Giancarlo Esposito Would Maybe Like To Take A Break From Blood-Curdling Bad Guys To Play A Certain Nice Marvel Superhero

Ever since nabbing the role of Gus Fring on Breaking Bad, Giancarlo Esposito has had a good thing going. A brilliant and diverse character actor (not to mention noted anti-anti-vaxxer), he’s been able to get steady work as terrifying, blood-curdling bad guys (including as Gus Fring again, on Better Call Saul). He’s been in talks with Marvel, where it’s assumed he’ll take on the role of some monstrous villain. But maybe he’d rather play one of the good guys for once.

As per The A.V. Club, Esposito attended the TJH Superhero Car Show & Comic Con in San Antonio this weekend, where he revealed he’s “been in a room and talked” with Marvel Studio honchos about joining up with the comics super-franchise, taking him from one wing of Disney (namely The Mandalorian) to another. He didn’t say which character he’s been floated, though there’s of course been lots of chatter: Magneto, Doctor Doom, Mr. Freeze.

But he said if he could choose any character, it would actually be one of Marvel’s most goodly superheroes: Professor X.

It’s true that Marvel has been recasting certain roles; take, for instance, their attempt to yet again reboot Fantastic Four, which may wipe out all memory of both the goofy aughts iteration with a pre-Cap Chris Evans. It’s also true that the actor who long embodied Professor X, Patrick Stewart, briefly returned in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

But could the guy who turned a fast food manager-cum-drug lord into one of television’s most vivid characters handle the wise head of the X-Men? Sure! As Fring, Esposito oozed calmness and authority. Imagine him using that for good rather than bad. Let the guy — who really broke through as the hyperactive loose cannon Buggin’ Out in Do the Right Thing, effectively the polar opposite of Gus Fring — play a nice guy again.

(Via The A.V. Club)

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