Hiroyuki Sanada, Maya Erskine, Rashida Jones and other TV powerhouses break down what art means to them
By Missy Schwartz and Philiana Ng
Photography by Magnus Unnar
Fashion and creative direction by Michaela Dosamantes
A stoic feudal lord who is always 20 steps ahead of his enemies. An indigenous detective who has visions she can’t explain. A North Vietnamese spy unsure of his place in the world following the war with the U.S. that ravaged his country. A present-day American spy married to a stranger who’s just as lonely as she is.
Those are but four of the fascinating new characters who brought television to life this year in period dramas, mysteries, spy thrillers, character studies, comedies and more limited series than the human mind can handle. They were played by some of the most compelling actors around, several of whom have been mesmerizing us for decades, while others are just getting started.
We gathered these powerhouse performers over several days in several institutions and galleries—including The Getty Center—where they were photographed by Magnus Unnar. We asked them to talk to us about art: what it means to them, how it first came into their lives and how they go about making it.
Giancarlo Esposito, Parish and The Gentlemen
The veteran actor outdid himself again this year, starring in AMC’s Parish (which he also exec-produced) as a family man pulled back into crime, and appearing in Netflix’s British comedy series from Guy Ritchie The Gentlemen as an ultra-suave billionaire oenophile.
“I was a very awkward child who was very, very busy in my mind. And my mother took me to a chiropractor, a friend of hers who was kind of a pseudo therapist as well, and he instructed me to paint—that oil painting would calm my spirit down. So I became a painter at a very young age. That was the beginning of my connection to the art world.”
“I was raised in Rome, Italy, so I find the structural artwork of the environment very moving. I have collected maybe 10 Calders, one of my favorite artists. But I particularly like the work of Escher, as it’s so graphically defined and completes a puzzle in my brain that allows me to think outside the box as an actor. I’m a real fan of Van Gogh because his self-portraiture is something that is almost like looking in the mirror, and, as actors, we do a lot of looking in the mirror. It’s a reflection of who we think we are. And it’s not always captured in the mirror the same way it is in our mind or the same way someone outside of us sees who we are.”
Kali Reis, True Detective
In her first major TV role, the professional boxer-turned-actor knocked us out in the fourth season of HBO’s dark crime drama as an Alaskan detective investigating the murder of an Indigenous woman alongside no less a co-star than Jodie Foster.
“When you find the beauty in things, that’s art. I enjoy finding the beauty in everything, whether that’s something you can tangibly hold or a situation. Even me as a fighter, it’s not violence. To me, it’s art. It’s the art of hitting without getting hit. It’s the art of telling the story with the opponent. It’s the art of the struggle, the pain, the glory, the losses.”
“I’ve been a huge Tim Burton fan since I can remember. Edward Scissorhands spoke to me as a child in so many different ways and deep ways. Tim Burton’s art is something that people can relate to, even if they don’t want to admit they can. It’s more of the beautiful, darker side of things. It’s not light and fluffy. It’s very beautifully dark. It’s funny, it’s love, it’s fear, it’s hope.”
Nava Mau, Baby Reindeer
As Teri, a trans woman led on by the deeply traumatized and conflicted protagonist (Richard Gadd), the Mexican-born Mau brought a graceful vulnerability to the year’s biggest breakout limited series.
“Art is meant to be amorphous. Art is meant to be defined by both the creator of it and whoever is perceiving it. So art is meant to be undefined.”
“I never thought that I could be an actor; I never thought that I would be allowed to pursue acting as a career. It wasn’t until I wrote a short film (Waking Hour) that I was going to direct that I started thinking about possibly acting in it myself. That was my start, directing and acting at the same time on this micro-budget short film shot in the streets of San Francisco and Oakland. I’ve never felt more alive.”
“I look up to so many people. One person that I look to as an actor is Nicole Beharie. She just brings such grace, nuanced power, and risk to the screen. I would love to one day be even just a fraction of the actor that Nicole Beharie is.”
