Recently, Giancarlo Esposito took some time to answer questions from fans on X, Reddit, and Quora for British GQ. A fan asked if there would be more of Gus Fring in a prequel spinoff series during this session. The actor said:
“Yeah, I would love that too.”
Both ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Better Call Saul’ have hinted at a complex backstory for Gus, but they’ve left a lot to the imagination. So, Esposito shared his own thoughts on his past:
“My backstory is he was a military guy who worked his way up through the ranks and could have become president, ‘el jefe,’ ‘el presidente,’ even possibly the dictator and have taken over.”
This was, of course, before Gus came to the US. The actor continued:
“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.”
He also suggested a possible name for the project:
“But I think, you know, in his younger years, he was someone who could have been more Tony Montana. But he worked his way into becoming level enough to listen, hear and see through his emotional state. We would hope that it might be ‘The Rise of Gus.’”
A New Spinoff Isn’t Likely To Happen
There are a few problems with bringing Giancarlo Esposito’s idea to the screen.
A season 4 episode of ‘Breaking Bad’ gave a glimpse into Gus’s life back in 1989 and his relationship with his business partner Max Arciniega. Creating a show about his life before that period would mean casting a much younger actor, as Esposito is now 65.
Also, ‘Breaking Bad’ creator Vince Gilligan wants to move on from the universe for now. He explained during AMC’s virtual TCA panel in 2022:
“You can’t keep putting all your money on red 21. I feel like we probably pushed it doing a spinoff to Breaking Bad [but] I could not be more happy with the results. Then I did [‘Breaking Bad’ movie] ‘El Camino,’ and I’m very proud of that too. But I think I’m starting to sense you’ve got to know when to leave the party, you don’t want to be the guy with a lampshade on your head.”
Gilligan added:
“I don’t have any plans right now to do anything more in this universe. I know I probably gave the same answer at the end of Breaking Bad. I gotta prove to myself that I got something else in me. I’m not a one-trick pony, that’s what I’m hoping.”
Watch Esposito’s Q&A video below.
