Michael Esper – Trust

By: Jamie Steinberg

Q) What are the recent projects you have been working on?

A) I’ve been working on a couple theater things. I may have a play coming up later this year. I did a little bit on a movie Peter Hedges directed and I’m excited about that. Other than that, I’m hanging out.

Q) What was your audition for the show like to be a part of the show “Trust?”

A) I was in London at the time working on a production of The Glass Menagerie on the West End. I wen tin to read for it. I read for the first six episodes and went in and talked to Danny Boyle, Simon [Beaufoy] and Christian [Colson]. It was a very extraordinary experience being in the room with those guys and a very different experience I’ve had over in the states auditioning for things. We sat down and talked a lot about the character and the story. Then, we just started kind of picking things out from the six episodes and sort of working through them with Danny. He was so extraordinary. The whole audition had the feel kind of like making it up as we went along. Danny read with me and I felt enormously supported in the audition room. It was a real sense of play happening, which Danny is so good at supporting. It was a very special experience and I remember feeling like no matter what happens with this this – if I go forward or not – I’ll always be very grateful to have had that experience. It’s rare that an audition experience is so satisfying artistically. I felt very fortunate for it.

Q) What made you want to be a part of the series?

A) At first, it was the people who were involved. I’ve admired Danny Boyle, his movies and his filmmaking for a very long time. The idea of getting to work on anything with him was enormously exciting. Then, you add such beautiful writing and knowing that there is Donald Sutherland and Hillary Swank…that, in of itself, was enough to get me excited about it. Then, when I started reading the scripts and digging into the material. I loved the writing so much that I was enormously invested into the material. Something about it really caught me and I really felt for him and in a very complicated way. I just got so excited to be able to have the opportunity to explore that and try to understand it better.

Q) You have spent a lot of time working in the theater. Were you looking to dive back into TV or film?

A) Yeah, I was. I spent the last year or two doing theater. I had been living in London doing these two shows and I love doing plays so much. I also really love working on television and film. My dream is to be able to bounce around between those two mediums. I find it really exciting and rewarding. So, I was totally looking and hoping that something would come along that I could do on television or film. This came along at the perfect time.

Q) Did you do much research into the life of J. Paul Getty, Jr.?

A) I did initially. When I first got it, I sort of read as much as I could get ahold of. There are a couple books that are really great and really helped me out a lot. I read what I could find on the internet. Then, once we started working on it and shooting it, I stopped doing that and tried to focus on what was happening on the page. I left all that stuff alone and I would go back and touch on things every now and then, but it’s not a documentary. It’s a collective sort of dream we’re having about these people and this family and the events of their lives. There was so much information in the scripts themselves that I just tried to invest in that emotional reality and let my imagination take over. There was not a lot of footage of my character floating around. There are certainly images of him online and I looked at all of those. They were extremely informative, especially they were able to take me through the different phases of his life. I looked at all that stuff, for sure. In terms of actually worrying about replicating exactly. I spent much more time trying to understand where he was coming from emotionally and what he wanted and why he wanted it and why was doing it in the script. I spent more time exploring those things than I did about his walk. The truth is, there wasn’t that much footage of him around, so the option wasn’t that open for me to do that kind of mimicry.

Q) Talk about working alongside such acting legends as Donald Sutherland, Hillary Swank and Brendan Fraser.

A) Well, those people were very intimidating to me at first. It’s incredibly exhilarating and the truth is they are wonderful people so that makes it a lot easier. Once you start working with them they are all such extraordinary actors that you can’t help but get caught up in what they are doing, and the work just sort of takes over and they are your acting partner. There are certain things about Donald, he’s such a legend. He’s so revered and to be intimidated by, but those feelings are pretty close to I think a lot of feelings that my character may have had about his father. So, some of that stuff I didn’t mind letting stick around over the course of the shoot. It was okay to kind of think of him as an intimidating legend, even though he could be incredibly sweet. He was a total pro. I felt so lucky.

Q) What were some of your most memorable moments from filming the series?

A) There is so much stuff that we did that I just loved over the course of the show. There was a scene we shot on the roof top with Donald. Episode Seven I especially loved working on. It’s the one that sort of delves the deepest into who I am and where I’ve come from and what my journey has been. I got to live out so much over the course of that episode. Whether that was walking around in a crowded market in Marrakesh or begging for heroine in a London flophouse to confronting my father…It was just an enormous range I got to do. I’m excited about all that stuff.

Q) You are a part of social media. Have you been enjoying the instant fan feedback you have been receiving to episodes?

A) Yeah! It’s wild! I think the show is really wild. It’s very bold. It’s very strong and it’s been really cool watching everybody respond to the aggressiveness of the first episode. The turns…I especially enjoy the turns of intimacy of “Oh, that scene is rough” or “I get where he’s coming from.” I think with the show there is a lot of that. It puts viewpoints in perspective a lot. So, I’ve been enjoying watching that. It’s fascinating.

Q) Is there anything else you want to be sure our readers know about your time on “Trust?”

A) I just hope that people stay with it. The show opens up in a really beautiful way and part of what I love about the show is I feel like it is kind of a gambit where it opens kind of rough and then over time you gain more and more understanding of who these people and why they might behave the way they do. I think it’s very rewarding in a way that very few shows are and is really able to do this kind of human investigation and excavation that you don’t often see in a television show. It was really rewarding to work on and I hope people stay with it and feel rewarded the same way watching it.

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your work?

A) Thank you! [laughs] Thank you so much. You’ve watched me do some horrible things, not as an actor hopefully but I’m sure also that. [laughs] Anybody who stays with you and keeps watching you over the course of your career, I always feel very lucky to have an audience at all. That kind of support and continued support is so meaningful. It allows you to keep doing what you do and what you love. It’s all about trying to connect with people. So, just thanks.