From the moment we watched his expression change in the reflection of the window of his restaurant, all the way through his explosive demise, Giancarlo Esposito’s Gus Fring was a TV villain for the ages. For the two-and-a-half seasons he was on Breaking Bad, he was both feared and celebrated; a meticulous businessman who secretly ran a methamphetamine empire, he could be ruthless and calculating just as easily as he could be warm and welcoming.
With Fring set to return for the third season of the prequel/spin-off Better Call Saul, Esposito was in Austin during SXSW, filming promotional material for the new season. Wearing a black shirt, buttoned all the way to the top, with a blue checkered blazer and glasses, he looks (and stands) almost identical to his character. The only difference is his salt-and-pepper hair is slicked straight back, a departure from the Ceaser-style hairdo he sported on Breaking Bad. As I enter the room, he’s every bit as welcoming as one would expect from his character. As he invites me to sit, he pulls over a nearby chair as we discuss what went into the creation of the role, and what inspired him to bring Gus Fring back.
You know, I half-expected there to be a tray of vegetables on the table when I came in today.
[Laughs.] Vegetables for me or for you? They would be for you, completely.
I always assumed they were there for the table — a nod to his formality.
Correct. I love that scene because Gus is so meticulous. They asked me “What would you have?” I said I would have a tray of vegetables and light crackers. [Something to] make it nice for them.
So that was a decision between you and [Breaking Bad showrunner] Vince Gilligan?
It was. I was so inspired from what Vince Gilligan wrote and his writing team. The prop people would defer to me and say “What would Gus have? What would you have?” I love it when that happens because that means that they trust me to know.
I always look at it this way, if I’m inspired by what’s written in the stage direction, just on the page, that gave me an idea for the whole character. Then I realize they’ve inspired me and then they look at my performance, then I realize now I’m inspiring them because then they start to write things that’s never been said, but they can see what I’m thinking. That’s the best kind of collaboration for me. That’s been the way it has gone with Gus.
Did you end up becoming cross-pollinated with the character?
There’s no doubt about it. I have a certain posture when I play him that I feel is comfortable for the character and it feels like I can be in my own skin as Gus. I once had finished, I think it was the fourth season, and I was in New York walking to a voiceover audition and I walked by the theater for Fences. They were loading it in and a bunch of stage hands were standing outside. They all went “Oh my goodness. Wow, it’s Gus!”
After talking to the guys and signing some autographs, I was walking differently, I was standing differently. I got to the corner and I went “Get away from me, Gus. Get out. Gus, go away.” I have to remind myself sometimes to shake it off, let him go. After that fourth season, that was the end so I thought I could shake him off forever and be done.
Some people when they have an iconic role, they continue to play that person somewhere inside them for a long time because that’s what gives them the power and the juice and they’re kind of famous for that guy. I’m not one of these people. For me, I love Gus, but I’m a little bit jealous because he’s more famous than I am.
What led to you wanting to bring him back?
It was a series of events. I knew that they had asked and asked, and my reaction was I won’t come back for just one or two episodes because that would be a tease for the fans, and also a tease for me. Then it got more serious where I got a call from the head of Sony just to ask “Would you be interested?” I said “Of course I would be — for the right amount of episodes,” because that’s the kind of actor I am.
Then it went to a phone call, Vince called me and we had to go around the horn about who created the character. He said “You did. We want you to create your character and we’re going to maintain the integrity with which you created it.” I said “Vince, you wrote it.” He said “No, but you brought it to life. You created this guy and you made our show.” I thought ‘Let me just really figure out how to make this fresh and new for me.’
People come up to me all the time [and ask] “Will you say this line? ‘I will kill your wife. I will kill your son. I will kill your infant daughter.'” I can turn that on and say it but I had to remind myself not to become a parody, to look at what they’re writing for Better Caul Saul and do it as if it were just completely fresh and new. It is because you’re revisiting Gus before you ever knew him.
On that note, with Better Call Saul, we’re seeing many of these same characters before the cataclysmic events that Walter White brings, but they’re softer. But with Gus, we know he’s already in a position of power.
Before Breaking Bad, I’d like to see a Gus who is a little maybe slightly less polished and a little more vulnerable, which is why I chose to choose this hairstyle. But I went back and forth because I had done another movie and gained weight for. I decided I’m going to have to gain more weight or I’m going to have to lose it all. I chose to just get leaner and get back to that lean Gus place, but I wanted a hairstyle that was different so that I could grow into the hairstyle that I would eventually have as Gus.
I want him to be a little softer but yet firm, but finding his way. I don’t know if softer is the right word, but finding his way in regard to solidifying his empire.
Breaking Bad also gave us snippets of its characters’ past, and Gus had an entire storyline dedicated to his backstory. Are you looking to bridge the gap between Gus meeting the cartel for the first time and the Gus we first meet inside Los Pollos Hermanos?
I did think about that, but that Gus Fring is really far back. That’s a guy who is still trying to find out how to be calculating. I didn’t want to be that vulnerable because Gus was cowed. He was just in a very vulnerable, emotional place at the hands Don Eladio (Stephen Bauer). For me, that would be too much because Gus doesn’t ask. He’s polite and he tells, but I wanted to have a piece of that, but not quite to that extreme.
One of the aspects of the character I was most intrigued by was the passing mentions of his background in South America. Is that something that may come up in a Saul storyline?