Hoa Xuande, The Sympathizer
The Australian newcomer proved his bona fides in the acclaimed HBO limited series as the Captain, the elusive Vietnamese double agent struggling to figure out where he belongs and where his true allegiance lies in post–Vietnam War America.
“When I was starting out as an actor, I watched a lot of theater. The very first thing that I saw that really inspired me was The Cherry Orchard by [Anton] Chekhov. That’s probably the first memory of something that I was like,
‘I really want to be an actor.’”
“In the same way that certain movies and TV shows have had an effect on me as a person, I would like to do that for other people. Whether it’s on stage or TV or film, when you give a really good performance that’s deeply thought and deeply felt, you hope that somebody out there feels that in the same way that you did.”
Rashida Jones, Sunny
In the Apple TV+ dramedy series, Jones plumbs the depths of grief as an American woman living in Japan who receives a domesticated robot after the mysterious disappearance of her husband and son.
“I remember the first time I saw Frida Kahlo’s work and also Diego Rivera—the conversation between the two—and that had a real impact on me because that was the first time I could really feel her intense femininity, her culture and her relationship through her work. Even at age 12, I could relate to it. There’s something so bold and self-reflexive and beautiful and visceral and emotional about her work.”
“We shot the show in Japan and there are so many incredible museums. There’s a certain accessibility to art there when you just walk into a museum and your whole day changes; your entire perspective of the world changes. We went for a couple of days to the art islands in southern Japan—Naoshima, Teshima—spending all day long looking at art, the architecture created specifically to house that art. It’s like having a conversation with nature. That is always where I draw my inspiration from. It feels like I can mainline inspiration when I go see art. It doesn’t even matter how I feel about it. If I’m feeling something, it changes me.”
Alison Brie, Apples Never Fall
Brie played against type-A in the Peacock limited series as the meandering black sheep of a family of high achievers led by her tennis star parents (played by Annette Bening and Sam Neill).
“The first performance I saw that I considered art [was] this tiny one-woman show at the South Pasadena Playhouse. It was a block from my high school. The play was a version of the short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ about a woman slowly losing her mind. But it was a commentary on feminism and the way that women are seen as hysterical if they express any type of emotion. I actually wrote my college application essays about how moved I was by this one-woman show held in this 50-seat theater.”
“The most moving parts of being an actor, while you’re in the process, is getting to work with other actors, connect with people, and share emotions and heightened moments. And then the moving part about releasing your work into the world is seeing the way that it affects others. Their interpretation of it, honestly, can be really interesting. It’s still a wild concept to think that something that you made affected another person. It’s pretty extraordinary.”
Hiroyuki Sanada, Shōgun
The Japanese superstar brought his meticulous touch to the year’s most celebrated new drama series, starring as a powerful lord in 17th-century Japan and overseeing the show’s every last detail as producer.
“My first movie experience was when I was a child actor, when I was 5 years old. I didn’t know about movies before. That was my first experience, with me in that movie (1965’s Rokyoku komori-uta), and immediately (I thought), I’m going to continue this. It was so natural for me. Maybe in front of the camera I felt more freedom than in (real) life. I grew up on set. My mom never came to the set, but she said that once you go to the set, the crew is your family. Still now, if I get a new project, I always feel like I’m working with family.”
“I love our [Japanese] culture. So if we make a traditional drama like Shōgun, I’d love to produce again and make it as authentic as possible. But if not, I don’t have to carry my culture. [I’d like to play] just a person on the Earth, no [specific] nationality or skin color or religion. Just aperson. That’s more interesting.”
Jovan Adepo, 3 Body Problem
The British-American actor brings just the right gravitas to his role as a physicist puzzled by inexplicable phenomena in Netflix’s sci-fi series.
“The first performance that I saw that I considered art would have to be Gladiator—the performance of Joaquin Phoenix. It was also the first character that made me want to get into acting. Because when you’re a kid, there’s a good guy and there’s a bad guy, and I couldn’t understand my feelings of enjoying watching the villain perform and wanting to root for him. I was able to grasp what art is and how to portray a character completely.”
