C2E2 2021: Giancarlo Esposito talks 'controlling the chaos' as Vought CEO on 'The Boys'

You haven't seen the last of Stan Edgar. Not by a long shot! Appearing at C2E2 on Sunday for a spotlight panel centered around his prolific career in film and television, actor Giancarlo Esposito teased the future of Vought's cunning and confident CEO in Season 3 of The Boys, which is expected to arrive on Amazon Prime Video sometime next year.

"I had some really great moments," he said of the character's limited screen time in Season 2 of the hit show. "I really loved working with Antony Starr [who plays Homelander]. We had a scene last season and we have another few scenes in the upcoming season that's gonna come out soon. But I really enjoyed working with him because we had a great synchronicity. In the big superhero room, we had to stare each other down and have an argument. That's one of my favorite scenes ever."

Esposito, who has made an incredibly successful career out of playing unnerving bad guys (whether it's Gus Fring on Breaking Bad, Moff Gideon on The Mandalorian, or Antón Castillo in Far Cry 6) explained that his approach to Mr. Edgar could be summed up in a short phrase coined by the actor himself: "Stan Edgar controls the chaos."

"This is a wonderful show," he continued. "If you haven't seen it, you must see it. It's superheroes with human emotions, struggling against why they're in this body with all these chemicals that are rushing through their system, trying to figure out how they got there and how that happened. They become a pawn of Vought ... and so, Stan is so secure in his knowledge of human nature, that that was my route in to be able to be that softer, villainous character who knows how to play chess."

Of course, the panel would not have been complete without a fan question pertaining to Season 3 of The Mandalorian, which was waiting to kick off production until The Book of Boba Fett (coming to Disney+ Dec. 29) was complete. Last we saw of Moff Gideon, he was unconscious and in the custody of Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff).

However, the Imperial holdover does seem to be playing an instrumental part in the eventual rise of the First Order, so we probably haven't seen the last of him. "If I come back for Season 3, I imagine I would then continue to be back in seasons after that," Esposito said.

Given that the Jon Favreau-created project takes place in the aftermath of Return of the Jedi, Esposito really wanted to root his performance in the sensibilities of the original trilogy, though he tried not to get too bogged down by certain influences. 

"When I'm working on a character, I try not to look at any others. However, I had to remind myself of the early Star Wars movies, of which I'm a really big fan," the actor continued. "There was one person I did look at briefly and that was Peter Cushing [who played Grand Moff Tarkin] ... I looked at him because I was a fan of his as an actor when I was a kid. I thought he held everything close to the vest and he was very graceful, but he lacked a certain energetic personality. And then I stopped looking at all because I wanted to create a character that was new, fresh, and different."

Credit: Lucasfilm/Disney+

When asked about what major franchise he'd like to join next, the actor didn't hesitate in voicing his hope to one day become a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (like Star Wars, it's another Disney-owned property).

"The Marvel Universe is controlled by three people," he said, most likely referring to the MCU brain trust of Kevin Feige, Victoria Alonso, and Louis D'Esposito. "It's a very small, core group of producers who make the Marvel films and I like that because it doesn't get convoluted by a large amount of people who say, 'No it should be this way! No, it should be this way! No, it should be this way!' It becomes a more refined and focused vision, so I'm hoping that in the future, I'll have the ability to be a part of the Marvel world."