Giancarlo Esposito Says Before ‘Breaking Bad,’ He Once Considered Planning His Own Murder To Help Family Amid Financial Struggles

Breaking Bad star Giancarlo Esposito is opening up about the financial struggles and mental challenges he faced before finding success in Hollywood. As he sat down for an interview on SiriusXM’s Jim & Sam show, Esposito said he considered taking his own life amid his struggles. The 65-year-old star said it was 2008 when he talked to his wife about making sure their kids have life insurance if he dies.

“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,” Esposito said. “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.”

In the end, however, Esposito said he realized his children can’t afford to live without him.

“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,” he said. “The light at the end of the tunnel was Breaking Bad.”

Esposito landed the life-changing role on Breaking Bad in 2009, Bossip reported. The father-of-four rose to fame as he played Gus Fring, one of the antagonists on Breaking Bad. He also reprised the role on Better Call Saul, the prequel series. Esposito has since appeared in several other popular shows, including The Boys, Godfather of Harlem and The Mandalorian. 

As part of a feature he did with British Vogue earlier this year, Esposito answered fans’ questions and revealed that he would like to play as Gus once again in a prequel series.

“My backstory is he was a military guy who worked his way up through the ranks and could have become president,” Esposito told British Vogue as he talked about his character. “But he wanted to do something that could not be controlled by others, and he wanted to control his own destiny. So he took off to create a new life for himself in America and become a meth dealer, a businessman.”

Esposito is now on a press run for Parish, his new AMC series. The show revolves around a taxi driver whose life turns upside down after transporting a gangster who exploits undocumented immigrants.

Looking back at his start with Breaking Bad, Esposito remains grateful for how the show changed his life.

“This was the first step to my empowerment because it wasn’t about the money. Yeah, I was broke, I was bankrupt, all these things,” he said, per The Wrap. “It was really about me finding my own strength to know that I could create my own projects. That was the beginning of Parish, to be honest with you.”

Check out Esposito’s full interview on SiriusXM’s Jim & Sam below!