[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for Parish.]
The Big Picture
The AMC series ‘Parish’ delves into themes like dealing with personal baggage, ghosts of the past, and seeking revenge.
Mutual respect between co-stars Giancarlo Esposito and Skeet Ulrich enhances their on-screen chemistry.
The crime thriller utilizes New Orleans’ environment for dynamic scenes like a car chase through a street celebration.
In AMC’s New Orleans-set crime thriller series Parish, family man Gracian “Gray” Parish (Giancarlo Esposito) has felt lost since the death of his son, so when an old friend (Skeet Ulrich) newly out of prison comes back into his life, it sends him back on a path that he thought he’d left behind. Gray’s skills as a wheelman have proven very useful in the criminal underground but serve as a direct threat to his family’s safety when they’ve already been through enough personal tragedy and trauma. As they grow suspicious about what he’s up to and Gray sinks deeper into the past he thought he left behind, he’s going to have to decide how far he’ll go for revenge.
One of the things that was apparent from sitting down to chat with co-stars Esposito and Ulrich was the mutual respect they have for each other and how much they enjoyed working together. During this interview with Collider, they talked about the connection they share on and off-screen, finding an ease that translates to their characters, their love of cars and the auto industry, how the ghosts of our past can haunt us, and how challenging it can be to shed the baggage from past sins.
Parish
Follows a taxi driver whose life is turned upside down when he agrees to pick up a Zimbabwean gangster mostly known for exploiting undocumented immigrants at the U.S. southern ports.
Release Date March 31, 2024
Cast Giancarlo Esposit , Zackary Momoh , Arica Himmel , Ivan Mbakop , Dax Rey
Main Genre Drama
Seasons 1
Skeet Ulrich Has Great Admiration for His ‘Parish’ Co-Star Giancarlo Esposito
Image via AMC
Collider: You guys are the pairing I had no idea that I needed, but I absolutely love it.
SKEET ULRICH: That means a lot. I had the great pleasure, in 1992, of watching this man on stage at the company I was training at in New York, the Atlantic Theater Company, for a part he won an Obie for. He’s been in my mind, as a performer, for 32 years now. We didn’t know each other in those days. I was more a fan of his. We re-met on an airplane a few years ago and had the loveliest three-hour conversation. He was gracious enough to send me a book that I was really into and am still into. And then, this opportunity came, and I couldn’t believe it. I honestly can’t believe it. It’s a blessing to be amongst this group of creative people. What you see in that connection is a lot of my energy and my admiration turned into Colin’s admiration. That chemistry comes out of a real place. It’s not something manufactured, at all.
GIANCARLO ESPOSITO: It was really synchronicitous that we had this opportunity. You can say the lines, and you can relate to another actor, but that kind of spark reminds me of old forties’ movie stars when they always wanted to try to find the right combination of men and women that created that spark. We just have that. It’s just something that exists with us. It’s really advantageous for the show and for our relationship. We’re at ease with each other and that’s rare. You get some people who can be quiet with each other, or can chat it up and laugh and have fun. That really is our relationship, which is pretty cool.
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Especially for a relationship like theirs, it’s important because you can tell that there is a history there and that history feels lived in.
ULRICH: It’s lightning in a bottle. That’s the goal. It just happened to come easy. Sometimes you force it into existence, and you can fool people, but this just happened. It felt like this music that needed to be played, and we both heard it. The great thing about the situation we’re in is that he knew the story for eight years, so we were sitting in rehearsals where they were like, “What about that draft when we had this? Maybe we should bring that back to this relationship.” That’s what happened with that driving sequence. That wasn’t in the script when we got to New Orleans, but he recalled it and was like, “We need that reconnection through the car.” Having your executive producer as your scene partner, you get that opportunity. It’s just a blessed situation.
Giancarlo Esposito Sees the Driving Aspect of ‘Parish’ As an Analogy For How We Live Our Lives
Giancarlo, it seems like getting to do one car chase in a movie or TV series would be a blast, but you get to do several. How much fun is that?
ESPOSITO: I love that. The situation puts us inside a vehicle, and Skeet has a history with the automotive industry.
ULRICH: With NASCAR and driving, in particular.
ESPOSITO: That’s something that’s an exciting element of our show, not only character wise, but also physically. It’s an analogy for how we live our lives. Are we in control? Do we have the ability to make a choice? We always do, but do we really know it or are we just drifting? Our world is so busy today, and we have so many things going on with computers, and this and that, that tell you what to do or how to eat, and you’re getting approval from the media and trying to figure out how to look, how to walk, and how to talk because everyone else is doing it. There’s a part of this show that has such an original attitude about it, in its position in New Orleans. I think it’s really special, in that way.
