Star Wars: Giancarlo Esposito Compares His The Mandalorian Villain to Breaking Bad’s Gus Fring

Actor Giancarlo Esposito manages to inject both sophistication and malevolence into the characters he plays, with fans largely considering his Breaking Bad character Gus Fring to be his most iconic, though the actor points out that there are key differences between that figure and the one he plays in The Mandalorian, Moff Gideon. As evidenced in both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Fring pulls strings and schemes to accomplish what he wants, while Gideon himself has no fear of doing his own dirty work. The first season of The Mandalorian is now streaming on Disney+ and the second season is set to debut this fall.

“Moff is very different from Gus Fring, he wields his own darksaber,” Esposito shared with Variety. “He does his own dirty work and he’s certainly willing to. He’s much more volatile, he’s much more of the warrior, and that could tell us some things about him next season. Where is he really from? I’ve been asked all these questions. Is he a former Mando? Is he this, is he that? So all of these interesting things will want to come out. I love this show and it is the ultimate space Western, you’ve never seen anything like it.”

Gideon may have only appeared in the final few episodes of Mandalorian, but he made a major impact on our hero’s trajectory, while one of the last moments of the series finale saw him wielding the mythical “Darksaber,” a powerful relic that first appeared in Star Wars animation. As he cut himself free from the wreckage of a TIE, it was clear that this was no standard saber, with the actor also teasing how carried away he got with it while shooting Season Two.

“I’ve gone through two, three? Three and a half, I think I’ve broken already,” the actor admitted. “But I go at it. Like, I go at it. I’ve broken a few of them to the point where the [prop] guys, they love me. ‘Just so you know,’ they whisper to me, ‘We only have one more.’”

Stay tuned for details on Season Two of The Mandalorian. In the meantime, you can get new episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars every Friday on Disney+.

Which of the actor’s characters do you prefer, Gideon or Gus Fring? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!