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Jon Favreau had a particular actor in mind when he wrote the role of Moff Gideon, the main antagonist of The Mandalorian who you should assume knows everything. He wanted Breaking Bad’s Gus Fring himself, Giancarlo Esposito.

“He didn’t audition,” co-star Emily Swallow revealed at a panel at GalaxyCon New Orleans 2025.

Favreau had previously worked with Esposito on The Jungle Book. When he came calling about The Mandalorian, they had bit of an Abbott and Costello 'Who's On First' misunderstanding.

“No, I didn't audition. I got a phone call from Jon Favreau,” Esposito says. "Well, I had worked with John before, and he said he wrote a role for me in this, and he said it's Moff Gideo,n and I said so I'm going to play a moth and he said, ‘no, Moff’”. We went back and forth on that for a while and had a good laugh. He basically said we don't have any money. And I said Jon, it's Disney. What are you talking about?"

He was confident Moff Gideon would return for more than one season.

"I'm always a high achiever," he says. "So if I do well, I figure they're going to put me in more."

Esposito said he didn't realize until season 2 that Moff Gideon was meant to be a Darth Vader type. 

That belated realization allowed him to present a fresher take on the antagonist, so Moff wasn't just a second Death Star-like Darth Vader clone.

"I have to say that it grew on me that my character was somewhat of a Darth Vader in some ways. And it didn't hit me until the second season, where I went, 'Duh,'" he said. "And I'm glad it didn't because I was trying to create something new and fresh for me. But he certainly encompassed that power and that essence. And I started out not having a helmet and then going, you know, growing into a helmet had me understand, okay, there's a reason for that helmet. And it was great for me to understand it in that way.

"As an actor, you try to, you know, pick the pieces of what the bigger picture is and honor it and try to fit into that story in a new way so that your audience has something new to look at and it doesn't feel as if you're recycling a character that's come before."

The Mandalorian & Grogu film is slated to be released in theaters by Disney in 2026.

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