Giancarlo Esposito

"When you are able to let your expectation of what might be go and listen to what is proposed, then you can create a new vision for yourself and see yourself walking in those shoes again."

"I’m acting but not acting because I’m in such a place where, as an actor, all I have to do is listen. Whether it be your voice, who I’m talking to, or whether it be the voice inside me — and maybe that’s the key that I’ve never, ever talked about."

"These are the things I look for because I’m more seasoned than I was years ago. Directing is not about me. As an actor, God, it becomes all about me, and I don’t want it to be about me anymore. I’ve had enough of me."

"The words are important, but the intention is of even greater importance. My job is to interpret that. As an actor, I’m an interpreter and a channeler. As a director, I’m able to interpret and then channel something original, infuse it with an original energy that extends and tells the story even more clearly."

"As a director, I always look for projects that are uplifting and change the way we think about the world we live in, so those films aren’t always mainstream. I’m looking to do something that encompasses a man who’s trying to find himself, but it’s an action film. He’s struggling with something he’s done in his past and he’s moving through it in a way that puts him in a position where he becomes a stranger in a strange land. I want to tackle that."

"I mean for me to play desire, to play the desire not to be lonely is one thing, to play the desire to allow someone to know me. Right. So I relate to that in my life. Because people know me in my life as Gus Fring or Moff Gideon or Stan Edgar or a plethora of other characters. And so who really knows me? And do I want them to know me? Right. It depends on who that is. Right. So I used to want fans to know me, but now they know me through a variety of different characters. So then I have to ask myself, what is the reveal for me? And it’s the same for Gus. In that moment I’m thinking, oh, I desire to be known. For me I know I desire to be loved, I desire to be admired. I desire to be held. Thank goodness I have children who I can, I have daughters who I become more and more real, the more mature I get because I’m able to ask, I tell them, ask for what you want, but do I tell myself to ask for what I want?"

"I look for a complete script. I look for characters who are inspiring, and who move our imaginations from one place to another. It just so happens that I’ve been asked to play characters in certain projects that have had somewhat of an edge, a darker side, if you will."

"I look at things to uplift me and to enthuse me; I don’t look at things to pay the bills and help me just survive. While some may be terrified of the characters he’s played, the actor views his antagonists in a different light. What I feel with each character is an excitement and enthusiasm, a deep commitment and vulnerability to allow them to speak to me."

"In life, we experience relationships sometimes as being traumatic, especially when outside events affect our parents. When they make decisions that we hold them responsible for –– that affect our lives, not knowing all of the reasons they made those decisions for their life –– [it] creates a little bit of [a] gap and a little bit of a traumatic experience."

"As children, we think that everything that’s done by our parents is done because of us, and sometimes that’s not very true. Sometimes things can never be right, but they can be understood in a different way if we’re able to listen to each other and do that vulnerable dance that’s required of us."

"I love parts of the story that reflect our innocence and then guide us to understanding. From seeing when we become hardened and non-innocent, how sweet those moments were and from whence we came."

"I've had some success in bringing some humanity to some of the villains that I played because I want to show that people are human and they do make mistakes and they do have the light and dark sides of themselves, and I had an idea that if we saw some of that we might be able to get wrapped around that in a way that we weren't able to before."

"You can't just cast off someone when you realise, oh, there's something inside that person that is a hint of something good," Esposito adds. "Why are they doing all this bad and then as TV shows unfold, you sort of get the clue. They were bullied when they were a child. They really seek all power, all of these things. So I found a niche and finding a way to bring some humanity in some ways to villainous persona."

"I had to find a way to drop my spirit and allow myself to be more observant of other people. So in the first years of Breaking Bad, I liked to do the method routine because it kept people away from me. No one wanted to come and say hello or chat about the weather. I’m not that chatty guy on set. I’m not the joker. Now after 12 years of playing the character, I can allow myself to be a bit looser."

"I come from a European family. I had a very worldly way of looking at humanity and people and culture and religion, so I was surprised coming to America in 1962 as a young child to find there was this delineation [between races] here."

"Sometimes I can’t even see out of my eyes because I’ve gone to a very dead drop space. Well, you could call it dead but maybe it’s actually very much alive. People get uncomfortable when you’re really listening, when you’re really paying attention, because we’re not used to that anymore. But now I can really see you. I can see all of you"