Giancarlo Esposito Was So Broke Before ‘Breaking Bad’ That He Considered Arranging His Own Murder So His Kids Could Get His Life Insurance Money

Paul Auster, the celebrated author of nearly three-dozen books — including Winter Journal, Sunset Park, Invisible, The Book of Illusions and The New York Trilogy — screenwriter on Wayne Wang’s Smoke and director of Lulu on the Bridge, has died. His friend, Jacki Lyden, confirmed the news to the New York Times. Auster was 77.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Francis Ford Coppola revealed in a preview of “Megalopolis” in Vanity Fair that he rewrote the script around 300 times before self-financing the passion project for $120 million by selling part of his winery estate in Northern California. The epic is set to world premiere in competition at the Cannes FIlm Festival in May. A first look photo from “Megalopolis” has debuted featuring Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel in their leading roles.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Ethan Hawke was nominated at the 2002 Oscars for best supporting actor for his performance in Antoine Fuqua’s crime thriller “Training Day.” He lost the prize to Jim Broadbent (“Iris”), but he immediately got some much-needed perspective from his “Training Day” co-star Denzel Washington, who happened to win the Oscar that same night for best actor. During a recent interview on Max’s “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” series, the host asked Hawke about a story he heard in which Washington leaned over to Hawke after the latter’s Oscar loss and whispered in his ear: “It’s better that you didn’t win. Losing was better.” “You don’t want an award to improve your status.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Pauly Shore wrote on Instagram that he was “up all night crying” after Richard Simmons continued to publicly distance himself from the biopic on his life that Shore is attached to star in. Furthermore, Simmons revealed on his social media platforms that he’s talking to film studios about making his own biopic. “I just read that a man that I don’t know is writing my bio pic starring Pauly Shore,” Simmons posted earlier this week.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Melanie Lynskey recently told People magazine that her husband and fellow actor Jason Ritter has sacrificed his own career in recent years so that hers could flourish. Lynskey has been on a roll lately with an Emmy-nominated and series regular role on Showtime’s “Yellowjackets,” plus acclaimed supporting turns in “The Last of Us,” “Candy” and more. None of this career success would be possible had Ritter not put his own acting career on pause to help raise their five-year-old daughter while Lynskey took acting gigs.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Robert Downey Jr. elated Marvel fans earlier this month when he told Esquire magazine that he would “happily” return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Tony Stark/Iron Man following his Oscar win for best supporting actor in March.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Angelina Jolie‘s scrapped “Cleopatra” movie was part romance epic and part “political thriller with assassinations and sex,” according to the movie’s original screenwriter Brian Helgeland. The Oscar-winning actor was set to play the Egyptian queen in a tentpole for Sony Pictures that once courted director David Fincher to helm. It never got off the ground.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Patrick Warburton has voiced Joe Swanson on “Family Guy” since the show’s first season 25 years ago, but the role has never exactly gotten his family’s seal of approval. During a recent PaleyFest LA event celebrating “Family Guy’s” 25th anniversary (via People magazine), Warburton revealed that his parents hate the Seth MacFarlane-created animated comedy and their disdain for the show went so far that Warburton’s mom once tried to get “Family Guy” canceled. “They hate the show even more today than they did 25 years ago,” Warburton said.

Breaking Bad, he once considered arranging his own murder so his kids could inherit his life insurance.The actor shared his story on a recent episode of SiriusXM’s Jim & Sam show while promoting his new AMC drama series Parish.Esposito considered arranging his own murder in 2008, a year before he landed the iconic role of Gus Fring on Breaking Bad, a part that inextricably changed his career and opened the door for roles in The Mandalorian, The Boys and more.Asked how he narrowly avoided bankruptcy in 2008, Esposito said: “My way out in my brain was: ‘Hey, do you get life insurance if someone commits suicide? Do they get the bread?’ My wife had no idea why I was asking this stuff. I started scheming.“If I got somebody to knock me off, death by misadventure, [my kids] would get the insurance.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Mad Max” fans know that topping “Fury Road” is most likely an impossible task, but it sounds like the upcoming prequel “Furiosa” has a few action-packed tricks up its sleeve to deliver the goods. Speaking to Total Film magazine, director George Miller’s longtime producing partner Doug Mitchell let it slip that “Furiosa” contains “one 15-minute sequence which took us 78 days to shoot” and required 200 stunt people on set daily.

