Giancarlo Esposito credits David E. Kelley's short-lived 2002 Fox legal drama girls club for changing the course of his career

The Washington Post

A drama about three female lawyers that was often compared to Kelley's Ally McBeal, girls club premiered on Oct. 21, 2002 and was canceled nine days later after two episodes. Yet to Esposito, girls club represented a watershed moment for his acting career. “I started to play bosses,” Esposito tells The Washington Post. “And I realized, ‘Oh, okay, this is an opportunity.’ It was really a great opening for me to show who I really was. And it’s kept going like that.” As The Washington Post's Helena Andrews-Dyer points out, "since his 1968 Broadway debut, the 62-year-old actor has played roles including an enslaved child, a friendly face on Sesame Street, a drug dealer, a cop, a cadet, an assassin, a calculating kingpin, an enchanted mirror, a CEO wrangling spoiled superheroes, a civil rights icon, and a cape-toting Moff in the Star Wars universe. And that’s just a fraction — a small fraction — of his credits." Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, who cast Esposito in his most memorable role as drug kingpin Gustavo Fring, adds: “When you’re someone as talented and with as wide a range as Giancarlo, the good news is you can play anything, and the bad news is it takes years for people to realize, 'Oh my God, I’ve seen that guy in so many different movies and so many different roles.' Sometimes it takes a while for people to catch on.” Andrews-Dyer also notes that you're probably pronouncing Esposito's name wrong: "He is Giancarrrlo (roll that 'r') EsPOSito, not Giancarlo EspoSITO."

ALSO:

• Giancarlo Esposito reflects on this season of The Mandalorian: "What uplifts me is that dreams can come true and that we can find our way home," says Esposito, who's currently filming Godfather of Harlem. "It's through our heart. It's through our understanding. It's through our connection. All of these are messages that are very prevalent under the surface in Mando."
• Inside Esposito's diet of eating bitter greens and avoiding sugar: "It’s an interesting life to be on the road," he says. "Sometimes these last few years, I’ve been juggling four or five different shows. But I always have to be in striking distance of a good body, so I’m always happy to seek out places to swim, parks to run by, Pelotons to ship around the country if need be. I take on a wide range of characters, and some are more physical than others."