Jennifer Esposito Discusses Producer Abuse and New Murders

You all know I love to spotlight strong female voices that are truly badasses. You may recognize actress Jennifer Esposito from Law and order, Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam, Samantha Who?, NCIS, And Blue Blood.

But now she’s a quadruple threat: she wrote, directed, produced and starred in the recent film Fresh dead. Unlike typical mafia stories, this story follows the women of a family involved in organized crime.

Making this film required incredible creativity, but even more perseverance. Jennifer was relentless every step of the way.

I recently spoke with Jennifer about Fresh dead (which you can watch on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, or Vudu) and the long, bumpy road she took to bring it to life.

Katie Couric: You wrote, directed, co-produced, and starred in this film. What a Herculean task! Tell us about the genesis of this film.

Jennifer Esposito: It’s been a road. I grew up in families like this. Not my family, but I was friends with the young women from these families who had fathers involved in organized crime.

It was a very rough area, and more than the boys, the girls were really violent and had a lot of anger. That stuck with me: why were they so angry? And I thought, I think it’s because of what their families do. I would be angry too. Anyway, I left Staten Island and paid for my acting school by working as a waiter.

After working in Hollywood, I started to realize that there were certain rules for me, as a woman, that my male colleagues didn’t have to deal with. I had to ask myself, Was I sexy? Was I sweet enough? Did I say the right thing? Did I not say it right? How do I show up in the world? The anger and rage that I remembered from these young women from my childhood began to feel familiar, and I realized that (that anger) had nothing to do with their families. It had to do with choice — they had no choice in the world they were born into.

This film is placed in the mafia genre, but it really has nothing to do with the mafia. It’s about finding a voice in a world that tells you you don’t have one. It’s about breaking through generational trauma.

For the characters in the film, did you also draw characters from the girls and families you grew up with on Staten Island?

Yes and no. When you write, everything is a part of you. So I like to say that the character of Rose is who I really am, but Connie is who I had to become. But there are also pieces of Francine, the character I play, of someone I know. It’s a very personal film in that way.

The film has been described as a feminist take on the classic mafia film, as much of it is told from the perspective of Rose, the family’s youngest daughter. How did you come up with that angle when writing the film?

It came from a place where I wanted to have a voice in a world that I don’t think respects female voices enough. It came from a very personal place where for so long I was told who and what I was in my career and that it was somehow negative to be bold and go for what I wanted. But also, we never got to see the women speak in these mafia movies. We never really got to see what they have to say and what they’re thinking. Yeah, we saw bits of it, like in The Sopranosbrilliantly played by Edie Falco. But (that story) was never from her point of view. So if that Fresh dead a feminist take on the mafia genre, then that’s great.

It seems like this is also a natural progression for you to take more power in the filmmaking process. You recently talked about a horrible experience you had when you were 20 with a Harvey Weinstein-esque producer who wanted to ruin your career. Talk about your powerlessness. Can you share with us what happened?

It’s wild because even when you talk about it 20 years or so later, it’s still hard and very emotional. So after Summer of Sam with Spike Lee I was kind of shot out of a cannon and got a bunch of offers for really big movies. There was one in particular that I really wanted to work on, with this one director.

He was fighting with this notorious producer for the movie. And my agents warned me that this producer could make or break my career, so I better stay away from him. So, to make a very long story short, the director called me in and said, “(The producer) doesn’t want you here. But I want you here, so we’re going to fight, and it’s going to be okay.”

It wasn’t a sexual assault by the producer. But he would call my apartment at all hours of the day and make demands. And every other sentence was, “Well, if you don’t do this, you’re fired. Do you know I can destroy you?” (He) would yell at me. There were times when I wasn’t allowed anywhere near the set, and he would call me and say, “You have 20 minutes to get here.” So I almost felt unable to share my trauma, because it wasn’t sexual, but it was was Abuse. I finally had to understand that abuse is abuse.

