Giancarlo Esposito: Supporting actor, drama
The role of Gustavo Fring on Breaking Bad was just going to be a quick hit for Giancarlo Esposito.
“I’ll do a couple of episodes and that’ll be it,” Esposito said, explaining his thinking when he took the role of the drug kingpin on the AMC drama. “I had no idea it would turn into what it would turn into and that I would be so captivated in the creation of a character like Gus Fring.”
Gus turned into one of TV’s indelible characters and Esposito was rewarded today with an Emmy nomination, his first, for best supporting actor in a drama.
“I am completely over the moon. I am excited to be honored in this way with such a great pool of nominees,” he said.
Esposito, now filming the new NBC drama, Revolution, in Wilmington, N.C., credits the writing and the show’s ensemble, including fellow Emmy nominee Bryan Cranston, who plays the lead character, Walter White.
“What really got me was the chemistry that occurred between Bryan Cranston and myself,” he said. “When you work with an actor as generous as Bryan, you feel you want to be equally as generous. And then you make great music.”
Gus’s death via explosion was one of the more riveting TV scenes of recent memory. “I thought it could be amazing or really hokey. It turned out to be amazing and I trusted (creator Vince Gilligan) implicitly and I’m so glad he made the decision to take Gus out this way,” Esposito said. “Did it make me sad that he had to go? Yes, it did. But as I said to Vince, ‘If we’ve got to go, let’s go big.'" -- Keveney