“I’m really obsessed with film scores, so that’s something that I would like to venture into at some point in my career. I’ve had roles that have allowed me to pick up instruments; in Babylon I play the trumpet. I play the guitar. Just becoming more musically inclined is something that I aspire for myself. I don’t know if it’ll ever come into my career in filmmaking and acting, but it’s a separate art form that I’m enjoying exploring.”
Orlando Bloom, Orlando Bloom: To the Edge
Pushing himself to the limit was the point of the Peacock reality adventure series in which Bloom tries out the extreme sports of wingsuiting, free diving and rock climbing.
“There was something very rewarding and empowering (about) overcoming your fear. And when you step out of whatever it may be for you—which could be as simple as attending a public event or learning standup or learning to cook, whatever that edge is—it’s just saying yes to life and not being afraid of the outcome. That was a really amazing takeaway. It’s something that I’ll be able to look back on, but it’s also something that happens in the blink of an eye.”
“I see my life a little bit like a canvas. I often think that the experiences that we have in life, the challenges that we face, can be the dark purples or reds or blacks, and the canvas of your life is what’s left when you leave this flesh sack and step into the next [life].”
Maya Erskine, Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Taking a dramatic turn after two seasons of writing, producing and starring in the comedy series Pen15, Erskine fired guns, escaped exploding buildings and explored the vicissitudes of marriage in costar Donald Glover and Francesca Sloane’s reimagining of the 2005 Brad Pitt–Angelina Jolie film.
“My dad’s a jazz musician, so music was always playing in the house and movies were always there. Arts were just a part of our life and I’m so grateful for that. I played violin; I tried piano. My dad tried to get me on the drums; I had no interest. I was just talking to myself and talking to plants and making up stories. I was always just wanting to play make-believe.”
“I was obsessed with Natalie Wood. I saw Splendor in the Grass when I was really young. And West Side Story. I studied her so intensely. That really had an impact on me because I was in musicals when I was younger, and I did West Side Story. I imitated everything she did, even the way she spoke. And it was during that performance that…I was going through the motions until there was one moment at the end where something happened to me on stage and I was like, ‘What was that?’ And it was this kind of lightning moment of: I’m present here and something’s happening to my body. It scared the shit out of me, and it opened up this whole new world to me.”
Oliver Stark, 9-1-1
For seven seasons on the high-octane ABC series, the British actor has brought a charging energy to his firefighter character Buck, who came out in Season 7.
“Towards the end of high school, there’s this one theater performance we were taken to: Othello [in] a modern setting…I’d never seen Shakespeare performed like that, certainly not live and with so much life to it. It made me realize how many different interpretations there can be of the same text. It really opened my eyes to what you can do with art.”
“I started getting into photography, and sculpting out what I wanted to be as a photographer made me redefine what art meant to me. It meant causing an emotion in my audience. So I don’t want to look at a picture or a live performance and say, ‘That was nice’ or ‘That’s pretty.’ I want them to go, ‘That makes me feel angry,’ ‘That makes me feel nostalgic,’ ‘That makes me feel sad.’ That to me is what art is.”
Matt Bomer, Fellow Travelers
Bomer explores many layers in the Showtime limited series, playing a closeted state department employee in love with a congressional staffer (Jonathan Bailey) during the Lavender Scare in the age of McCarthyism.
“With every role I take, I’m hoping that I’m going to have to risk something, because if it doesn’t cost you something—some part of yourself, something that you haven’t had to expose or dig into before—then it may not be the role you want to play in the first place.”
“One of the first exhibits I saw that really moved me was Monet. We’ve all seen pictures of impressionism and have ideas about what it might be or how it comes about or what it looks like, but when you actually see it in person, see how delicate the brushstrokes are and the type of vision you have to have to be able to create an entire picture of just tiny little brushstrokes, that was really moving for me.”
Jharrel Jerome, I’m a Virgo
Jerome goes larger than life in director Boots Riley’s coming-of-age series, navigating a surreal world as a 13-foot-tall teen trying to fit in.
