Jennifer Esposito’s rage at a ‘Harvey Weinstein-esque’ producer fueled ‘Fresh Kills’

Twenty-five years ago, Jennifer Esposito says, a producer nearly ended her career. I would never have wrote and directed what I just did, because, as I’ve said to a few people that know me well, ‘Fresh Kills,’ my film, was for the 26-year-old kid who got slaughtered.” “Fresh Kills,” which came out Friday, is Esposito’s feature-film directorial debut. Co-starring alongside Esposito are Emily Bader, Odessa A’zion, Domenick Lombardozzi and Annabella Sciorra — also a “Blue Bloods” alum. “I just always thought, ‘Why are they so angry?’ “But as I went through my life and I started to go into my career,” she continued, “that anger and that rage that I saw started to feel very familiar to me.” Not many people believed in “Fresh Kills” from the beginning, Esposito told KTLA, and several offered her money to step away from directing it. One review said it “stands tall alongside the best post-’Godfather’ gangster movies.” “These characters are touching people, male and female, in ways that are so beautiful to me,” Esposito said during her “She Pivots” episode.