Giancarlo Esposito took on the role of a clever and calculating businessman in Breaking Bad Gustavo Fring and was also seen in the spin-off Better Call Saul as the villain. However, before the actor took on his role on the hit series, he found himself in a precarious position.
As he revealed on The Jim & Sam Show (via Variety), he stood due to the economic crisis in 2008 on the verge of bankruptcywhich drove him to consider fatal measures.
Breaking Bad villain Giancarlo Esposito almost ended his life to save his children from ruin
Giancarlo Esposito explained in an interview that he was thinking about arranging his own death so that his children would be covered by the insurance payment:
In my head the path was: ‘Hey, Does life insurance pay if someone commits suicide? Do they get the share?’ My wife had no idea why I asked these things. I started planning. If I could get someone to kill me, death by accident, my children would get the insurance. I had four children. I wanted them to have a life. It was a difficult time. I thought about self-extinction so they can survive. I had fallen so far.
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Giancarlo Esposito in Breaking Bad, The Mandalorian and The Boys
Breaking Bad saved Giancarlo Esposito from his terrible situation: Now he is a sought-after Hollywood star
Ultimately, Giancarlo Esposito decided against this plan because he thought about the psychological wounds it would inflict on his children. Breaking Bad ultimately saved him, as the actor explains:
That was the first inkling that there might be a way out of it, but then I wouldn’t be there for my children. I started to think that it wouldn’t be profitable because the pain I would cause them would be lifelong and that would result in lifelong trauma that would only add to the intergenerational trauma I was trying to move on from. The light at the end of the tunnel was Breaking Bad.
Giancarlo Esposito landed his role on Breaking Bad about a year later and played Gustavo Fring on the hit series for three seasons before appearing in another three seasons of the prequel Better Call Saul. Gustavo Fring paved the way for Esposito to take on other larger series roles. He was in the Star Wars series, among other things The Mandalorian and the dark superhero story The Boys to see.