During a recent appearance on SiriusXM’s Jim & Sam show, actor Giancarlo Esposito revealed that before he landed his iconic role in Breaking Bad, he was so broke to the extent that he once contemplated planning his murder so his kids could get his life insurance money.
According to Variety, that thought came into the 65-year-old’s head sometime in 2008, but his life changed for the better as he shot into the limelight the following year – thanks to the television series. Esposito became a popular face for his portrayal of the antagonist Gustavo “Gus” Fring in Breaking Bad.
Esposito touched on arranging his murder when he was asked about how he bounced back after almost becoming bankrupt. “My way out in my brain was: ‘Hey, do you get life insurance if someone commits suicide? Do they get the bread?’ My wife had no idea why I was asking this stuff,” he revealed.
“I started scheming. If I got somebody to knock me off, death by misadventure, [my kids] would get the insurance. I had four kids. I wanted them to have a life. It was a hard moment in time. I literally thought of self-annihilation so they could survive. That’s how low I was.”
The actor, however, stated that he also thought about how his death would affect his children. “That was the first inkling that there was a way out, but I wouldn’t be here to be available to my kids,” he continued.
“Then I started to think that’s not viable because the pain I would cause them would be lifelong, and there’d be lifelong trauma that would just extend the generational trauma I’m trying to move away from. The light at the end of the tunnel was ‘Breaking Bad.’”
Esposito landed roles in Breaking Bad as well as its Better Call Saul prequel series. In a previous interview with British GQ, he also expressed his interest in appearing in another prequel series based on his character.
“Yeah, I would love that,” he said. “My backstory is he was a military guy who worked his way up through the ranks and could have become president, even possibly the dictator and have taken over. But he wanted to do something that could not be controlled by others, and he wanted to control his own destiny. And so he took off to create a new life for himself in America and become a meth dealer, a businessman.”
“I think, in his younger years, he was someone who could have been more Tony Montana,” Esposito added. “But he worked his way into becoming level enough to listen, hear, and see through his emotional state. We would hope that it might be ‘The Rise of Gus.’”
