Exclusive Video Interview: Giancarlo Esposito Talks Ethnicity, Revolution Season 2, and More Desde Hollywood was invited to attend a special screening of episode 3 of Revolution (airing Wednesday Oct. 9 at 8/7C), the popular NBC show now in its second season. The highlight of that very, very intense episode is Giancarlo Esposito. The incredibly talented actor takes his complex character, Tom Neville, to such emotional extremes that it’s impossible not to be affected, even if you are not a hardcore fan of the series. In a one on one relaxed interview, he told us about his experience as an actor of different ethnic backgrounds, the current opportunities in Hollywood for minorities, his work in Revolution, and more. Here is an extract of the full video interview below. “My entire life people has tried to put me in a box. They asked me ‘What are you?’ […] For many years I thought that Hollywood does put in boxes, but now I realize that we put ourselves in boxes. […] When I started playing Hispanic roles there were no John Leguizamo, no David Labiosa. […] When those actors came along I stopped playing Hispanic parts for a long time. Until ‘Gustavo’, of course. I have that European and Latino essence and feeling so why not use that? […] When I started doing Spike Lee movies I embodied the fact that I had to be an African American, a black man so I did the idiom and everything else. […] I feel that I have the best of both worlds and I don’t relegate or limit myself. I am courageous. […] Look at the new James Bond movie. Javier Bardem is phenomenal as the villain! He encompasses all of himself to play that role, he just happens to be Latino. […] Right now Hollywood is more open than ever. I look at our show, Revolution, and I have never seen more Hispanic, African American and Asian people ever on a television show. […] Jon Favreau said this to me ‘This is the New World’ […] But you have to do the work: if you have a thick accent you have to loose the accent. […] European and Australian actors get it. […] Is up to you to do the work to clean up of all of what you heard and feel to be transformative. I am a chameleon, that’s what I do.”
