It's been seven years now, but David Costabile is still recognized for his memorable role as Gale Boetticher, Walter White's meth lab assistant on Breaking Bad who met an untimely death.
It was season three, episode 13, entitled "Full Measure," when Gale was offed in a scene filled with both horror and desperation. His killer was Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul).
But Costabile is surpassing the impact of that role with his opinionated, shrewd, savage and often hilarious portrayal of Michael "Wags" Wagner on Showtime's hedge fund drama Billions, now heading into its third season.
Set in the world's financial capital and the surrounding ultra-high net worth suburbs of New York City, Costabile plays the consigliere to Bobby "Axe" Axelrod (Damian Lewis) and is officially the chief operating officer at Axe Capital, a powerful investment firm that plays its high-stakes stock market positions close to the edge of legality and is squarely in the crosshairs of the feds.
Lewis's Axe is a master of the universe, a brilliant and ambitious 21st century version of the Michael Douglas "greed is good" character, Gordon Gekko, in 1987's blockbuster feature film Wall Street.
Clad in jeans and a T-shirt, a nod to his humble beginnings, Axe is seen relentlessly making deals or strategizing his next moves-- which include placating his wife played by Malin Akerman – as he drives the hottest limited-production cars, flies off in his private jet to Metallica concerts to party with the band and shuttles his kids to their Little League games by helicopter.
Yet Axe barely makes a market move without the wise counsel of Wags, and their interplay and witty dialogue is one of the greatest pleasures of Billions, of which there are many. Among them, Paul Giamatti's scenery-chewing role as U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades and Maggie Siff's as the unlikely—and likely unethical-- combination of being Chuck's wife, Wendy Rhoades and the extremely well-paid life and career coach at Axe Capital.
During the previous two seasons of Billions, Wags has had many highs, often of the drug-induced variety, and a few lows, mostly as a result of his hard-partying proclivities. We've seen him wake up a few times in hotel rooms not knowing exactly how he got there. But it never takes him long to rebound and focus back in on his raison d'être, managing the always-shifting situation at Axe Capital.
In an immediately GIF-able scene that is also an homage to All That Jazz, Wags is shown getting ready for his workday by crushing up some Adderall and snorting it, looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, dousing his bloodshot eyes with some eye drops and lighting up a cigarette.
Those wild and crazy days and nights seem to be in his past as season three takes the firm from its woodsy Long Island location right into the heart of the beast, the formidable glass and concrete canyons of Manhattan.
"You'll find out this season why he is so loyal to Axe," Costabile said by phone from New York as the production was completing the final episodes of the new season. "One of the things the loyalty stems from is the fact that they've found each other, and there is a surety in a world that is always trying to hedge risks. It's always a sure bet how the other is going to play.
"Wags doesn't know what the strategy at Axe may be, but whatever the outcome he will be loyal to that outcome. For both of them, it's a great comfort. It allows Wags to be as 'Wagsy' as he wants without fear. The surety is a bet he made on this person. Win or lose money, he's looking for a connection. On some level, the lifestyle of risk is mitigated by the one sure bet he has in his pocket."
More than with any of the other characters, the conversations between Wags and Axe are particularly snappy and often include seemingly obscure and also more obvious showbiz and music industry references.
During one key scene in the penultimate episode of season two, called "Golden Frog Time" after a literally poisonous revenge strategy against Rhoades and his father's sizable investment in a juice company, Wags walks into Axe's office with an alarmed look on his face.
"Is it Sonny on the Causeway?" Axe inquires with concern, referencing the scene in The Godfather where James Caan's character gets assassinated.
Other wordplay has referenced a vast array of pop culture signposts including the musical Hamilton, the satirical character Ali G played by Sacha Baron Cohen and the late, great comedian Milton Berle, aka Uncle Miltie, who died in 2002.
In discussing the writing on the series, which is led by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, (who created the show with financial journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin) Costabile said getting the scripts becomes a very exciting prospect that the words will delight the performers – especially him.
