It's Friday, you've earned a little baseless speculation about Giancarlo Esposito being in the MCU
Esposito says his upcoming MCU role is "better than you can imagine" and coming "sooner than you think"
Giancarlo Esposito isn’t shy when it comes to talking up his own potential superhero roles—memorably telling a con crowd back in 2022 that he was putting the fervently fan-endorsed idea of himself playing Professor X for the Marvel Cinematic Universe “out in the universe.” (Meanwhile, looking back at that story, we’re mostly struck by how long Disney has let that particular branch of casting remain as a question mark at this point.) Now, the former Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul star has confirmed that he’ll soon be making his entrance into the MCU, but not as Charles Xavier—and “sooner than you think.”
Esposito (who most recently appeared in AMC TV series Parish, and co-stars in Abigail, currently in theaters) was speaking at CCXP in Mexico City, per Collider, when he waded into spoiler-adjacent territory. Shooting down the idea of playing Professor X, Esposito hyped up the part he will be playing, saying it was “better than you can imagine.”
I cannot promise you it’ll be Professor X, because here’s what I think. I think that there’s something about being original. We’ve seen different versions of Professor X. Wouldn’t you like to see me play a character in a Marvel movie who is original, and new, and fresh? So, mark my words: This will happen sooner than you think.
This, in case you were wondering, is why “Galactus” has been trending on social media tonight; while the world-devouring Fantastic Four frenemy has appeared in films before, it was as a big, evil cloud of stuff, not as a meaty character role, so it’s easy to see why people might be speculating in that direction. (Unless we take Esposito’s comments completely at face value, and he’s playing a genuinely new character not taken from the comic books, Phil Coulson style. But what’s the fun in speculating about that?) The “unexpected” element probably rules out a couple of good villain picks, since fans have been tossing Esposito around as a good Magneto or Doctor Doom for years. But why stop there? There are a lot of great comic book characters still untapped that Esposito could sink his teeth into—off the top of our heads, there’s Marvel’s resident devil Mephisto, or the demon king Belasco, or X-Men villain Mister Sinister, and yes, we know, Esposito can play good guys too. But, c’mon, it’s Friday night, we can all admit it: Giancarlo Esposito as Mister Sinister, we know we want to see it.