Giancarlo Esposito - Breaking Bad

Giancarlo Esposito's Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul character Gus Fring is one of the most acclaimed villains of modern television, so it may be surprising to hear Esposito's inspiration for the character came from a classic television series. Esposito revealed his time on the cop drama Miami Vice certainly played a factor in creating Gus Fring, but it wasn't one of the characters he played on the former series that inspired him. Instead, Esposito said his inspiration came from a cop, specifically Edward James Olmos' Lt. Castillo:

He wasn't a guy that seemed like a stereotypical police captain who runs around yelling orders, telling people what to do. He was very laid back and very, very relaxed. And I wanted to take it even further. I wanted to make Gus more of an observer than anything else and I wanted to make him completely unreadable.... Only a little bit of twinkle in his eye or fear or 'What is this guy thinking?' from the audience standpoint, so that they were not really knowing what decision Gus might make.