Giancarlo Esposito considered arranging his own murder to improve his family’s financial situation.
The actor — who has four daughters with ex-wife Joy McManigal — was close to bankruptcy in 2008, around a year before he landed his role of drug lord Gus Fring in “Breaking Bad.” He admitted things got so desperate, he began plotting his own death so his loved ones would benefit from the money they’d receive from his life insurance.
“My way out in my brain was: ‘Hey, do you get life insurance if someone commits suicide? Do they get the bread?’” the “Mandalorian” actor recalled.
“My wife had no idea why I was asking this stuff. I started scheming. If I got somebody to knock me off, death by misadventure, [my kids] would get the insurance,” Esposito said.
“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,” he said on SiriusXM’s “Jim + Sam.”
The Malcolm X actor ultimately knew any financial hardship wouldn’t be as bad as leaving his family with the “lifelong trauma” that his death would cause.
“That was the first inkling that there was a way out, but I wouldn’t be here to be available to my kids,” Esposito stated.
“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’,” he added.
The Do The Right Thing star admitted earlier this year he’d love to reprise his role as Gus — who he portrayed in 26 episodes of “Breaking Bad” and 34 installments of the prequel series “Better Call Saul” — for a spin-off of his own.
“Yeah, I would love that. 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,” Esposito suggested.
“But he wanted to do something that could not be controlled by others, and he wanted to control his own destiny,” the actor continued. “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. 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,’” he told Britain GQ.
If you or someone you know needs help, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 (TALK) or text or call the Suicide & Crisis Hotline at 988.
