Giancarlo Esposito

Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito ([dʒaŋˈkarlo dʒuˈzɛppe alesˈsandro eˈspɔːzito]; born April 26, 1958) is an American actor and director. He is best known for portraying Gus Fring in the AMC crime drama series Breaking Bad, from 2009 to 2011, and in its prequel series Better Call Saul, from 2017 to 2022. For this role, he won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and earned three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.

Esposito's other television roles include Federal Agent Mike Giardello in the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street (1998–1999), Sidney Glass / Magic Mirror in the ABC supernatural drama series Once Upon a Time (2011–2017), Tom Neville in the NBC science-fiction series Revolution (2012–2014), Dr. Edward Ruskins in the Netflix comedy-drama series Dear White People (2017–2021), Stan Edgar in the Amazon Prime Video superhero drama series The Boys (2019–present) and The Boys Presents: Diabolical (2022–present), and Moff Gideon in the Disney+ space western drama series The Mandalorian (2019–present), the lattermost of which earned him two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He also portrayed American Baptist pastor and politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in the TV series Godfather of Harlem (2019–present). Esposito also voices Antón Castillo, the main antagonist of the video game Far Cry 6, who was modeled after Esposito's appearance. He was also included in the videogame Payday 2, as "The Dentist".

He is also known for his appearances in several Spike Lee films, such as School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990), and Malcolm X (1992). Esposito's other major films include Taps (1981), King of New York (1990), Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991), Fresh (1994), The Usual Suspects (1995), Ali (2001), Last Holiday (2006), Gospel Hill (2008), Rabbit Hole (2010), Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015), The Jungle Book (2016), Money Monster (2016), Okja (2017), Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018), and Stargirl (2020).

Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, the son of Giovanni "John" C. Esposito (1931–2002), an Italian stagehand and carpenter from Naples, and Elizabeth "Leesa" Foster (1926–2017), an African-American opera and nightclub singer from Alabama.

When Esposito was six, his family moved to Manhattan, New York City, United States. He attended Elizabeth Seton College in New York and earned a two-year degree in radio and television communications.

Esposito made his Broadway debut in 1968, playing an enslaved child opposite Shirley Jones in the short-lived musical Maggie Flynn (1968), set during the New York Draft Riots of 1863. He was also a member of the youthful cast of the Stephen Sondheim-Harold Prince collaboration Merrily We Roll Along, which closed with 16 performances and 56 previews in 1981.

During the 1980s, Esposito appeared in films such as Maximum Overdrive, King of New York, and Trading Places. He also performed in TV shows such as Miami Vice and Spenser: For Hire. He played J. C. Pierce, a cadet in the 1981 movie Taps.

In 1988, he landed his breakout role as the leader ("Dean Big Brother Almighty") of the black fraternity "Gamma Phi Gamma" in director Spike Lee's film School Daze, exploring color relations at black colleges. Over the next four years, Esposito and Lee collaborated on three other movies: Do the Right Thing, Mo' Better Blues, and Malcolm X. During the 1990s, Esposito appeared in the acclaimed indie films Night on Earth, Fresh and Smoke, as well as its sequel Blue in the Face. He also appeared in the mainstream films Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man with Mickey Rourke, Reckless with Mia Farrow, and Waiting to Exhale starring Whitney Houston and Angela Bassett. In 1995, Esposito was featured in a music video "California" by French superstar Mylene Farmer, directed by Abel Ferrara.

Esposito played FBI agent Mike Giardello on the TV crime drama Homicide: Life on the Street. That role drew from both his African-American and Italian ancestry. He played this character during the show's seventh and final season, and reprised the role for its 2000 made-for-TV movie. He had another multiracial role as Sergeant Paul Gigante in the television comedy, Bakersfield P.D.

In 1997, Esposito played the film roles of Darryl in Trouble on the Corner and Charlie Dunt in Nothing to Lose. Other TV credits include NYPD Blue, Law & Order, The Practice, New York Undercover, and Fallen Angels: Fearless.

Esposito has portrayed drug dealers (Fresh, Breaking Bad, King of New York, Better Call Saul), policemen (The Usual Suspects, Derailed), political radicals (Bob Roberts, Do the Right Thing), and a demonic version of the Greek God of Sleep Hypnos from another dimension (Monkeybone). In 2001, he played Cassius Marcellus Clay, Sr. in Ali, and Miguel Algarín, friend and collaborator of Nuyorican poet Miguel Piñero, in Piñero.

In 2002, Esposito was cast as a legal eagle in the David E. Kelley television drama Girls Club. Although the series only lasted one season, and did not garner generally positive reviews, it represented a personal turning point for Esposito, who relayed to The Washington Post: "I started to play bosses. And I realized, 'Oh, okay, this is an opportunity.' It was really a great opening for me to show who I really was. And it's kept going like that."