"Then the performer gets to delight the creator, which is fun to play, and it is joyful to live in a pure pleasure dome," Costabile says about the creative environment on Billions. "Wags is in constant pursuit of pleasure and at the same time that's my job to figure out how we can make these references come alive. The echoes of someone like Milton Berle would have a place in this world."
It's an enviable world for Costabile, who lives in the city, to work in New York. His roles in film and television over the past two decades have taken him all over the globe. "I don't have to go to the airport as much anymore," he says.
Two of his recent big-screen forays have had him under the direction of Steven Spielberg. In The Post, Costabile portrays Washington Post columnist Art Buchwald. In 2012's Lincoln, he played James Ashley, a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Ohio who pushed for passage of the 13th amendment abolishing slavery. It was a brief gig, but one that made a lasting impression.
"I loved The Post and it was great to work with Steven a second time. I'd had a remarkable experience on Lincoln and much of the crew was the same," he says.
"Steven is generous to a fault. Even though he is incredibly accomplished, he makes you feel at home. I couldn't believe it. You think people who live such large lives don't have time to let in everyone who revolves around them. That was also true of Meryl [Streep], who is totally down to earth and incredibly kind and inspires you to do your best work."
Costabile entered the Spielbergian orbit through Tony Kushner, in whose play Caroline, or Change he had starred in on Broadway.
"Tony wrote Lincoln and Steven had seen Breaking Bad before it really came into the zeitgeist," Costabile recalls. "I auditioned for it and it was totally amazing. I remember the first time I saw Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln walking toward me and I really thought it was President Lincoln."
In addition to Breaking Bad, Costabile has played roles in a number of noteworthy television series, mainly on cable. The Wire, Flight of the Conchords, Damages, Low Winter Sun, Dig and Suits are among his credits.
Asking him the obligatory question about Suits – working with princess-to-be Meghan Markle, Costabile joked that he's one step away from being invited to the royal wedding.
"Over the course of the series, I've worked on 14 episodes. I keep in touch and there have been discussions about when and how I could come back," he says. "It's good to be on shows with no guns."
A shift in the type of characters that he portrays occurred with Damages, the legal thriller starring Glenn Close in which he played Detective Rick Messer.
"I got to play a bad guy in that, but before that I was always playing ineffectual bureaucrats. It was a great opportunity. Friends of mine, Glenn Kessler, Todd Kessler and Daniel Zelman, had created the show and they knew I could do this. Since then I've played primarily bad guys. It's cool as it helps you inhabit the role in a much bigger way."
It's been an interesting journey for someone who after graduating from Tufts University—where he originally met Koppelman-- started an outdoor Shakespeare theater company in Albany.
"I did that for five years and then toured regional theaters and went back to the grad school acting program at NYU," Costabile recalls.
His first legit role was in The Tempest with Patrick Stewart in 1995. By his count, he performed 675 times in Titanic as 1st Officer William Murdoch, who despite taking evasive action, crashed the doomed luxury ocean liner into the iceberg. "After working in theater and on Broadway, I started getting jobs on TV. I had also done a ton of commercials. I was every animal you could imagine."
Now that Wags' more bestial impulses have apparently been tamed – who can forget the tattoo on his hind side as a souvenir of a debauched night he couldn't even remember-- we will see him interact more with Siff's Wendy and with Axe's new anointed financial genius at the firm, Taylor Mason (Asia Kate Dillon).
"This season Taylor and I have had a lot more to do. It's been fun getting to know Asia, and seeing a different way Wags looks at someone at work. Primarily with the other traders, he's in an antagonistic relationship," Costabile says.
"With Taylor, there is a much higher game of chess being played. Because the complexity of the relationship deepens, to Taylor and to Axe and the company, I think the writing will reveal that it's not threatening to Wags, but will reveal in a deep way many more layers to him."
That's Wags for you. Unafraid to be exposed.
The third season of Billions premieres on Showtime March 25, 2018.
