Some may see a film series like The Maze Runner as just another big sci-fi franchise, designed to entertain and thrill. Not Giancarlo Esposito. The veteran actor signed up to play the mysterious Jorge in the second film, The Scorch Trials, because he sees something empowering the story of children defying the establishment and finding their own voice.
Audiences know Giancarlo Esposito as his dangerous character from Breaking Bad, but talking to him on the phone is an entirely calming experience. He called me up this week to share what he found insightful about the story and characters of The Maze Runner, and to completely overwhelm me with his thoughtful and contemplative response to what could have been a simple icebreaker: what would you do in the event of the apocalypse?
Find out more about Giancarlo Esposito’s thoughts on the end of the world and why he takes regular vacations from technology in this exclusive interview. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is now playing in theaters nationwide. [Note: Some spoilers lie ahead.)
Related: ‘Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials’ Review | A Truly Great Escape
Crave: What do you think is the appeal of The Maze Runner specifically? There are a lot of other movies coming out in the same genre. What makes this one stand out?
Giancarlo Esposito: I think this stands out because it is not only entertainment but it’s a film that has some mythological imagery as well as storylines to it. You know, young people, young adults, they’ve been seeing the movies that take you on the wild ride and the journey and certainly we’re that, but this movie encourages young people to stand up for themselves, to be their own men and women, and to question the establishment in many ways. I believe that that’s what they need to be empowered: to know that they have a voice. I think this movie helps that in many ways.
I feel like there used to be a sense in a lot of fiction catering to younger people that adults needed to questioned. There was almost a paranoia about older people telling us what to do. How do think Jorge fits into that mold? He seems more in line with our heroes than most of the other adults in this movie.
He does, and you know, it was interesting for me to get the role of Jorge. I wanted to play the bad guy in the film. Wes Ball, who I really respected after my first meeting with him, who outlined the film for me, encouraged me to take a look at James Dashner’s books, which I then did. And I have a daughter who’s fourteen who really loved the whole sequence of books.
So here’s how I think Jorge fits in, because I have four girls who are right in this teenage young adult genre, who are those ages: nineteen down to eleven. I think that Jorge is suspect in the very beginning of these young people because he’s developed a safe haven for him and his people and his Brenda, his beloved Brenda, and I believe that he is someone who really means what he says. He says, “Look, where’d you come from, and where are you going, and how I can profit?” Because he’s going to use them to get what he needs to keep himself [alive].
“It’s an analogy of how sometimes we need to listen to our children, or our young people, because sometimes they really are insightful because they’re not as jaded as we are.”
He’s not with WCKD, he’s not with the good or the bad but he’s looking… as we find out in the story… he’s looking for the good. He’s looking for the freedom place and he starts to respect Thomas more and more because he sees that Thomas has a passion to lead these young Gladers to that same place. But he has to be sure.
So for me it’s an analogy of how sometimes we need to listen to our children, or our young people, because sometimes they really are insightful because they’re not as jaded as we are. I think Jorge, in the journey of Maze Runner, starts to figure that out. Especially when Brenda becomes compromised and gets sick and Thomas is there for her. [Jorge] realizes that this guy has something, and maybe he should try to help them achieve the same goal that deep down he a desire to achieve as well.
I was thinking about it from the perspective of Thomas and the other young protagonists, and it seems almost refreshingly honest of Jorge to admit that he’s just in this for profit. He’s not trying to deceive them, he’s just out for number one (as well as Brenda), and that in itself is more trustworthy.
Oh absolutely! He has to be that way because we’re in a scorched world where no one can really trust anyone else, and that’s what I love about him. He’s not the bullshitter that you might suspect he could be, because he says exactly what he wants. In this world [of The Maze Runner], this is exactly the opposite of what we do. [Laughs.] You know?
My mother used to tell me, “Do as I say-do, don’t do as I do.” I never forgot that. I understand she was trying to tell me she’s flawed, the “do as I say-do,” but when I watched what she did it was completely the antithesis or the opposite. So Jorge I dig because in a way he’s on the level, you know? When Brenda says, “Hey, I don’t want to leave here,” he says, “We always knew we had to leave here.” So young people are also being taught that change is good, that change can be a new day. Yes it can be more dangerous. Yes more people can die. But yes, in the end it can be good.
“This movie is so chock full of action but it still has a lot of messages: message of family, message of hope, message of commitment, message of courage.”
So it empowers young people to think for themselves. This movie is so chock full of action but it still has a lot of messages: message of family, message of hope, message of commitment, message of courage. I think these things are touched upon in the film and I think there’s something that might be attractive for young audiences because it allows them to think a little bit.
One of the things I think we’re constantly attracted to in the post-apocalyptic genre is the idea of when society collapses and the only things that really matter are the simple things, how you’re going to survive. I think we all have a Mad Max fantasy of what we would do at the end of the world. I’m curious what you think you would do?
Well, if it were truly the end of the world I would probably be sitting in meditation. I’d probably gather my family together and give a great grateful thanks for the time that we’ve had together, and be in gratitude towards the universe for what the universe has given us in terms of our knowledge and the ability to be able to be in gratitude, and I’d probably be in a quiet space to get more in touch with my true self. I’d listen to my breath going in and out of my body and realize that all of this is [a] maya of my consciousness, so that I’m not really my body, to make the transition for me and my family smoother.