I would like to have insight into that. The answer is I don’t know. I hope that would be so, because to me that’s very, very interesting. How he is a made man, an untouchable, he just acts as if he is absolutely confirmed by a power that we don’t know yet and he’s confident. I want to know where that comes from and how his upbringing brought him to crime. I would love for them to do that. I suggest that maybe that possibility would come up another show called The Rise of Gus, only because, and I have to be deferential here, Better Call Saul is a show that’s about Saul.
That’s very true.
I love what Bob [Odenkirk] is doing with this character. It’s really his show. Where does Gus fit in? That was my big question with Vince. He assured me they were going to find the place. I don’t know if they can get into those details as completely as I would like without it being a show about Gus, only because there’s a balance you have to strike.
Vince and I agreed, Gus is a mystery. The more you keep him somewhat of a mystery, the more interesting it’s going to be for the fans, even though at this point the fans are craving more and more Gus. It’s going to be a slow burn getting into Gus’ world. My sense is that we finish shooting season three of Better Call Saul and we’re going into season four, that season four is going to start to amp up some of these relationships that will give you a clue as to really where Gus comes from and what a heavy hitter he really is.
When you said that Gus was more famous than you, and seeing the kind of digital idolization of this character, all the memes, cartoons, etc. — are you ready for that to come back?
I am because I feel like it’s fun. It’s fun for the viewers and the fans. It’s also fun for me. Look, I feel really in gratitude and blessed because how many of us get a chance to play an iconic character that’s just zoomed? What’s helped me in the fact that Gus has become iconic is that it’s really helped to put Giancarlo Esposito in his place. When [fans] meet me and I’m not as much like that guy, they’re either disappointed or excited or shocked or they’re like “Oh my gosh. You’re more of a genius than I thought you were!”
It helps put my ego and my heart in the right place because I really love it. If I was insecure, I’d be holding onto that Gus. I’d act him out all the time. I’m aware that acting for me is way of healing my personality and giving me a certain levity, but I’m excited that all this will start again and that people will get such a kick out of digitally doing different kinds of Guses and all of that. I get the drawings people send me and the marketing stuff that’s made. I’m always amazed at the power of that.
When you say people have trouble separating you from Gus, I can’t help but think ‘Which Gus, exactly?’
There is a switch. I feel like acting is in your brain and in your heart and in your eyes. What I’ve loved about playing Gus is I can use my expression to say more, but there are a number of Guses. I have to be very cognizant that there’s a very affable, kind, gracious Gus who takes care of the people who work for him, and who gives money to the fun run and donates to the hospital. There’s that Gus, because I always want to be aware that that’s a part of him. I always remind myself Gus could be selling toothpaste, doesn’t matter what he’s selling, but when something is said that he doesn’t like or someone goes against him, that switch has to be made very, very quickly to allow them to know that he’s not playing around.
There are a number of versions of Gus. That, of course, is the manipulative, very controlled, very studied personality of a man who knows where he is and in what company at all times.
It’s a big part of what made him such an appealing character, I think. He’s not a singular villain, he even has moments where we totally root for him.
Absolutely. Again, it’s a business, and he’s a good businessman. I wanted always to make Gus, and maybe that’s the success that this character has had, not your stereotypical villain or bad guy. I just felt we had seen that so much and I had no interest in playing that. I wanted to create a guy who is unpredictable but also could be very menacing and ruthless and brutal. Obviously he is, but also someone who has an intellect and its aerodyne. [Someone] who cooks and who will welcome you into his home and feed you if you have no place to go — and want nothing from that until maybe you slip and say “You know, I took chemistry in high school.” Then, that gets him interested.
It’s like that saying, “Be careful what you ask for,” because Gus might give it to you. [Laughs.]
Like a true businessman: keep all those doors open.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Part of me uses what I feel about Giancarlo, that now in my life I feel like I’m in service. What does that really mean? You can do things for charity and all that, but you can also be kind to people. That’s the first service is to be respectful without knowing anyone’s background or whether or not they’re ‘on your level’ or have as much money or anything else, is to treat everyone the same with that proper respect. I brought that into Gus because I think that’s very important.
Definitely.
Right? Why put that on? I think that’s kind of the success of Gus because much of the time I feel very real playing [him]. I just take the situation and take the lines and give someone their natural and due attention and respect. That is something I don’t know if we experience as much in life as we should because we’re also very busy and multitasking many things and we blow things off. We blow our connective moments off.
I believe Gus is someone who pays attention to those moments because he understands the importance of the them and he also garners something that’s a little deeper by his observation. Gus is a really master observer. He can tell things about people from the way they sit, the way they look back at him, their mannerisms, he can garner who they really are. I think that that has been of great utility to me as an actor, but also as a human being.
And vice versa, too. The way he takes off his eyeglasses, the way he puts on a tie, it’s all done in a very Gus Fring way.
Part of that is to pay attention. It makes me think of some of the Buddhists who have walking meditations. They really pay attention to each and every step. They allow that divine thought to guide their physical. That’s where that kind of movement started for me out of my yoga practice and breathing, it came to me that this would be a very, very good thing for this particular character and a good practice for me to get out of the way. Actors, we love to act. I’m a very emotional human being and the more I realize that, the more I understand that that’s part of my passion, that’s part of the poetry of who I am. If I know that, then I can take that away.
Gus is that more factual human being who really allows his emotions to take the backseat first and figures out the situation intellectually before he does anything. I know people like that who are absolutely lovely, they’re just flat and deadpan and not as emotional or don’t seem to or appear to get as excited as I do. I always look at them and go, “Gosh, do you have a pulse? Do you feel anything?” But people are all different. That’s one thing I think that Gus has figured out, that people are different and he respects them for those differences and allows them to be who they are.