“I want to leave the teenage world and play a grown adult. Ava DuVernay once called me a unicorn because there’s this magical thing that happens where I can be 26, but if I shave this beard off, I’m back to 17. I’m back to getting carded outside. I’m back to people looking at me like I’m a little boy. It’s a blessing, but as an adult in the world and as somebody who is now feeling a version of a man in himself, I want to start to tackle roles that complement that.”
Morgan Spector, The Gilded Age
Over two seasons of HBO’s period drama, the former stage actor takes to the screen as a cunning railroad tycoon.
“I think visual art, even cinema, often can’t be articulated. If you could just speak it to someone and explain it to them, then you would do that. But you can’t…Some of my most cherished experiences with art are having that experience of like, ‘Oh, I know how you felt. I can imagine you now, person I’ve never met, total stranger, alone with the experience you’re having; now I have also felt it.’”
“My main thing that I’m afraid of, like both terrified by and want to do, is writing. I literally can’t sit down and do it. Every time I do I’m like, ‘I actually really like this. Why don’t I do this all the time?’ And then I’ll hit some stumbling block in the midst of a particular project, and I’ll be like, ‘Fuck this. I can’t do this.’ And I’ll walk away for like a year. But I need to stop being such a coward and pursue that more aggressively because I just genuinely enjoy it.”
Dakota Fanning, Ripley
In Netflix’s darker dramatization of 1950s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, Fanning brings her own spin to Marge Sherwood, fleshing out the character to act as a foil to the titular Tom Ripley.
“I started acting so young; it was like playing pretend and using your imagination. So I continued to take that energy with me throughout my career. As I’ve obviously gotten older, I still think of it kind of that way. Ultimately, you’re using your imagination, and it’s a bigger version of playing pretend.”
“When I think of artists, I think of directors and actors I admire. I dreamed of getting to work with Quentin Tarantino, and I did get to fulfill that dream. I think I’m inspired in any form of art by people who take risks and do things that are a little bit, maybe weird or different or unique. It’s important to push yourself—to scare yourself sometimes.”
Sandra Oh, The Sympathizer
In the seven-part limited series, the decorated actor takes a turn in a supporting role as Ms. Mori, a secretary in the “Oriental Studies” department at a California university in the 1970s.
“You let fellow artists in. It’s like food, right? I see Judy Chicago, I see Jenny Holzer, I eat it, and then I do a play. Somehow that is feeding my own performance.”
“I aspire, and I think many do, for higher consciousness, be it beauty, be it communion, be it one’s own excavation of darkness—and it has to be communal. Doing it has to be shared. I think that’s the whole point. No matter what, a real driving motivator for art’s existence is that it needs to be shared.”
Carrie Coon, The Gilded Age
Coon shines as Bertha Russell, a newcomer to 19th-century New York’s Upper East Side who fights to claim her place in high society.
“I have children, and children have such an eye for whatever inspires awe and wonder. The real gift of having them is they remind you that, in fact, design and art is everywhere. If you’re willing to take time and look for it, you’ll see it all around. That’s what art is to me now, is seeing the world through my children’s eyes.”
CREDITS
Additional Reporting: Kayla Cobb. Fashion editor: Pascal Mihr. Market editor: Dan Victoria Gleason.
Los Angeles:
Producer: Anabella Casanova and Sage Price for Vacation Theory
Photography assistants: Steven Krebs and Tucker Leary
Fashion assistants: Rachel Pollen and Darryl Anderson
Production assistant: Luis Hernandez
Locations: The Getty Center, The Hole Gallery Los Angeles and Marian Goodman Gallery Los Angeles
New York City:
Producer: Chloé Mina for MINA INC.
Videographer: Steven Ungureanu
Fashion assistants: Abby McDade and Stephanie Escobar
Location: The Hole Gallery New York
Special thanks: Kathy Grayson, Charlotte Grüssing, Julie Heine and Juliene Pomerleau at The Hole Gallery; Lina Pellegrini and Samantha Gregg at Marian Goodman Gallery; and Alexandria Sivak at The Getty Museum.
Magnus Unnar
Magnus Unnar’s bold photographs put his subjects front and center. His point of view is exemplified in the up-close-and-personal images he created of the actors and actresses featured in our “Faces of TV” portfolio.