I don’t think being in a panic or being on the run is the way to go. I don’t think getting drunk or using drugs is the way to go, to numb myself. I’d want to be completely present because after all, if it is the end of the world, then those who are present in that moment might be able to inherit and be able to move into the new world in a much calmer, spiritual place as opposed to a place of panic and fear.
“I believe if society ended I would want to be in a place where I could cultivate and save the library, the library of consciousness that speaks to the opposite of that.”
That is a very, very thoughtful and enlightened response. I think I was thinking more along the lines of if “society” ends, and we all end up in supercharged cars wearing mohawks.
Yup. No, the world of Mad Max in the future. I believe if society ended I would want to be in a place where I could cultivate and save the library, the library of consciousness that speaks to the opposite of that. I think that the world you’re speaking of is not far off, and I think those who are the true thinkers and the true feelers will try to create an enclave for themselves where they can continue, even if it is separate from that of the mohawks and the supercharged cars. Because those things will never bring happiness. They’ll never bring us closer together. So I’d like to be part of a commune of people who are into and facilitating a new kind of learning and consciousness.
I think we have part of it happening in our world now in terms of how people are with the environment. What the biggest thing is is we’re hurting the environment and that’s hurting ourselves and we don’t even realize it. So is that more of what you were thinking?
Yeah, a little bit but that’s also an incredibly thoughtful and enlightened response. I have to admire it.
Yeah, I don’t want to be in the mayhem of things. I think we already are and I think every time I come back to the big city I see it. I see people not really communicating. There’s not one cell phone in this movie. Not really talking to each other, or talking to each other with a phone in their hand while they look away. We’ve lost our ability to be present and to really listen with all of our senses, not just our ears but with our eyes, and observe and be fully present for another person. We’ve become very inhumane in what we think is going to extend our humanity, in terms of technology.
What The Scorch Trials is about is: what do we rely on, and when do we feel naked without something that can guide us because we’ve lost the inner guide that we’ve failed to cultivate?
“Being in silence is certainly something we don’t often do. Being contemplative is something that I think has escaped us as well.”
I wonder if as an actor, as a professional listener, you’ve become more hyper aware of that detachment than others…
There’s no doubt about it. I’ve become very aware of it because I think I do my best work when I’m listening the best. I think acting is not just acting it’s also reacting. I know this from some of work I’ve done in the past where I’ve had very few words, and I know to create the presence and really take someone in completely is an effort, because we haven’t practiced it. So I like to get as calm as I can before I shoot a scene and really figure out what the character’s intention is, and then be spontaneous in the moment with following that intention.
But being in silence is certainly something we don’t often do. Being contemplative is something that I think has escaped us as well. So we’re constantly burning our shen, burning our energy, by moving, moving and being involved with something we think is going to give us heightened ability to think for us. Computers and technology. Not bad, but they’re there to serve us, not for us to be a slave to them.
You look your list of your credits, the films and shows you’ve been on… is half of your job just scheduling these productions? I wonder how that fits into this thought process of yours.
You know, I get crazy trying to just deal with my travel. It’s a conversation I have on a daily basis to get people to help me take it over, because I do get frustrated. I get tired of the phone to my ear, I get of typing on the phone or the computer, and so I try to keep that as far away from me as possible. It impacts my life, and what I have to do then is take technology days off, and I have to go away and be quiet where I’m not constantly thinking I have to answer that buzz that’s coming out of my bag. I have to have more help and I’m getting more help and I have more help every single year, but then you have to delegate to that help.
“If I really get really inspired, I’ll get to a place that is much vaster than my sight can allow me to see, and then I get it.”
But there are some friends of mine, one being Susan Sarandon, who doesn’t use a computer. She keeps that out of her life. I don’t know how she does it but she does. She has someone read for her, forward her things, talks about them. I think that’s a great way to do it but certainly my life has become very, very, very, very busy and it’s something I’m looking at very closely.
Your technology days off, how do those go? Do you sit down and relax, spend time with family, do you read? What do you do on those days?
I read. I’m an avid reader and that’s why I’m so happy about this particular film, The Scorch Trials, because my daughter was the one who said to me that I should read the books and I should do this movie, when I told her. My daughter is fourteen years old and she had read all the books and by happenstance I had taken my eleven-year-old to the movies and my eleven-year-old and my seventeen-year-old live with me in Austin, TX. So she encouraged me.
I read, to answer your question. I go to yoga class and sit in quiet meditation. I put the phone in the drawer for the day. Just put it in a drawer. Try to let my agents and manager know I will be offline. And that’s it. I like to take to take the kids sometimes to Barton Springs, a natural spring in Austin, TX. I’m a very outdoorsy person so I believe the outside has the ability to heal us, the environment. I like to ski, I like to be in the woods, those things speak to me. Trees speak to me, forests speak to me, fields speak to me. So if I really get really inspired, I’ll get to a place that is much vaster than my sight can allow me to see, and then I get it. And then I get it. That’s where it’s really at.
That’s the peace.
Photo Credit: Richard Foreman, Jr. SMPSP.
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
