"To be a character actor is to be open, to be a chameleon."
Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito (born April 26, 1958) is an Americannote actor of part Italian, part African-American descent.
He has been active in film and television since the age of six. He's been seen in films such as Do the Right Thing, The Usual Suspects, Malcolm X, Maximum Overdrive, Trading Places and King of New York. He is also a familar face on television with regular and recurring roles on Homicide: Life on the Street, Once Upon a Time and Revolution, and in 2019 joined the Star Wars franchise as former Imperial Security Bureau Moff Gideon on The Mandalorian. He is perhaps best known for his critically acclaimed portrayal of Chilean-American drug kingpin Gustavo 'Gus' Fring on the hit series Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.
He has four daughters with his ex-wife, Joy McManigal.
Film Roles
- 1981 Taps as Cadet Captain J.C. Pierce
- 1983 Trading Places as Cellmate
- 1984 The Cotton Club as Bumpy Hood
- 1985 Desperately Seeking Susan as Street Vendor
- 1986 Maximum Overdrive as Videoplayer
- 1988 School Daze 1988 as Julian
- 1989 Do the Right Thing as Buggin' Out
- 1990 King of New York as Lance
- 1990 Mo' Better Blues as Left Hand Lacey
- 1992 Bob Roberts as John Alijah "Bugs" Raplin
- 1992 Malcolm X as Thomas Hayer
- 1994 Fresh as Esteban
- 1995 The Usual Suspects as Jack Baer
- 1995 Waiting to Exhale as David Matthews
- 1997 Nothing to Lose as Charlie Dunt
- 2001 Monkeybone as Hypnos
- 2001 Ali as Cassius Marcellus Clay, Sr.
- 2005 Derailed as Detective Franklin Church
- 2006 Last Holiday as Senator Dillings
- 2006 Sherry Baby as Parole Officer Hernandez
- 2007 The Box as Detective Dwayne Burkhalter
- 2010 Leverage - "The Scheherazade Job" as Alexander Moto
- 2012 Alex Cross as Daramus Holiday
- 2014 Son of Batman as Ra's Al Ghul
- 2014 Batman: Assault on Arkham as Black Spider
- 2014 Poker Night as Detective Bernard
- 2016 The Jungle Book as Akela
- 2017 This Is Your Death as Mason Washington
- 2019 Coda as Paul
- 2023 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem as Baxter Stockman
- 2024 Abigail
- 2024: Maxxxine
Television Roles
- 1982 Sesame Street as Mickey
- 1998–1999 Homicide: Life on the Street as FBI Agent Mike Giardello
- 2000–2001 The $treet as Tom Divack
- 2003 Street Time as Jesse Haslim
- 1996–2005 Law & Order as Mr. Baylor and Rodney Fallon
- Gustavo "Gus" Fring
- 2009–2011 Breaking Bad
- 2017–2022 Better Call Saul
- 2011–2014 Once Upon a Time as Sidney Glass/Magic Mirror/Genie of Agrabah
- 2012–2013 Community as Gilbert Lawson
- 2012–2014 Revolution as Tom Neville
- 2013 Axe Cop as Army Chihuahua
- 2016–2017 The Get Down as Ramón Cruz
- 2017–present Dear White People as Narrator
- 2018 Westworld as El Lazo II.
- 2019 Creepshow as Doc in "Gray Matter"
- 2019 Godfather of Harlem as Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
- 2019–present The Boys as Stan Edgar
- 2019–present Star Wars: The Mandalorian as Moff Gideon
- 2019 Harley Quinn as Lex Luthor
- 2020 Duck Tales as The Phantom Blot
- 2020 Home Movie: The Princess Bride as The Grandfather
- 2022 Cyberpunk: Edgerunners as Faraday
- 2023 Kaleidoscope as Leo Pap
Video Game Roles
- 2014 PAYDAY 2 as The Dentist, a contractor for the gang.
- 2021 Far Cry 6 as "El Presidente" Anton Castillo, dictator of the island country of Yara.
Tropes, or Lies?
- Irony as She Is Cast: Esposito, who is half-Italian, plays characters in Do the Right Thing and Godfather of Harlem who are incredibly hostile towards Italians.
- Playing Against Type: Baxter Stockman in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. While Stockman in most adaptations is a villainous Mad Scientist, and the Stockman in Mutant Mayhem is indirectly responsible for the main villains of the movie, he's more or less a good person, as well as less physically imposing or dominating than Esposito's usual roles.
- Plays Great Ethnics: His earlier roles has him usually playing Black guys, while his later ones (especially after Breaking Bad) are usually Hispanic. He is half-Black and half-Italian.
- "Sesame Street" Cred: By way of
Retroactive Recognition. - Star-Making Role: His role as Gustavo Fring, the terrifyingly cold and efficient leader of a drug smuggling operation from Breaking Bad more or less made him a household name, and he has reappeared in similar roles since.
- The Stoic: His intense, ominous, blank stare is famous for being able to terrify other characters and the audience. It's practically his signature move (one Far Cry 6 used in its advertising)
- Tranquil Fury: The unflappability of his characters is practically a trademark in itself, with many of his characters becoming calmer the angrier they get. And, in the event that he does snap, then you know that the feces has officially impacted the air circulator.
- Typecasting: Ever since Breaking Bad he seems to take a lot of roles where he's some sort of stoic criminal mastermind or Evil Overlord. And if it's a work with superpowers involved, he'll almost always play the Badass Normal.
- In PAYDAY 2 his role is literally just an Expy of Gus Fring, only he runs a legitimate dentist business as his front for criminal activity, instead of being a fast food chain owner.
- The Mandalorian has him basically playing Gus Fring as an Expy of Grand Moff Tarkin, albeit more unhinged and with a little Darth Vader thrown in for good measure.
- In Far Cry 6 his role as Anton Castillo, "El Presidente" of a Cuba Expy, the tropical island of Yara. He evokes Gus Fring as he seeks to cement "paradise" in his country via a brutal dictatorship involving creating and selling an anti-cancer drug on the global market and using the enslaved population to help create it, naturally inviting resistance from local guerilla forces. Even the advertisements of Far Cry 6 lampshaded this, by making note of his long list of villains that he portrayed and centering the entire appeal of the game around fighting him.
- Giancarlo voices Lex Luthor in Harley Quinn, though unlike the other roles above, he's more Affably Evil with a cool demeanor, rather than outright calm and calculating at all times.
- Vought CEO Stan Edgar is very much an expy of Lex Luthor, who can intimidate Homelander and his superteam like children.
- In Duck Tales, he voices the Phantom Blot.
- A variant in Okja: he's an intelligent and suave Corrupt Corporate Executive, but as The Dragon to Nancy Mirando, quietly working against her sister Lucy.
- The corpo Faraday in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a fixer who hands out jobs to various gangs across Night City who are willing to make some cash, but everything he does is to climb his way up the corporate ladder. He's as much of a greedy backstabbing Big Bad as you would expect in a series that hammers home the troubles of runaway corpo-capitalism.
