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Better Call Saul " star Giancarlo Esposito "would consider" playing Gus Fring again in a spinoff. - In an interview with Insider, Esposito said he feels like there's room to explore Gus' roots.
"Better Call Saul" is premiering its final season later this month on
Giancarlo Esposito, who plays antagonist Gus Fring, told Insider during a conversation about the show's return that series' creator Vince Gilligan has hinted that he may have more in store for the kingpin's background story.
"The last days [on set of 'Better Call Saul'], I'm tearing up and looking over my shoulder and I hear Vince say, 'You never know,'" Esposito said of the potential for Fring's story to carry on in another possible spinoff. "And so, I've always wanted, and felt like, there's room for material for the rise of Gus. I feel like it'd be interesting to know where he came from."
He added: "I feel like he came from a really wealthy family, had the opportunity to run, not only the family, but government in another country. He had that kind of brain, that charisma, that stature, and he traded it in because he wanted to be his own man. There's something fascinating to me about that."
That small bit of information might be more than we've learned about the character's backstory across "Breaking Bad," which ran for five seasons from 2008 through 2013 on AMC, and "Better Call Saul," in which there have been vague hints about the Los Pollos Hermanos cofounder's mysterious background.
We know that Fring had a romantic and business partner in Maximino Arciniega and that the latter was killed by Hector Salamanca, starting the bitter rivalry between the two that we see play out across the two series.
Gus has also said he's from Chile and he's been called the "generalissimo," a vague nod to some political ties we never learn much more about.
After the iconic death of his character at the end of "Breaking Bad," in which his face gets half blown off, Esposito said he felt he was done playing Gus Fring, telling Insider, "I'm not coming back. It's enough. I've done an exemplary job in my book. There's no chance that I would return to any show doing Gus. And then, here we go with 'Better Call Saul' and I found a new way to mine new material in sort of portraying him."
Esposito is probably one of the most in-demand talents right now, working on a number of projects.
He currently stars as another antagonist on "The Mandalorian," Moff Gideon. He also appears on Amazon's "The Boys." Additionally, Esposito told us he just wrapped another unnamed
But Esposito tells Insider he'd be more than open to revisiting this character another time if the story allows him to peel back some more layers to the complicated and calculating "Chicken Man," as he's been dubbed, and explore Gus' origin story.
"I would consider and think about that particular scenario because I think it's another moral tale that allows us to view into humanity and into how we push our humanity aside and to be demonstrative and to say who we are and we lose everything in the process, because we know where Gus ends," Esposito added of what would attract him to returning to play this character one more time. "We don't know where he began."
The final season of "Better Call Saul" premieres on AMC and AMC+ on Monday, April 18.