Better Call Saul’s Giancarlo Esposito is open to playing Marvel’s Professor X; however, he doesn’t want the character to use a wheelchair.
Speaking on the Fade to Black podcast, per IGN, Esposito said he’s interested in playing a version of Charles Xavier who doesn’t use a wheelchair.
“I go, ‘It would be great to play Professor X in some other incarnation than just the wheelchair,’ right?” Esposito said. “Because the physical idea of being in a wheelchair every single day does not appeal to me. I just don’t feel that old and I don’t like to sit that much. But certainly we could figure something out. Maybe. Professor X wasn’t always in the wheelchair, but that is part of his character development. I think about it a little bit, but I don’t give it all of my thought because it would have to come to me.”
Giancarlo Esposito has talked about wanting to play Professor X before
Esposito has expressed interest in playing Professor X before. Speaking at the TJH Superhero Car Show & Comic Con in San Antonio, Texas, in 2022, captured in a TikTok posted by coundownsitygeeks, the actor said, “I have not worked for Marvel yet. I’ve been in the room with them and talked to them. I’m gonna go for something that’s a little bit different. I’m gonna go and put it out in the universe that [I’d like to play] Professor X.”
Marvel Studios has not yet formally announced plans to introduce Professor X in an upcoming project; although, Patrick Stewart briefly played the Charles Xavier of Earth-838 in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Along with playing Gus Fring in Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, Esposito is also known for playing Stan Edgar in The Boys, Moff Gideon in The Mandalorian, and, most recently, Stanley Johnston in Netflix’s The Gentlemen. He’ll soon be seen in a number of 2024 movies, including Radio Silence’s Abigail, Ti West’s MaXXXine, Anthony and Joe Russo’s The Electric State, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis.