You take everything away, and you subtract instead of add, and then you figure out where to start again. Colin is interestingly right in that place, coming out of a 17-year stint in the pokey. Where does he come back to? He comes back to what’s familiar. You go back to what’s familiar and you start to try to rebuild things. You don’t know if that’s still where you want to be or what you want to be, but you know that’s what you know and that’s what you’ve always known. With Gray, when under pressure and the pressure cooker starts, you realize this guy drives pretty well, and you wonder if that’s a hint. And then, you start to realize that he really does have the skill. He was a wheelman. And then, you start to uncover all the elements that led to his previous life, which haven’t been revealed yet.
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I love New Orleans and I love when a production can use the things that make a city really cool. You have a car chase through a street celebration and a gunfight in a New Orleans cemetery. Did you really want to utilize your surroundings?
ESPOSITO: Yeah. We had the whole amusement park, the old Jazz Land. When you go and feel the energy of a failed amusement park, you not only feel the disappointment and failure and see the remnants of the flood and the neglect, but you feel the ghosts. Part of this show is about ghosts in people’s lives. I remember reading the original Driver, and you saw flashes of things and wondered, “What did I just see? What did I just see as Gray?” What he’s seeing is the flash and image of his son, which is that loss. We did it a little bit differently than the original, but we still maintain that this is a show about ghosts – ghosts of our past and ghosts that we’re unwilling to face, right in our lives and in our present. It’s about the guilt. Those are all underlying things that you can really palpably taste and feel in the show, and these are things that we avoid. In life, these things are uncomfortable.
Life is awkward and uncomfortable. Oftentimes I feel that, but no one ever wants to talk about it. No one ever wants to just be fucking awkward and let it play. We always say, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” I’m so sick of hearing that shit. I’m not sorry. I am awkward. I am uncomfortable. That’s the way it is. I own it and embrace it. Isn’t that better? Isn’t that freeing? It’s okay to be that way. For most of me and my whole being, and for most of us, it’s not okay because we’re trying to conform and be cool, and be this, be that, and be the other. God knows that we are defined by what people see, what they think of us, and how they see us, as opposed to how we see ourselves. [Skeet and I] have talks, and we talk about the truth. We reveal shit to each other, just in regular conversation. I don’t look at him and go, “Really dude?! Oh, my God!” I go, “Oh, I feel honored that he wants to share something.” That’s a natural thing. But most people don’t trust each other.
‘Parish’ Giancarlo Esposito Believes It’s Okay to Embrace Who You Are, Flaws and All
Image via AMC
Too many people spend too much time creating fake personas for themselves on social media.
ESPOSITO: When you’ve got that shit going on, you don’t even need to be in the real world. It’s crazy, but it is our world. So, if we can do a show that allows people to see that it’s okay to be who you are or to find who you are at all costs, that’s interesting. Colin is trying to find out who he is. He’s waiting for the wife that’s not gonna come back. When you take away all the elements and you subtract them, it’s like, “Who am I really? What’s left?”
ULRICH: There’s that line about how you’ll be told however many hundreds of lies a day, but you’ll only tell maybe two to yourself. I forget the exact dialogue, but the essence of that is. When you’re at home at the end of the day and you’re brushing your teeth in the mirror, there are things you may have done during that day when you’re like, “That was the wrong decision.” I won’t speak for everyone, but for me, the mask of the day gets removed and you get to know who you really are. I think a lot of these characters are in those moments, in a larger sense. Colin, especially, has a lot of, what am I? What am I doing? [Gray] is a man who is suffering from unimaginable guilt. Imagine losing your son, and you’re responsible in a way you cannot let yourself go from. I can’t imagine what I would do in that situation. I can’t imagine not ending myself, to be honest. It’s a powerful thing that really sticks with you, and he’s a genius at it. It hangs in every moment of the show. I watch it, as a fan, honestly. I can’t believe this cast. It’s unbelievable, the performances in this show.
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Removing that mask, even when it’s uncomfortable, can be very relatable.
ESPOSITO: There’s something the audience can take from watching this because we carry our own stuff with us. Whether you realize it or not, people can see it. We can see each other. We think we’re hiding all the pain and the grief, but we’re not. It’s an interesting part of who we become, as human beings. To have more humanity is to ask, but we don’t ask enough. You have to really check in and mean it.
ULRICH: And sit for the answer.
ESPOSITO: I go to certain foreign countries and people ask me how I am, and I go, “I’m good.” And they ask me again, “But how are you?,” because in their culture, you tell them a little more, or they know you’re not. They elicit that, and they’re willing to hear you and talk about it. But we’re in this culture of immediacy, which is completely different from that.
ULRICH: It’s so true.
Parish airs on Sunday nights on AMC and is available to stream at AMC+. Check out the trailer:
Watch on AMC+