In the past decade, American actor David Costabile has appeared in everything from Breaking Bad as the gentle-hearted chemist Gale to Billions as the eccentric and greedy billionaire hedge-fund boss Mike “Wags” Wagner, while also contributing to shows such as Suits, Low Winter Sun, Dig and many more. David chats with Indulge on the baffling world of big business and bad karaoke.
What manner of research on the financial world went into your role as Wags?
The books of Andrew Ross Sorkin and Malcolm Lewis showed me how much of the financial world is character-driven. There were studies on these giants with huge sums of money and how they were making decisions. Wags is seemingly extreme but fits right into this world. I also met people on Wall Street, as research on the specifics of how they live makes things easier to decipher.
Is there anyone you drew inspiration from?
Well, the character that was initially conceived was actually quite different. Brian (Koppelman) and David (Levien), the show’s makers, originally conceived a more soft-spoken, quiet person, but they knew that I could bring a much more animalistic, greed-driven force behind the character, and sort of took off the reins. So I drove them, and they drove me.
Gale on Breaking Bad was known for his bad karaoke scenes. How was that for you?
I am a trained singer, and I have been on Broadway, but strangely, I don’t do karaoke.
Was it strange trying to fake bad singing?
It was very difficult. When we shot that scene, I was alone in front of a green screen, and I had a tennis ball to fake as a karaoke machine. The whole crew and everybody on the set decided to watch. It was an arduous, embarrassing thing, but yet, it was fun.
You’ve played a bit of everything, but is there one type of character that you’re drawn to?
It’s always more fun to play bad guys, and it’s much more fun to kill than to be killed. But I started out in the comedy world, and even though I’m not playing as many comic roles as I thought I would, my natural instinct is for comedy.
Who are some of the comedians you look up to?
I love Chris Rock. I love the Marx Brothers and Chaplin. That was the sort of comedy that I watched growing up, and that was my favourite thing.
What’s up next for you?
I worked with comedian Amy Sedaris for her new show, and I was also in the Steven Spielberg movie The Post, but now I need to find the time for a little hiatus because I have two little children at home.
Billions airs every Monday through Friday at 10 pm on AXN