“Then GC gave them this speech about how you are your vessel, you are the thing that the acting flows through,” Garcia recalled in an interview. “It was probably five, 10 minutes, off the cuff. When they were done, they were all Brando. Every single one of those actors was sure that they were going to be the next thing, because he just imbued them with it. And as a result, they’re fantastic in the scene, and it was an amazing day of filming.”
“That’s just one example,” he added. “But it was that sort of thing that would happen.”
Esposito’s good cheer isn’t always so formal. “My favorite thing was in between camera setups when he’d sidle up to you and mutter a joke under his breath, something that would crack you up in between scenes,” said Elbay, who plays the heist crew’s chemist, Judy. One day on the set Elbay was admiring one of the miniature animals that Leo carves to keep his hands busy.
“He slipped it into my pocket on the last day of shooting,” she said. “He’s just a really, really lovely team leader and collaborator, and he made it a very, very lovely experience for me.”
Esposito’s performance in “Kaleidoscope” derives much of its power from its humility, especially once Ray breaks out of prison and becomes Leo. We see him become increasingly frail, confronting his disease and a life full of regret.
“He has the brain skill, but the body’s going,” he said. “In a way, that’s the tragedy of our lives. As we get older, we get more delicate and we get more fragile. I still have the brain and the sense of a younger man, but to think, ‘I have to be careful stepping off that curb,’ it’s a bitch.
“By the time Leo realizes how sick he is, it’s just too late and he knows it’s going to go downhill,” he continued. “So this job becomes really important to him.”