In 2005, Esposito played an unsympathetic detective named Esposito in the film Hate Crime, which centers upon homophobia as a theme.

In 2006, Esposito starred in Last Holiday as Senator Dillings, alongside Queen Latifah and Timothy Hutton. Esposito played Robert Fuentes, a Miami businessman with shady connections, on the UPN television series South Beach. He appeared in New Amsterdam and CSI: Miami. In Feel the Noise (2007), he played ex-musician Roberto, the Puerto Rican father of Omarion Grandberry's character, aspiring rap star "Rob". In 2008, he made his directorial debut with Gospel Hill, serving also as producer and star of the film.

New York theater credits for Esposito include The Me Nobody Knows, Lost in the Stars, Seesaw, and Merrily We Roll Along. In 2008, he appeared on Broadway as Gooper in an African-American production of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Debbie Allen and starring James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, and Terrence Howard.

From 2009 to 2011, Esposito appeared in seasons 2 through 4 of the AMC drama Breaking Bad, as Gus Fring, the head of a New Mexico-based methamphetamine drug ring. In the fourth season, he was the show's primary antagonist, and won critical acclaim for this role. He won the Best Supporting Actor in a Drama award at the 2012 Critics' Choice Television Awards and was nominated for an Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series award at the 2012 Primetime Emmy Awards, but lost to co-star Aaron Paul.

Esposito appeared in the film Rabbit Hole (2010). He also appeared in the first season of the ABC program Once Upon a Time, which debuted in October 2011. He portrayed the split role of Sidney Glass, a reporter for The Daily Mirror in the town of Storybrooke, Maine, who is really a genie trapped in the Magic Mirror, possessed by The Evil Queen in a parallel fairy tale world. Esposito would periodically reprise the role in later seasons as a guest star. Esposito appeared in Revolution as Major Tom Neville, a central character who kills Ben Matheson in the pilot. He escorts a captured Danny to the capital Philadelphia of the Monroe Republic.

Esposito also appeared in Community as a guest star for the episode titled "Digital Estate Planning". He performed again in the fourth season, in the episode titled "Paranormal Parentage". Esposito has additionally appeared in a video of the action role-playing sci-fi first-person shooter game Destiny, as well as plays The Dentist, a non-playable story character, in the game Payday 2.

He has joined the DC Universe Animated Original Movies series. He played Ra's al Ghul in Son of Batman and Eric Needham / Black Spider in Batman: Assault on Arkham. He also had a recurring role in the first season of The Get Down on Netflix. In 2017, Esposito reprised his role as Gus Fring in the Breaking Bad prequel series, Better Call Saul. In 2019, he appeared in the first-season finale of The Boys as Stan Edgar, and reprised the role in the second and third season.

In 2016, Esposito voiced Akela in the film The Jungle Book, which was directed by Jon Favreau. Esposito and Favreau would work together once again in the Disney+ series The Mandalorian in which Esposito appears in a starring role, while Favreau acts as an executive producer for the series and as its writer. He plays the role of New York congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in the 2019 Epix series Godfather of Harlem.

In July 2020, Esposito began teasing his role in "a huge video game". His role was later revealed as the main antagonist of Ubisoft's Far Cry 6, in which he would portray and voice Anton Castillo, the dictatorial ruler of Yara.

Esposito was married to Joy McManigal. They have four daughters. They subsequently divorced.

He was raised Catholic and considered becoming a priest.