When the producer got (the actress) he wanted, he fired me. I had never been fired before. Later, I had a big job and I got a call from the director of the previous movie. He said, “(The producer) is after you, so I want you to know that you need to call your agents and let them know what’s going on.” He had told the other studio not to hire me because I was a drug addict, even though I’d never done drugs in my life. Of course, I didn’t get the job — I was dumped by my management and agents. They said, “We can’t go up against him, even though we know (what happened) is not right.”

Have you ever given this person a name?

No. He had a breakdown a few years ago and someone I was close to through Time’s Up called me and said, “Jen, I think now is the time (to speak out).” But the trauma of telling my story brought back such a horrible time in my life. I was at a time when I was trying to raise money for Fresh deadand I thought, I won’t let this person touch my life anymore. I thought, He won’t touch something so beautiful. So I’ve been very careful not to say his name.

But I’m really grateful to him because without that abuse I would have had this different kind of career. And without that abuse I don’t think I would have ever done what I did. Without the strength to keep going I would have never done (Fresh Kills). And this is the moment when I am most proud of something I have ever done in my life.

It was fun to see Annabella Sciorra play your sister in the film. She had her own story of being abused and having her career derailed by Harvey Weinstein. Was that why it was important to cast her?

That was one of the reasons. First of all, Annabella is an extraordinary actress and someone I looked up to when I was coming up (in the industry). But I met her through Time’s Up and thought, We all want to help each other, so let’s hire someone awesome. She brings so much weight and complete authenticity to Fresh Kills that I’m so grateful for. She’s a powerful actress and no one deserves to lose their career. Not that I was doing her a favor — she was so gracious to come and do this. I think we both understood that we’re fighters. We’re not going to stop. She’s an Italian Brooklyn girl who knew this world. So her playing my sister was just a joy.

I was wondering how you practically pulled all this together: writing, producing, directing, getting the financing, and trying to get distribution. That’s what I meant when I said it was a Herculean task. You were offered $5 million to step aside and let a man direct, and you turned it down. Can you tell us a little bit about the blood, sweat, and tears that went into making that happen?

I don’t know how I’m still standing, to be honest. It’s been a lot. The writing process was one thing, because this is my first script. And then when I put it out and let people read it… it was really hard for people to take it seriously. And then when they did When I read it, they said, “This is really good,” but I don’t even know how many times I’ve had Zoom meetings where I’ve pitched the proposal and told people we need a certain amount of money, and the conversation always ends in a no.

On the last day, I was on a Zoom with four guys and literally one of them stopped and said, “You’re so passionate.” And I was like, I can’t do this anymore. Why are you talking about how passionate I am? You would never say that to a guest. I went to my husband and said, “I think I should mortgage the house because I can’t keep asking permission from people who can’t even see me.” And he said, “Go for it.” So I ended up mortgaged our house. Then there was a year of me trying to get the film into festivals and people said no again. Eventually, the film comes out and we’re at festival after festival. We’re winning awards and it’s amazing, but we’re still not getting distribution. It took a year to get distribution and then I pushed to get it to AMC and then we had no marketing money. So now I’m kind of a marketing genius.

Every time I show this film and speak at these screenings, and I’m with an audience, it renews my belief that I wasn’t wrong. People want real stories. They want a story that moves them, a story that matters. They want a story that make them feel something. This story is not about the mafia — it’s about a broken home. It’s also about a loving home. It’s about sisters, it’s about mother/daughter relationships and father/daughter relationships. It’s about finding your voice in a home that may not be the best for you.

I was just at a screening with a six-foot-tall ex-football player next to me. He was standing there with tears in his eyes, and he looked at me and said, “I can really identify with Rose.” That shows you that this is not a “girls'” movie. It’s a movie. I think people are hungry for human connection. They’re hungry for something more. And that’s what Fresh dead is.

When did you start writing?

Oh my God, it must have been at least 10 or 15 years ago. I got distracted and put it down, but about five years ago I felt so broken. I got so tired of hearing myself complain to agents, complain to managers, complain about where the industry was for women, complain about women’s rights and their voices and going to the marches, and nobody cared.

But then I thought, So what do you do? Stop waiting for someone to call you and tell you everything is fixed. Go do something. So I said to myself: I’m writing this and I’m not getting up until I finish it. And I did.

This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and clarity.