Star Wars: The Mandalorian Star Giancarlo Esposito Sheds Light on the Mysterious Moff Gideon

The Mandalorian star Giancarlo Esposito, who will soon debut in the Star Wars universe as Moff Gideon, describes his mysterious character as a morally ambiguous warden who is “here to create order” in a lawless galaxy. Esposito appears to hint Gideon has ties to the First Order, the military junta that emerged out of the remnants of the Galactic Empire after the events of Return of the Jedi. Series creator Jon Favreau previously hinted The Mandalorian would explore the origins of the villainous organization eventually ruled by Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) before it was commanded by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), who is out to forge a new galactic empire in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

“Well, I’m not [allowed], and they’ll slap my hand,” Esposito said when asked to describe his Mandalorian character at German Comic Con Dortmund. “I got a call from Jon saying, ‘Would you do this? We have no money.’ [Laughs] It’s like, ‘Jon, what am I gonna say to you? I like you, you’re a friend.’ He says, ‘We just don’t have any money.’ I said, ‘But you’ve got a lot of money!’ Because when you see this show … the special effects cost a lot to make.”

A Moff is “like a warden,” Esposito explained, “and the universe has completely fallen apart and it’s fallen on its face, and we have all these very different groups of people who need to be governed somehow.”

Enter Gideon, who is “a person that you don’t know much about yet.”

“He seems to know everything, and no one knows why he knows everything, but he’s just one of the wardens of a certain area of territory that’s been given to him. That’s what we know right now,” he said. “We don’t quite know whether he’s good or bad, but we do know that people want order. Like children, they need order in their day. They need to be able to know what they’re gonna do or have an idea of what that is, and to go through their day knowing that they have some kind of order, some kind of regimen. And so Moff Gideon is here to create order again.”

Gideon’s true loyalties won’t be immediately understood, however.

“Is he on the good side or the bad side? We don’t know,” Esposito added. “But we do know he’s a powerful guy who knows what he’s doing.”

Episode 6 of The Mandalorian premieres Friday on Disney+. Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.