Giancarlo Esposito on playing the villain — and what ‘Star Wars’ teaches about choice

Giancarlo Esposito has made a name for himself as a villain.

To clarify, he isn’t actually one — in real life, he’s vibrant and empathetic. But he’s been acting since age 8 and is best known for his sinister roles in “Breaking Bad,” “The Boys,” Star Wars and Marvel.

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He spoke with the Deseret News on Friday at FanX, Utah’s largest pop culture convention. The actor is a regular at conventions across the globe, and he keeps coming back because he enjoys talking to fans and hearing their stories.

Despite his characters’ villainous reputations, Esposito wants to help people choose the lighter side of life. He said that’s why he likes coming to conventions.

“I’m able to impart my experience of choosing to be happy, choosing to be a child again, and having fun,” he told the Deseret News. “My favorite thing is to come to see people in what I coin as wonder, enchantment and joy.”

Esposito described the thousands of fans dressed in handmade costumes who come for the weekend and then go back to desk jobs on Monday.

“They do cosplay and they get out of their own way to be able to have fun,” he said. “They recapture a little bit of the child in them, the childlike wonder that they always had.”

The magic of a galaxy far, far away

Esposito’s daughter once told him no one really feels anything these days. An event like FanX — an explosion of color and costume, bonding and geeking out — is something you can’t help but feel deeply. Esposito celebrates it.

The actor is in several beloved franchises with devoted fanbases. But when asked who the most passionate people he meets are, he said “Star Wars” fans really stand out. (Esposito played Moff Gideon in “The Mandalorian,” the franchise’s first live-action series.)

“It’s a very complicated show with a lot of different characters and a lot of different scenarios that take place within the storyline, and the ‘Star Wars’ fans really have a knowledge of it that’s unsurpassed,” he said. “It’s like knowing a history book and telling you a story of the ancient Egyptians.”

Some fan interactions can be strange. Esposito said some blur the line between the actor and the characters he plays — a few fans have even asked Esposito to physically harm them.

But Esposito doesn’t begrudge the parasocial relationships; he understands where they’re coming from.

“They’ve had a relationship with me that I don’t know about,” he said. “It is a little weird, but you’re in people’s living rooms. They see you all the time. They start to figure out and think that you are someone other than you are.”

Esposito said fan conventions allow people to show their “best selves.”

“Everyone has a depth to them … an originality that the world needs,” he said. “It’s just a matter of them understanding what that is and how that can flower within them.”

50 years of ‘Star Wars’

Dominic Jensen has been a fan of “Star Wars” since he saw the first movie in theaters in 1977. He came to FanX dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi in a costume he made himself with old bedsheets and looked so much like Alec Guinness that he was constantly stopped for photos.

Jensen said the franchise’s longevity is largely due to the simple fact that the films are fun — space Westerns with cool effects. But the message of heroism also resonates with people.

“It’s been five decades and it still endures,” Jensen said. “Every once in a while, it just touches somebody and they just light up.”

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Esposito and two other “Star Wars” actors spoke at a panel at FanX on Saturday afternoon and referenced the franchise’s upcoming 50th anniversary.

They also spoke to upcoming projects. Sam Witwer — who voiced Darth Maul and other characters in “The Clone Wars” and other “Star Wars” projects — will be in Season 2 of “Maul — Shadow Lord,” which is expected to premiere next year. Matthew Wood, who voiced General Grievous in “Revenge of the Sith,” is working as a sound editor on the upcoming “Star Wars: Starfighter,” which will be released in early 2027.

“It’s thrilling,” Wood said. “I think everyone’s gonna love it.”

The power of choice in ‘Star Wars’

Speaking at a “Star Wars” TV panel at FanX on Saturday afternoon, Witwer summed up the franchise in one word.

“At the end of the day, ‘Star Wars’ is all about choices,” Witwer said.

The hero’s journey taken by both Luke and Anakin Skywalker, Witwer said, exemplifies the power of making good decisions and following the right path.

Esposito said something similar when speaking with the Deseret News the day before.

“Just as Grimm’s fairy tales were written to be frightening and dark and light, (‘Star Wars’) was meant to represent a mythology that teaches us how to live, that we can make a choice,” he said.

Esposito’s character is associated with that mythology’s Dark Side, a path dominated by fear, anger and hate.

“That to me resembles life and the subtle choices that we may make to be happy, to be sad, to deal and look at our anxiousness,” Esposito said. “These are all attitudes psychologically that we take on without even knowing it.

“This show teaches us if we can recognize ourselves in any of these characters, then we can know more about who we are and what choice we may have made without even knowing it. And then we can change that.”

Esposito is somewhat of an authority on choosing to be good. When he plays a ruthless drug kingpin or imperial warlord, he has to get into the character’s mindset. After the cameras stop rolling, he turns to meditation to shed that character. We all wear masks, he said, but we’re truly “spiritual beings.”

“The strongest thing inside of us is intuition and spirit,” he said. “I fight my demons every day, too. That’s the gig, right?”

A poor choice can make you feel stuck and unhappy in your life, but Esposito believes we each have the power to act.

“You think you’re stuck there forever. You’re not,” he said. “It’s every moment, every hour, every day, every month, every year that we work to realize our dreams and our happiness.”

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