Friday, March 18, 2016
AP Television Writer
NEW YORK
For years, David Costabile has flourished as a most-familiar unknown star, the sort of all-purpose actor you like and recognize but aren’t sure from where.
With a laugh, he recalls being accosted by a fan in a Pennsylvania shopping mall who blurted out, “Hey! Are you – Uh, do I – ? Do YOU know ME?”
Fans, new and old, are welcoming Costabile, 49, in his latest role as Mike “Wags” Wagner on the Showtime power-battle drama “Billions.” In this lively clash of a U.S. attorney (Paul Giamatti) and the hedge-fund titan he wants to take down, Costabile plays attack dog and consigliere to high-flying financier Bobby Axelrod (played by Damian Lewis).
“Bad idea,” jokes Axelrod as Wags assists in swapping out his dress shirt for an upcoming meeting. “No man is a hero to his valet.”
“That goes double for his COO,” Wags fires back in his clipped purr. “So you are [expletive] with me either way.”
On “Billions” (which airs Sundays at 10 p.m.), Wags Wagner is giving viewers one more dot to connect with the many characters Costabile has logged in the past, some so different it’s hard to remember they’re all him.
He was the stone-hearted managing editor on “The Wire” and a doofus, cuckolded husband on “Flight of the Conchords.” He was the fussy former law partner on “Suits” and the savage police detective on “Damages.”
On the movie screen, he played a pivotal U.S. congressman in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” and a pivotal CIA operative in the recent Michael Bay film, “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.”
Perhaps he is best remembered as Gale Boetticher, the dweebish, karaoke-fancying chemist who served as lab assistant to crystal-meth king Walter White on “Breaking Bad.”