: I found an old interview where you mentioned that you no longer wanted to play drug dealers, and you wanted to perform in roles that elevate humanity. Breaking Bad seems to go against both of those desires. What did you see in Gus that attracted you to the role?
Giancarlo Esposito: Interesting question. That interview was done many years ago when I was doing nothing but guest spots playing ne’er-do-wells, drug-dealers, and sleazy people, and because I’m looked at in part of my entertainment career as being African-American only. People who have not done their research on me do not know that I am European, born in Copenhagen, Denmark to an Italian father from Napoli and a mother from Alabama who was singing opera and went to Europe, met my dad, fell in love, and then moved back to Rome, where I was raised, between Rome and Hamburg. It was an entertainment movement, from one place to another. My mother was doing opera and my father was working behind the scenes. People who don’t know that and came upon me as a younger actor playing many different characters on Law And Order, on shows that were done here in Los Angeles with Stephen J. Cannell—or NYPD Blue, where I played a Robin Hood character street dude who ripped off all the drug dealers and gave the money back to people who needed it more. That was a good example of playing one of those characters. It wasn’t until I said that I didn’t want to do these characters anymore that I started playing lawyers and doctors.
AVC: The opposite.
GE: The opposite. More intelligent people. That’s going back 10 years, and I wanted to bring a favorable and positive image to African-Americans. I felt like the audiences that do watch my career make me who I am. Of course, you guys, as writers and journalists who admire my work, can write about it and talk about it and I’m forever grateful for that, because you recognize some talent there. But I want to be able to bring my talents to fruition in different ways and play different roles. So that interview that you read was referring to a time when I couldn’t get those other roles because they wouldn’t consider me for them. Now, I consider myself an actor, so when I won the Obie Award for a play called Zooman And The Sign, a Charles Fuller play, and Charles won the Pulitzer Prize for A Soldier’s Play, I had to learn how to become that street kid, Zooman. I would do a lot of research on the streets of Philadelphia, in the hood, to morph myself and become a chameleon to be able to be that. At that period of time, people were surprised when they heard me speak, that I sounded a bit more intelligent than my characters. I wanted to change that imagery of myself and I wanted to foster more images in regard to African-Americans.
So to bring us up to Breaking Bad, yes, all those things that I said I didn’t want to do, here they are again, where I play a drug dealer of a different ethnic background, in that he is Chilean, but he is a guy who I fashioned and wanted to have him be very different than what people may think that looks like. Someone who is poised to take over the cartel, someone who is poised to manipulate other people into doing what he needs them to do. The choice I made with Gustavo Fring was to make him graceful. Nice, genuinely caring about the chemists he hired and works with, because those are the people he respects. For example, Max Arciniega in [episode] 408, the lost hermano of Los Pollos Hermanos, he is someone I took off the street in El Salvador and put him through school and cared for him and was interested in his potential, in developing that potential. He’s not this cat who’s out there on drugs, or just looking to make a buck from selling drugs to the user. This is what makes a difference for me in terms of Breaking Bad: Is it a show that sheds light? I’d say it is, because at this time in our economy and our world, here in America, we realize that we’ve fallen from grace a little bit. We outsourced—and here’s where my activism comes in—we’ve really outsourced a lot of what we do. We import everything, and we’ve lost the direct connection to being useful worker bees. My greatest analogy, the one I get tickled by, is that you used to remember 10 phone numbers. Now you’ve got cell phones and you don’t remember numbers anymore. You’ve gotten sort of dumb. And you go into a McDonald’s and instead of typing in the old register they used to use, and knowing how to make change, there’s a photo there of a Big Mac or a Chicken McNugget or whatever it is, you just push a button. We’ve dumbed ourselves down. I don’t go into McDonald’s, but when I did go into McDonald’s years ago, and this first started, I peeked around the register. There’s no thinking involved anymore. The young girl, the 13-year-old girl who can’t really read well, from the hood, who never graduated seventh grade, could still work at McDonald’s because all you have to do a press a button and it tells you the total and everything else. And if she has a problem she calls her manager.
For me, the uplifting part of Breaking Bad and what it sheds light on is where we’re at right now in our world, where people would do something so desperate to save their families or provide. For me, that’s the essence of Gus. He has a family. Yes, they’re in an illicit business, they’re making blue meth, but this is his family. And because his moral standards are so high, one of the reasons why he takes out Victor in episode 401 is not just to send a message, but because Victor made a mistake and he didn’t cover his tracks, and the whole family became at risk.
AVC: As far as where our country is at right now, Breaking Bad could also be about how hard it is to start fresh. The show talks a lot about how once you’re in, there’s no easy way to get out. There’s a part of Walt, and probably Gus, that simply wants to start over from scratch, and that can be applied to the many problems plaguing our country. Everyone’s looking for a bailout, but it’s never that simple.
GE: Absolutely. Very astute of you. There is a price to pay for most of our actions. For every action, there is a reaction. And unfortunately, Walt has made this huge mistake that he can’t get out of, and he can’t stay in comfortably because he doesn’t feel right about it. He feels uncomfortable. He likes the money; he likes the fact that he can have the ability to leave his family with something. Here again is the moral aspect: He wants to protect his family and leave them with something because he’s going to die of cancer. Never did he think before he died of cancer, he’d have to take other lives, he’d have to hurt other people. He didn’t think it through, as smart as he is. Many people in this country are thinking about and are doing things that are against their nature or are out of character because they have to. And many are doing so because they want to. This brings up a real ethical question about Breaking Bad and what we’re portraying, and it’s the reason why I’m part of the show. I really wanted to be able to portray more complicated human beings, and I think, at the time you read that particular article, I didn’t quite articulate it in that way. I’m an actor, and when a good role comes along that is layered and complicated, intricate, I want to take it. But I want it to have a deeper level of questions that either get answered or presented in some way. That’s important to me.