Hollywood star Giancarlo Esposito has revealed he was once so broke prior to being cast in the hit series Breaking Bad that he contemplated plotting his own death to get his family an insurance payout.

Esposito spoke about his difficult personal period in a recent interview on the SiriusXM show “Jim & Sam.”

The actor said his financial problems became dire a year before being cast as Gustavo Fring on Breaking Bad. When asked how he pulled himself out of near-bankruptcy, he said he asked his wife, whose father was in the insurance industry, if  there is a payout if someone commits suicide.

“She had no idea why I was asking her this stuff,” Esposito said. “I started scheming — if I got somebody to knock me off, death through misadventure, they would get the insurance. I had four kids. I wanted them to have a life.”

“I literally thought of self-annihilation so they could survive. That’s how low I was.”

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He added: “The light at the end of the tunnel was Breaking Bad.”

The hit AMC series ran for five seasons beginning in 2008. Esposito joined the show in its second season and became a regular cast member.

Esposito also recounted the story in a recent interview with Vulture, saying he had overspent in order to “keep up with the Joneses,” leading him to declare bankruptcy.

“I didn’t talk about this for years and years for fear of how it might look or sound, what my tragic story could have been, what the triumph of that story would have been beyond the grave after I annihilated myself,” he told the outlet.

Giancarlo Esposito had already established himself as a bankable character actor prior to Breaking Bad. He had prominent roles in the Spike Lee movies School Daze, Do the Right Thing, and Malcolm X. He also landed supporting roles in King of New York, The Usual Suspects, and Ali.

Esposito is currently starring in the new AMC series Parish. He also has a role in Francis Ford Coppola’s upcoming movie Megalopolis, which will debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

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