Netflix's Kaleidoscope offers a wild take on the crime genre, with a non-linear approach to plot progression that audiences will be shown in different orders. As a result, each episode explores a different period in time either before, during, or after a massive heist. Throughout it all, the characters go through a litany of changes and development, all while building around a fun, over-the-top heist storyline that scratches the itch of any crime-genre fan.
Ahead of Kaleidoscope's debut on Netflix on Jan. 1, 2023, CBR sat down to speak with Giancarlo Esposito (Leo Pap/Ray Vernon) and Tati Gabrielle (Hannah Kim) about how the ambitious heist series reflects the ups and downs of real life. The pair dove into the joys of jumping into a multi-faceted crime show that shifts through time and genre and what it was like developing a meaningful relationship as father and daughter for one of the show's central emotional throughlines.
CBR: One of the things I really enjoy about the show is the sheer wealth of tone and tenors that it can go through. One moment, it's a heist story, and the next, it's a family drama, then it's a Sex in the City-style comedy or a modern equivalent to Reservoir Dogs. What was it like having a series like this, where you got to run the full gauntlet of genres?
Giancarlo Esposito: It seems to be the big question of the day. I'll answer a question that you haven't asked, which is how do we have energy for this -- because we love this project. I can see that you do, too, by the smile on your face... I feel like this is a very profound script, not only a very interesting and different delivery system. That you can watch [the show] in any order that you want, but that it's a journey of people, all the characters you take a journey with... You're interested in knowing who has a relationship with who and how that transpires and how it gets extended or diminished in the story.
So I'm here because I so support this style of writing by Eric Garcia and his writing team, but also the great support of Netflix in having the vision to make this -- because this is the wave of the future. There are a lot of different layers. As you already stated, I get to play characters like Ray Vernon and Leo Pap, who spend years and have relationships with other great characters and actresses like Tati. To be able to show you a life either fulfilled or not, and live in this very exciting backdrop...
Tati Gabrielle: I think, too, that it wasn't necessarily difficult to carry all of those about because [of] this story and because of the way that Eric and the writing team really did ground this story and its characters. Anytime that I approach art, I always say that art is meant to reflect life. It's meant to reflect ourselves back to ourselves. I think that these characters are so real in that way where they know there's a moment of intimacy, and then there are the big moments.
It's never just like, "Oh, it's just quiet all the time," or, "Oh, it's chaos all the time." We have to learn in life how to win when a curveball is thrown, and this is how people genuinely react to that. Not trying to play into the gimmick of what a heist project could be, but keeping it grounded and giving you a place to actually connect to that is exhilarating, I think, is the most special part of the Kaleidoscope.
The two of you really get a lot to explore and play with together, thanks to the relationship between Leo and Hannah that plays out. We get to see it in so many different lights, having gone through so many changes primarily off-screen. What was it like to discover the highs and lows of that relationship together?
Gabrielle: It wasn't really something that Giancarlo and I had to find. It was something from the time that we met, I think, that the universe sort of brought us together in this way. Giancarlo and I actually met about a month or two before we started filming... We met at a convention, and I think that, yeah, just something about the universe and our energies brought us to a place of like, "Okay, we're here." We did have like one lunch before we started. We chatted for hours, but once we stepped on set, as soon as we locked in with one another... everything just kind of flowed.
I remember one of our big scenes... That day, it was so quiet on set, and I remember that we never even got a note or anything that day because we were just in it, and the whole set could feel it. It was almost like they were like, "Okay, yeah, just let them do what they're going to do." This experience for me with Giancarlo was like nothing that I've ever been able to do -- and don't know that I will be able to have the experience with another actor like I did here. This just had this innate connection, that innate closeness that every time I think about it, it literally makes me want to cry.
Esposito: I'd second that. I keep searching, as Tati does, for the words to describe how we were able to cultivate our relationship, but it was uncultivatable. We just kind of looked at each other and did it. There's no winning or losing. There's just being involved and being vulnerable with each other. So to me, it's one of the greatest gifts of my career and one of the greatest gifts of the show, and I keep trying to find what words to describe it -- I think you just have to see it. You know, we get in it. We're in it together, and it works, and it's an experience that I wish for other actors to have. It's just what happens. The universe brought us together and allowed us to be vulnerable, open enough to really cultivate this father-daughter relationship like no other.
Kaleidoscope premieres Jan. 1 on Netflix.