Giancarlo Esposito: Moff Gideon Link To Darth Vader
The Mandalorian’s Giancarlo Esposito — a long-time Star Wars fan — drops some Dark Side deets in The Sydney Morning Herald….
I mean, it’s not like it’s a stretch. He wears black armor, flys a tie-fighter, and wields a lightsaber. So, when Giancarlo Esposito says there’s a connection between his character Moff Gideon and Darth Vader, well, we get it.
And so does Esposito, a self-professed Star Wars fan who is thrilled to be in the midst of all of the action in a galaxy far, far away.
However, firstly Michael Idato of The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) posted about Gideon’s connection to Grand Moff Tarkin.
From One Moff to Another
Idato wrote:
When he stepped into the black uniform boots of Moff Gideon, the last-remnants-of-the-Empire villain in the Star Wars television series The Mandalorian, actor Giancarlo Esposito turned his eye back to 1977, and actor Peter Cushing who played the similarly ranked Imperial bureaucrat Grand Moff Tarkin in the original film.
“Peter had a very aristocratic sense about him and I knew that because I knew his stature, who he is,” Esposito says. “I wanted to be more hands-on, I wanted to be someone who had the possibility of coming up through the military, who could use all the elements that he possessed to get what he needed, but he was also a warrior and a fighter, as well as a leader.”
Cushing’s Tarkin, who commanded the Empire’s greatest war machine, the Death Star, was a more establishment figure, says Esposito. “I admire him greatly [but] he played his Moff in a very different way than I’m playing mine, very tactical, very political,” he says. “I’m playing a guy who is trying to bring things together after the galaxy is completely dissolved and fallen apart.”
Yes, there is a whole lotta background on all of that in Idato’s interview, but without stealing his thunder, let’s just say that Esposito has been working himself into shape to play his character with a requisite physicality. And that included some work with a “broomstick” as he prepared to wield the Darksaber.
Men In Black
Then there is the aforementioned connection to Vader.
Idato added:
“And I like to think because I’m an old Star Wars fan that there’s some undeniable link possibly between him and Darth Vader,” Esposito adds. “I love Darth Vader’s performance, I love what [voice actor] James Earl Jones did with it. I love the formidable costume and armor that he had gave him a regal quality and I love that he was, in a way, anonymous.”
As the Dark Lord would say, “Impressive. Most impressive.”