Key

Denotes works that have not yet been released

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1970	Et Salammbo?	Voice	Short
1979	Running	Puerto Rican Teenager
	Tutti a squola
1980	The Changeling	Extra
1981	Taps	Cadet Captain JC Pierce
1983	Trading Places	Cellmate #2
	Enormous Changes at the Last Minute	Julio
1984	The Brother from Another Planet	Man Getting Arrested
	The Cotton Club	Bumpy Hood
	Go Tell It on the Mountain	Elisha
1985	Desperately Seeking Susan	Street Vendor
1986	Maximum Overdrive	Videoplayer
1987	Sweet Lorraine	Howie
	Heartbeat	Gang Member #1	Video
1988	School Daze	Julian
1989	Do the Right Thing	Buggin' Out
1990	King of New York	Lance
	Mo' Better Blues	Left Hand Lacey
1991	Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man	Jimmy Jiles
	Night on Earth	YoYo
1992	Bob Roberts	John Alijah "Bugs" Raplin
	Malcolm X	Thomas Hagan
1993	Amos & Andrew	Reverend Fenton Brunch
	Seven Songs for Malcolm X	Autobiography Reading	Documentary Voice
1994	Fresh	Esteban
	Benders	Jack
1995	The Usual Suspects	Jack Baer
	Smoke	OTB Man #1, Tommy Finelli
	Blue in the Face	Tommy Finelli
	Reckless	Tim Timko
	The Keeper	Paul Lamont
	Klash	Stoney
	Waiting to Exhale	David Matthews
1997	The Maze	Henry Kunitz
	Nothing to Lose	Charlie Dunt
	Loose Women	Stylist #2
	Trouble on the Corner	Darryl
	Big City Blues	Georgie
	The People	Anthony Rivera
1998	Twilight	Reuben Escobar
	Phoenix	Louie
	Where's Marlowe?	Blind Man
	Stardust	Mr. Peavy
2001	Josephine	Spike
	Monkeybone	Hypnos
	Piñero	Miguel Algarín
	Ali	Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr.
2003	Ash Tuesday	Karl
	Blind Horizon	JC Reynolds
2004	Noise	Hank
	Doing Hard Time	Captain Pierce	Video
	A Killer Within	Vargas
2005	Hate Crime	Det. Esposito
	Chupacabra: Dark Seas	Dr. Peña	Video
	I Will Avenge You, Iago!	Director
	Back in the Day	Benson Copper
	Carlito's Way: Rise to Power	Little Jeff	Video
	Derailed	Detective Franklin Church
2006	Last Holiday	Senator Dillings
	Sherrybaby	Parole Officer Hernandez
	Rain	Ken Arnold
2007	Racing Daylight	Fred / Drifter
	The Box	Detective Dwayne Burkhalter
	Feel the Noise	Roberto
	Mano	Nino	Short
2008	Gospel Hill	Dr. Palmer	Also director
2010	Rabbit Hole	Auggie
2011	S.W.A.T.: Firefight	Inspector Hollander	Video
	Dreaming American	Daytona LeMans	Short
	Certainty	Father Heery
2012	Alex Cross	Daramus Holiday
2013	They Die by Dawn	Isom Dart	Short
2014	Son of Batman	Ra's al Ghul	Video Voice
	Batman: Assault on Arkham	Eric Needham / Black Spider	Video Voice
	Poker Night	Bernard
2015	Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials	Jorge
	I Did Not Forget You	Dr. Sabian	Short
2016	The Pills – Sempre meglio che lavorare	Bangla Boss
	The Jungle Book	Akela	Voice
	Money Monster	Captain Marcus Powell
	Brother Nature	Congressman Frank McClaren
2017	The Show	Mason Washington	Also director
	Stuck	Lloyd
	Okja	Frank Dawson
	MFKZ	Mr. K	Voice
2018	Maze Runner: The Death Cure	Jorge
2019	Coda	Paul
	Pet Peeves with Giancarlo Esposito and Gus Fring	Himself / Gustavo Fring	Video short
	Line of Duty	Tom Volk
2020	Stargirl	Archie Brubaker
	For NYC		Short
	Unpregnant	Bob
2022	Beauty	Beauty's Father
TBA	The Long Home	William Tell Oliver	Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1981	The Gentleman Bandit	Jamie	Television film
1982	Another World	Willie Armstrong	Episode: "Episode #1.4498"
1982–1983	Guiding Light	Clay Tynan	Regular cast
1982–1984	Sesame Street	Mickey	7 episodes
1984–1985	Miami Vice	Luther / Ricky / Adonis Jackson	3 episodes
1985	CBS Schoolbreak Special	Kyle	Episode: "The Exchange Student"
	Finnegan Begin Again	Intruder	Television film
1985–1986	American Playhouse	Elisha / Simon Fernandes	2 episodes
1986	Rockabye	Marcus	Television film
	The Equalizer	Jumpin' Jack	Episode: "The Line"
1987	Spenser: For Hire	Ramos	Episode: "On the Night He Was Betrayed"
	Leg Work	Tyson	Episode: "Blind Trust"
1990	Lifestories	Julio	Episode: "Jerry Forchette"
1993	Relentless: Mind of a Killer	Arthur Sistrunk	Television film
	The American Experience	Dr. Kenneth Clark	Episode: "Simple Justice"
1993–1994	Bakersfield P.D.	Detective Paul Gigante	17 episodes
