Giancarlo Esposito is known for playing the villain. While his acting career has spanned decades, he became internationally infamous with his breakout performance as crime lord Gus Fring in Breaking Bad. Since then, he’s cemented his baddie credentials as Moff Gideon, the central antagonist of The Mandalorian. So it stands to reason that Esposito might be eager to play one of the good guys for a change, and he’s got his eye on one superhero role in particular: Professor X.
“I love what Marvel does,” he recently told Jimmy Fallon. “I love that the fans can see me in this universe… the biggest ask is Charles Xavier. Look, I want to play a good guy. And Charles is smart, he’s good. But I feel as if there may be some mileage with me and Marvel, I know I love what they do, I know I love creativity, so who knows what could happen, keep putting it out there.”
Now that the rights to the X-Men characters belong to Marvel Studios, it’s only a matter of time before we begin to see new versions of the mutant heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—and this isn’t the first time Esposito has been hinted at a possible role. During a live Q&A in 2022, he revealed that he has had conversations with Marvel, saying “there’s been talk of Magneto… there has been talk of Doom… and there is Professor X.”
Any potential X-Men reboot will be years away at this point, unless Marvel Studios plan to introduce the characters in other movies in Phase 5 of the MCU. In the meantime, Esposito will son be returning to a galaxy far, far away in the upcoming third season ofThe Mandalorian, and you can catch him right now in the chronologically confusing heist series Kaleidoscope on Netflix.
Philip Ellis is a freelance writer and journalist from the United Kingdom covering pop culture, relationships and LGBTQ+ issues. His work has appeared in GQ, Teen Vogue, Man Repeller and MTV.
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