Giancarlo Esposito may be a big star now, but times were so tough in the aughts that he considered committing insurance fraud to help pay the bills.

Giancarlo Esposito says that he was so broke at one point in his career that he considered committing insurance fraud to make sure his kids were taken care of financially.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Olivia Williams has given acclaimed performances in “Rushmore,” “The Sixth Sense” and “An Education.” She recently appeared as Camilla Parker Bowles in the final two seasons of Netflix’s popular drama series “The Crown.” But for many people, the British actor will always be Felicity from the Season 4 finale of “Friends.” Williams once called guest starring on the NBC sitcom “harrowing,” and she recently opened up to The Independent about the reasons why it wasn’t the best experience in a recent interview. “Gosh. Well, just as an example, I was taken to the studio in a shared car with a wonderful actress whose character, I think, was called ‘Old Woman’,” Williams said, noting this actor was “distinguished” and “very good” but “at one point, a producer – who shall remain nameless – just yelled at her: ‘You’re not funny!’ And she didn’t come back the next day.

There’s at least one extended scene from AMC‘s Parish that didn’t make it into the final cut of the series.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Daniel Radcliffe was treated to an unexpected moment during an appearance on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast alongside his “Merrily We Roll Along” co-stars Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez. Podcast host Josh Horowitz played a clip from his Alan Rickman interview in 2016, which Radcliffe had never seen before. Rickman and Radcliffe were co-stars for a decade in the “Harry Potter” film series.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jonathan Nolan appeared on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast to tout his latest television series, Prime Video’s “Fallout,” but the conversation touched on Nolan’s time co-writing Batman movies with his brother, Christopher Nolan. The siblings share screenwriting credit on 2008’s “The Dark Knight” and 2012’s “The Dark Knight Rises.” Jonathan admitted that he was pushing for the Riddler to be the primary villain of “Rises” and not Bane, which is what Christopher and David S. Goyer were planning.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Zendaya was already a big star when she was cast as MJ in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, starting with 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” By that point in her career she had already amassed a huge following as the star of two Disney Channel hits, “Shake It Up” and “K.C. Undercover,” plus popped up in Beyonce’s “Lemonade” film and was a runner-up on “Dancing With the Stars.” None of that apparently registered for “Spider-Man” producer Amy Pascal. “To be honest with you, neither [Marvel Studios president] Kevin Feige nor I knew who she was,” Pascal admitted in Vogue magazine as part of its Zendaya cover story.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Zendaya‘s most prolific roles to date in HBO’s “Euphoria,” which won her two Emmys for outstanding lead actress in a drama series, and three of Marvel’s “Spider-Man” films have something in common: High school. But she’s leaving the classroom behind for her new film, Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers,” which casts Zendaya as a tennis phenom and finds her at one point during the movie playing a mother in her early 30s. “I’m always in a high school somewhere,” Zendaya recently told Vogue magazine about her career thus far.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jonathan Nolan said during a recent interview on the “Armchair Expert” podcast with Dax Shepard that it took some convincing to get his brother, Christopher Nolan, to agree to direct “The Dark Knight.” The filmmaker had already hit a superhero movie slam dunk with “Batman Begins” and was hesitant to make another comic book movie because he didn’t want his career getting pigeonholed. “I worked on ‘Batman Begins’ in this slightly arm’s length capacity, but it was the one comic book my brother ever given me as a kid, ‘Batman: Year One,’ for my 14th birthday, and 10 years later I was on the set working with him,” Jonathan said, remembering thinking “this is nuts.” “Chris was on the fence about making another one,” Jonathan continued, noting that Chris went straight from “Batman Begins” into helming the magician thriller “The Prestige.” “He didn’t want to become a superhero movie director.” Jonathan said that Chris was “very proud” of “Batman Begins,” but “to me, it was like we built this amazing sports car, and I’m like, ‘Let’s take it for a drive.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Robert Downey Jr. is not closing the door on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which he kicked off in 2008 with “Iron Man” and headlined for 11 years through 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame.” Iron Man met his demise in that tentpole, but that has never stopped rumors from circulating that Marvel is trying to bring Downey back into the fold, especially now that the MCU has hit a box office rough patch with 2023 flops such as “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “The Marvels.” Certainly, Downey’s return as Iron Man could restore Marvel to its blockbuster glory days. Speaking to Esquire magazine after his Oscar win for “Oppenheimer” last month, Downey was asked if he would ever return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe now that he is officially an Academy Award winner.