1995	New York Undercover	Adolfo Guzman	3 episodes
	Fallen Angels	Paris Minton	Episode: "Fearless"
1996	Chicago Hope	Cherchez LaFemme	Episode: "Right to Life"
	Swift Justice	Andrew Coffin	3 episodes
	Living Single	Jackson Turner	Episode: "Kiss of the Spider Man"
	Law & Order	Mr. Baylor	Episode: "Good Girl"
	The Tomorrow Man	Jonathan Driscoll	Television film
1996–1998	NYPD Blue	Ferdinand Hollie / Jamaal	2 episodes
1996–1999	Nash Bridges	Arnold / Gordon Keller / Whip Tyrell	2 episodes
1997	Five Desperate Hours	Joseph Grange	Television film
1998	The Hunger	Vampire	Episode: "Fly-By-Night"
	Creature	Lt. Thomas Peniston / Werewolf	Miniseries
	Naked City: Justice with a Bullet	Chaz Villanueva	Television film
	Thirst	Dr. Lawrence Carver	Television film
1998–1999	Homicide: Life on the Street	Federal Agent Mike Giardello	22 episodes
2000	Homicide: The Movie	Officer Mike Giardello	Television film
	Touched by an Angel	Antonio	Episode: "Here I Am"
2000–2001	The $treet	Tom Divack	12 episodes
2001	Strong Medicine	James 'Junior' Bell	Episode: "Mortality"
	100 Centre Street	Jacob Lenz	Episode: "Andromeda and the Monster"
2002	The Practice	Ray McMurphy	Episode: "Pro Se"
	Third Watch	Father Romero	Episode: "The Unforgiven"
	A Nero Wolfe Mystery	Ambassador Theodore Kelefy	Episode: "Immune to Murder"
	Girls Club	Nicholas Hahn	9 episodes
2003	The Division	Dr. Pembroke	Episode: "Wish You Were Here"
	Lucky	Lord Marion	Episode: "The Method"
	Street Time	Jesse Haslim	Episode: "Brothers"
2004	Half & Half	Darrell Washington	Episode: "The Big Employee Benefits Episode"
	Soul Food	Jules	2 episodes
	5ive Days to Midnight	Tim Sanders	5 episodes
	NYPD 2069	Lt Garner	Television film
2004–2005	Law & Order	Rodney Fallon	3 episodes
2005	Law & Order: Trial by Jury	Orlando Ramirez	Episode: "Boys Will Be Boys"
2006	South Beach	Robert Fuentes	8 episodes
	Ghost Whisperer	Ely Fisher	Episode: "Fury"
	Bones	Richard Benoit	Episode: "The Man in the Morgue"
	Dr. Vegas		Episode: "For Love or Money"
	Las Vegas	Reggie Archibald	Episode: "White Christmas"
2006–2008	CSI: Miami	Chief Braga	2 episodes
2007	Kidnapped	Vance	2 episodes
2008	New Amsterdam	Special Agent James Lawson	Episode: "Legacy"
	Xenophobia	Young	Television film
2009–2011	Breaking Bad	Gustavo Fring	26 episodes
2010	Leverage	Alexander Moto	Episode: "The Scheherazade Job"
	Lie to Me	Beau Hackman	Episode: "Black and White"
	Detroit 1-8-7	Eddie Henderson	Episode: "Shelter"
2011	Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior	Gordon Ramirez	Episode: "The Time is Now"
2011–2017	Once Upon a Time	Sidney Glass / Magic Mirror	14 episodes
2012	NYC 22	Harvey Williams	2 episodes
2012–2013	Community	Gilbert Lawson	2 episodes
2012–2014	Revolution	Lt. Tom Neville	42 episodes
2013	Over / Under	Oliver Ohrt	Television film
	Revolution: Enemies of the State	Lt. Tom Neville	Miniseries
	Axe Cop	Army Chihuahua	Episode: "Night Mission: Stealing Friends Back" Voice
	Timms Valley	Pruit Normings	Unsold TV pilot Voice
2014	30 for 30	Narrator	Episode: "Requiem for the Big East" Voice
2015	Allegiance	Oscar Christoph	7 episodes
	Drunk History	Andrés Pico	Episode: "Los Angeles"
2016–2017	The Get Down	Pastor Ramon Cruz	10 episodes
2017	Rebel	Charles Gold	4 episodes
2017–2019	Dear White People	Dr. Edward Ruskins / The Narrator	23 episodes
2017–22	Better Call Saul	Gustavo Fring	26 episodes Director (Episode: "Axe and Grind")
2018	Westworld	El Lazo / Robert Ford	Episode: "Reunion"
	Dallas & Robo	Victor Goldsmith	5 episodes Voice
2019	Jett	Charlie Baudelaire	9 episodes
	Creepshow	Doc	Episode: "Gray Matter"
2019–present	Harley Quinn	Lex Luthor	4 episodes Voice
	The Boys	Stan Edgar, Voice of Meerkat Stan Edgar	13 episodes
	The Mandalorian	Moff Gideon	7 episodes
	Godfather of Harlem	Adam Clayton Powell Jr.	17 episodes
2020	Home Movie: The Princess Bride	The Grandfather	Episode: "Life Is Pain"
2020–2021	DuckTales	Phantom Blot	3 episodes Voice
2022	The Boys Presents: Diabolical	Stan Edgar	Episode: "One Plus One Equals Two" Voice
2023	The Driver	Vince
TBA	Jigsaw	Leo Pap	Main cast

Video games

Other work