Giancarlo Esposito on his ‘Parish’ alter-ego: ‘He’s drowning … and he’s in trouble’
“Parish,” premiering March 31 on AMC/AMC+, posits Giancarlo Esposito as Gracián “Gray” Parish, who runs a prestigious black car limo service in New Orleans that’s facing financial hardship.
Parish says he’s “tired of being a passenger” in his own life.
Note: be careful what you wish for.
Gray and his wife, Ros (Paula Malcomson), have a teenage daughter, Michaela (Arica Himmel); their younger son, Maddox (Caleb Baumann), was murdered in the streets of New Orleans a year earlier — and his death haunts Gray, who’s obsessed with finding his killer.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg in this high-octane six-episode thriller. (New episodes drop weekly.)
“Gray wants to take back his life,” Esposito told The Post. “He’s a man who’s been struggling so hard with loss in his life. Our story is a story about trauma — the loss of a family member … it’s about surrendering and moving on after the death of someone very dear to you.
“For Gray he’s stuck in a very dark place, and until he finds out what happened to his son he can’t move on,” he said. “It’s about the lost connection Gray has with the reality of the world around him.”
Part of that reality is Gray’s secret criminal past, which rears its head in the form of the hapless Colin (Skeet Ulrich), an old buddy who materializes in Gray’s life after spending 17 years in prison (there’s more to that story).
Colin needs help with a job for one of the city’s most feared families, the Tongais, a Zimbabwean crime syndicate run by The Horse (Zackary Momoh) and his siblings Zenzo (Ivan Mbakop) and Shamiso (Bonnie Mbuli), who take no quarter if double-crossed.
Colin persuades a reluctant Gray into taking a one-time-only job as The Horse’s driver; Gray needs the money and is loyal to Colin, so he agrees after passing a tense muster with The Horse.
Big mistake.
Naturally, the job spins out of control into murder and chaos as Gray tries to extricate himself from the situation — only to be pulled in more deeply as the “Parish” story arc progresses and we meet other characters including Sister Anne (Amanda Brugel), who has a history with Gray, and crime lord Anton (Bradley Whitford).
“One of our themes [for Gray] is, ‘Am I a good man?’ especially when he resorts to going back to some habits he had in the past and that he’s been keeping a secret in order to bail himself out of trouble,” Esposito said. “He’s in this life, and it begs the question of someone’s integrity, morality… our show plays it big on those questions from the position and viewpoint of someone considered to be an everyman — until you realize he was good at something in the past.
“He’s out of his league. He’s drowning,” Esposito said. “And it’s all way above him because he’s never been the kind of person to do what the Tongais do. He’s not that man and he’s in trouble. The seed that allows him to stay [in that life] is that he sees somehow, that they know something about his son’s death — it’s connected — so it keeps him in because he has to find out and he must know.”
“Parish” is based on the BBC One series “The Driver”; Esposito, who’s also an executive producer, said there was no question the series would be set in New Orleans.
“I was so galvanized by the way the original ‘Driver’ looked — the seedy side of London never looked more seedy and it really was a cinema verite camera world that appealed to me,” he said. “In looking for a city in the US that encompassed that feeling of edge, joy, mystery, mythology and was ghosted, it came right away that it was New Orleans.
“It’s a city that seems alive with its goodness and lightness and darkness as well; it’s a port city so anything and everything can get there,” he said. “There’s a large gap between rich and poor and a large mixture, racially, of human beings from every different nationality and color that you could imagine.”
Esposito (“Breaking Bad,” “Better Call Saul,” “The Boys,” “The Gentlemen”) said that he’s used to longer-form television than the six-episode “Parish.”
“I always prefer to do more but I feel that six [episodes] allows you to tell the story in a clear, succinct way without any repetition,” he said. “It’s a good clip and keeps you on the edge of your seat — and if you’re able to do it right, it’s also the hook to bring you back for another season.”
