Veteran actor and Emmy Award nominee Giancarlo Esposito, best known for playing Gus Fring in Breaking Bad and its spin-off Better Call Saul, thinks it’s time for a revolution.
Referring to the Trump administration and the brutality of federal immigration officers in cities like Minneapolis, the 67-year-old actor said, “This is time for a revolution—and they don’t even know that’s what they’re starting.”
“We have to stand up to it. They can’t take us all down. If the whole world showed up on Putin’s doorstep or the Iranians’ doorstep or in Washington, they’d kill 500 or 50 million or however [many], but the rest of us would survive with a new [world],” he added while speaking to Variety at the Sundance premiere of his new crime thriller The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.
Protests have only increased in Minneapolis in the wake of the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images
“Some very rich old white men are exerting their power to suppress our own people, thus creating a feeling of civil war in the streets, preparing the haters to hate, teaching them how to shoot,” Esposito noted.
“This is all a preparation for a very insidious problem that’s happening in our world. And for me, I have to speak out. We will not be ICE’d out. This is not going to happen.”
Esposito was one of a number of actors wearing “ICE Out” pins at the Sundance Film Festival, as was his co-star Tatiana Maslany. The pions were also on display at the Golden Globes, as well as pins that said “Be Good,” a reference to Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother of three killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.
Giancarlo Esposito is best known for playing Gus Fring in ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Better Call Saul.’ Rich Polk/Getty Images
Over 500 cities around the country have staged anti-ICE protests in the past month, many demonstrating in solidarity with the people of Minneapolis, where federal agents have fatally shot two U.S. citizens, Good and ICU nurse Alex Pretti. A coalition of activist groups has planned a national shutdown on Jan. 30 to protest ICE.
Tensions have flared over the issue of ICE funding in the wake of Good and Pretti’s deaths, with the threat of another government shutdown looming as Democrats demand changes to the DHS funding bill before they will pass it.
Reforms that Democrats are seeking include a ban on wearing masks, body camera and identification requirements, and a prohibition on ICE patrols.
Polls this week have shown President Donald Trump’s approval rating tanking, a reflection of the growing unpopularity of his immigration policies. The majority of Americans now feel that his anti-immigration crackdown has gone too far.
Trump responded to the growing backlash by sending border czar Tom Homan into Minneapolis in an attempt to “de-escalate” tensions, but still was not able to resist threatening Minneapolis officials on Wednesday.
“Surprisingly, Mayor Jacob Frey just stated that, ‘Minneapolis does not, and will not, enforce Federal Immigration Laws,’” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
“This is after having had a very good conversation with him. Could somebody in his inner sanctum please explain that this statement is a very serious violation of the Law, and that he is PLAYING WITH FIRE!”
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