Spoiler alert! This story discusses Pluribus through Episode 7, “The Gap,” which can be streamed with an Apple TV+ subscription.
Likely one of the more thought-provoking TV premieres of 2025, Pluribus has quickly become one of the best shows to watch on Apple TV+, as it reunites Vince Gilligan with Better Call Saul breakout star Rhea Seehorn. CinemaBlend sat down with Carlos-Manuel Vesga — aka Manousos, who’s in competition with Seehorn’s Carol for the title of most miserable person on Earth — to talk about that dog food scene, and let’s just say I’m not any less nauseous now that I’ve heard what he was really eating.
In Pluribus, Manousos has Carol beat when it comes to stubbornness, refusing to communicate with the Others or accept help of any kind. This leads to him scavenging for food in storage units in the episode “Please, Carol,” and digging into cans of dog food when resources run scarce. CinemaBlend’s Nick Venable just had to know what Carlos-Manuel Vesga what was really eating, and the actor's response didn't disappoint:
It was dog food. No, I'm kidding. [Laughs.] No, it was haggis. Scottish thing. And they mixed it, because Vince thought that just plain haggis looked dry, they made it — I want to say creamier, but that's a nice word — with broth, like very thick broth. They were all so nice, like saying, 'You don't have to eat that much.' I remember Vince saying, 'We're going to shoot this part again, but you don't have to eat it.' And I was like, 'Hey, don't worry. It's fine.’
My sincerest apologies to those who enjoy haggis, but I’m not sure that sounds much better than canned dog food. Haggis is a pudding of sheep’s organs like hearts, livers and lungs that’s mixed with oats and other spices and cooked either inside an animal’s stomach or an artificial casing.
Carlos-Manuel Vesga was such a good sport, eating more of the haggis than Vince Gilligan required, which may have turned out to be a mistake. The actor said:
My only problem is that I've had too much of it. I mean, at some point it was like four cans that I had already swallowed and all that. It wasn't about the taste, it was about the feeling of just being full and just maybe needing to go to the bathroom or do something about it.
Four cans of anything is a lot, but when we’re talking this organ meat in gravy, made to resemble dog food, that is such a commitment to the job. However, the actor insists it really wasn’t as bad as it sounds, continuing:
Really, it looked worse than it tasted. It was really acting. I didn't have to eat something that was really gross, that tasted gross. I mean, I know the appearance is not that nice, but to the Scottish nation: haggis is not that bad, really. It's OK. Not for everyone, but, you know, I could do with a plate of haggis, really.
It turns out that as Manousos becomes a bigger part of the series — particularly in “The Gap,” in which he treks from Paraguay through the Durién Gap en route to Carol in New Mexico — eating all that haggis wasn’t the only sacrifice Carlos-Manuel Vesga made in the name of Pluribus.
Of course the actor wasn’t made to siphon actual gasoline as his character made the trek north through South America. But in this case it wasn’t the liquid substitute that was used, but rather the means of getting it through the tube that is making me a little green. Vesga recalled:
I don't remember what it was. It was maybe some tea or something. But they needed it to flow as I was siphoning, right? And to get the liquid to go through the hose, they needed someone on the other end to be blowing it in. So somebody had it in their mouth and [blew out] through the hose, and I would receive that liquid. And I remember him telling me, ‘I washed my mouth today. Don't worry, everything's clean.’ [Laughs.] Not for squeamish persons, I don't think.
Indeed. Thank goodness they clarified that they had washed their mouth. Otherwise that would have been disgusting (she says sarcastically while gagging a little).
For all of the organ meat and tea being shot from someone else’s mouth, Carlos-Manuel Vesga was possibly more affected by the philosophical challenge offered by Pluribus, as he told us he hadn’t realized how dialogue-free the role was. He auditioned with a scene that wasn’t part of the script, so when he actually read what his part entailed, he was a bit thrown by the role being so physical, as in slight and specific eye movements, etc. He recalled telling the showrunner that, too, saying:
I remember telling Vince — just a month ago, we got to talk about it — I said, 'You know what I realized? Months after we'd shot everything and we were finished shooting, I realized that I actually couldn't get to set with anything prepared. I couldn't rehearse anything, because I didn't know the blocking, I didn't know the geography of the space. I didn't know the choreography that you guys had in mind. So I could only intellectualize what I read.' Like, OK, so he licks the can, and he eats the dog food and all that. But I couldn't really rehearse anything.
That sounds pretty unnerving, because he wasn't able to get comfortable ahead of time with the specific movements required. He continued:
That for an actor, at least for me, to get to set without having a solid ground or a structure of what's going on, like a music sheet prepared, that was nerve-wracking. Actually, I remember telling Vince, and he turned around and said, 'You must have been very nervous.' And I said, 'You can bet your bottom dollar that I was. That was a nerve wrack, really.'
Spoken like a true professional, that feeling unprepared for a dialogue-free scene would cause more discomfort than eating four cans of haggis — or at least a different kind of discomfort.
Pluribus has gotten off to a strong start, as Apple TV+ recently announced it has become its most-watched original series. It’s definitely earned it, in my opinion, with parallels to be drawn between Rhea Seehorn’s Carol and Breaking Bad’s Heisenberg, the inclusion of one fantastic John Cena cameo and how it inspires questions like, “How does sex with the Others work?”
Be sure to tune in for the final episodes, which drop Fridays on Apple TV+.
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