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Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito (born April 26, 1958) is a Danish-born American film and television actor and director best known for his roles in such films as The Usual Suspects and School Daze and as Gus Fring on the AMC series Breaking Bad. Esposito was born in Copenhagen, Denmark to an Italian father and African-American mother. His mother was an opera and nightclub singer from Alabama, who once appeared on the same bill as Josephine Baker. His father was from Naples, and worked as a stagehand and carpenter. Esposito lived in Europe and New York until the family settled in... MORE

Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito (born April 26, 1958) is a Danish-born American film and television actor and director best known for his roles in such films as The Usual Suspects and School Daze and as Gus Fring on the AMC series Breaking Bad. Esposito was born in Copenhagen, Denmark to an Italian father and African-American mother. His mother was an opera and nightclub singer from Alabama, who once appeared on the same bill as Josephine Baker. His father was from Naples, and worked as a stagehand and carpenter. Esposito lived in Europe and New York until the family settled in Manhattan when he was six. Esposito made his Broadway debut (1966) at age eight playing a slave child opposite Shirley Jones in the short-lived Maggie Flynn. He did not take offense at the play's racial politics then; he was thrilled. "I had a solo and everything." During the 1980s Esposito appeared in small roles in films such as Maximum Overdrive, King of New York, and Trading Places and TV shows such as Miami Vice and Spenser: For Hire. He played J.C. Pierce, a cadet in the 1981 movie Taps. In 1988 he landed his breakout role as the leader ('Dean Big Brother Almighty') of the black fraternity LESS