By Variety | Created at 2026-08-12 17:56:21 | Updated at 2026-08-12 22:48:14
6 hours ago
A game popular in Colombia, a person’s nationality, an icon of the Virgin Mary, spoken mantras — it’s details like these that gave Emmy-nominated “Pluribus” star Carlos Manuel Vesga the foundation on which to build his character, Manousos.
Colombian star of TV, film and the stage, Vesga points out that Manousos is a Colombian immigrant living in Paraguay when the aliens join the entire world in one hive mind, aka “the joining,” and, like Carol (Rhea Seehorn), is one of 13 people in the world not joined. Also like Carol, Manousos is vehemently, almost violently, opposed to the hive mind — so much so that he rejects food and other comforts from them.
“He has gone through the process of leaving his home country, severing his roots, leaving behind his old identity, and trying to build another one, in a foreign, unknown land,” Vesga says. “I think that explains and informs a lot on why he reacts the way that he does toward the joining — he’s someone who has lost before, and now he goes, ‘You know what? Not again!’”
Manousos’ work ethic is also important to the character; it’s one that you see a lot in immigrants, he says.
The production department also helped with the details, including a popular Colombian game called frog in the storage facility office.
“They took the time and detail to build a frog game to put in Manus’ office, and they painted it with the Colombian flag,” Vesgas notes. “That’s how far they went. So when I walked on set, and I saw that, I can’t describe the feeling. I’m thousands of miles away from my home, and yet this makes me feel like I’m home.”
Though Manousos has a small Virgin Mary symbol hanging from his car’s mirror, Vesga doesn’t think he is religious; Catholicism is just part of who he is.
“I do think that this is a guy who can believe,” Vesga says. Manousos’ goal is to find Carol so they can save the world from the hive mind. “I think he has faith. In this case, he has faith in Carol. He totally believes that this woman out there in Albuquerque is the promised land, and
he trusts her so much that he goes through everything he goes through to get to Albuquerque.”
His journey to Carol is more like a pilgrimage. The determined and hyper-focused Manousos teaches himself English; the beginner phrases become mantras.
“I can imagine pilgrims in the Middle Ages reciting their mantras, repeating the rosary beads; it allows you to get into this trancelike state,” he says. Manousos keeps focus by repeating the beginner English phrases he is learning: “Monday is today, tomorrow will be Tuesday,” or “The yellow dog chases the gray cat” or “My name is Manousos Oviedo. I am not one of them. I wish to save the world.”
The filming locations also helped inform Vesga’s journey. “It was hard not to feel the solitude in those places. It was really impossible not to feel small and alone, and yet, at the same time, feel the vastness of the world,” he says.
Before Manousos embarks on the Darién Gap trail, the “others” come to warn him of its dangers, particularly the changa tree with its poisonous spikes. The production team researched the area, a treacherous pathway for immigrants trying to get to the U.S., creating a haunting start for Manousos. “They had used the images that they had researched from the Darién Gap, and how the trail is full of things that people leave behind,” Vesga says, noting the backpacks, clothes and, especially poignant, toys and children’s effects.
It’s foreshadowing for what befalls him on the trail. Vesga recalls his scream for a scene in which he is impaled on the tree spikes: “We did it several times, and every time I would scream, my scream would echo through the whole place.”
That echo underscores Manousos: he’s a loner, driven on a pilgrimage to save humanity.
