Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing.
Breaking Bad star Giancarlo Esposito considered arranging his own murder when he went broke before landing his now-iconic role of Gus Fring.
Anyone familiar with Breaking Bad or its spin-off Better Call Saul will know of Gus Fring.
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Played brilliantly by Esposito, the character ran the Los Pollos Hermanos fast food restaurant, which earned him the nickname of The Chicken Man, and used it as a front to launder money for a huge drug operation.
Fring found a tough match in Walter White - but before all of that, Esposito was facing some struggles of his own.
The actor opened up about his life before Breaking Bad in an interview on the
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Jim and Sam Show this week to discuss his new series, Parish, which tells the story of a working class man haunted by the murder of his son.
Esposito recalled his own experience as an 'everyman', revealing his accountant at one point told him he had 'maybe about eight months' before he went bankrupt.
The actor, who also experienced a foreclosure on his home, said that at his lowest point in 2008, he considered ending his life in pursuit of a life insurance payout for his family.
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Discussing how he looked for a 'way out' of his financial troubles, Esposito recalled: “The first thing that had me think there was a way out, was my wife’s father — God rest his soul — Pops McManigal was in insurance.
"So I asked [my ex-wife], I started poking around [asking], ‘How much am I insured for?’ And then she told me.
"My way out, in my brain, was, I said, ‘Hey, do you get life insurance, if someone commits suicide, do they get the bread?’ And my wife said, 'Well, that’s kind of tricky'.”
From that point, Esposito said he 'started scheming' about having someone kill him.
“If I got somebody to knock me off, death through misadventure, they would get the insurance,” he said. “I had four kids. I wanted them to have a life. It was a hard moment in time.
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"I literally thought of self-annihilation so that they could survive. That’s how low I was.”
As he thought more about the idea, however, Esposito realized that he couldn't put his family through the pain of that loss.
He continued to say: “I started to think, that’s not viable because the pain I would cause them would be lifelong, and lifelong trauma that would just extend the generational trauma with which I’m trying to move away from.
"The light at the end of the tunnel was Breaking Bad. I had a few little things before to start to recover, but Breaking Bad was the light.”
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After appearing in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Esposito has since gone on to act in Euphoria, The Mandalorian and The Gentlemen.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in a mental health crisis, help is available through Mental Health America. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. You can also reach Crisis Text Line by texting MHA to 741741
Topics: Mental Health, Drugs, Crime, US News, Celebrity
Emily Brown