Kicking off what turned out to be a four-minute rant about making sure to get out the vote this year, Giancarlo Esposito told a group of fans over the weekend that “no one’s guessed” his role in the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World. Despite many people guessing it.
The clip was shared on X (formerly Twitter), from Fanboy Expo Knoxville, where Esposito was making an appearance this weekend (July 13) on a spotlight panel. With the trailer for Brave New World finally revealing a look at his character, of course, Esposito was asked about the role.
“The character that I’m playing is a bad**s,” Esposito said. “So that always excites me. And to play something in the MCU that is contemporary, yet based on these iconic comics are really important to me. So for me to develop that character in line with what that character has been since its inception is a fascinating arc for me. And so, in the MCU there’s room for growth and they’re really — they’re geeks like we are, so they want it to be perfect. I had an incredible time shooting it. I’m not telling you who I’m playing. Because people are trying to guess, and no one’s guessed correctly yet. Yeah, so it’s been a big thing online.”
I’m going to take a wild stab that Esposito does not have the entire internet printed out for him in the morning and then finishes reading it before he goes to sleep at night. To take it one step further, he seems to be sort of anti-phone, as we’ll get to in a second. So most likely, someone has guessed who he’s playing, he just doesn’t know they have yet. In fact, rumors quickly emerged after the trailer dropped that Esposito is playing sometimes mercenary, sometimes S.H.I.E.L.D. agent G.W. Bridge. Nobody asked him specifically about that at Fanboy Expo Knoxville, at least in the shared clip. So maybe he would have clarified, “Oh, actually, you guessed it.” Or maybe not! Probably not, that’s how NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) work.
However, what was wildest to me, personally, was where this simple question — what can you tell us about your character in Brave New World — ended up. Over four-plus minutes, Esposito goes from talking about the role, to how the movie reflects our real world, to how we’re too tied to our phones and screens, to… Getting out the vote? Maybe his real character is Stream Of Consciousness Man, I don’t know.
Captain America: Brave New World opens in theaters on February 14, 2025. But you can read Esposito’s speech from Fanboy Expo Knoxville in full, below:
“The character that I’m playing is a badass. So that always excites me. And to play something in the MCU that is contemporary, yet based on these iconic comics are really important to me. So for me to develop that character in line with what that character has been since its inception is a fascinating arc for me. And so, in the MCU there’s room for growth and they’re really — they’re geeks like we are, so they want it to be perfect. I had an incredible time shooting it. I’m not telling you who I’m playing. Because people are trying to guess, and no one’s guessed correctly yet. Yeah, so it’s been a big thing online. But it’s a world where they’re dealing with a very big idea. And I think most of us are wondering where our world’s going. And I think this film also — Captain America deals with that. The fight between good and evil. The fight between right and wrong. And the idea that only we can be our own Captain Americas is a way to say that we have to save our world. So many films that we’re seeing lately are really dealing with the psychological trauma of, are we still going to have a world the way we know it in 10, 15, 20 years. And I think some films are guiding us to think maybe we won’t, and I think others are guiding us to think we’re empowered to take it back. And that’s where I stand, in a hopeful place. We haven’t been posed with a really good choice for leadership in a long time. Right? When you get two mediocre choices, what do you choose? You choose your heart, and what you align with. You choose the strength of who you think might be stronger to lead us. But what about our morality, our character? What about our goodness? What about our interior? What about who we really are as human beings, and what we want for each other? It’s because we’ve been living in this dog-eat-dog world for so long, that it’s become about the I and the me. As opposed to the we and the us. And when it becomes about the we and the us, it becomes about each other and we see a mirror of ourselves. We see our own thoughts, our own goodness, our own greatness, and then we’re able to lift other people up. So we’re in a world where most of our information is coming from social media, or our phones, or our iPads, or our computers. And we interact with our phones as if that’s a real sounding board. Right? But it’s not a real sounding board because it is the one you create. You put in what you get out. Think about that. So it’s really, really important to delineate and allow yourselves to be communities of [unclear]. This is why I come to comic cons, I believe in wonder, enchantment, and joy. People come here to have fun, they really come here to see people that inspire them and impact their lives on the screen, they want to meet them, that’s real, that’s true, that’s real life. So, if we can get back to some of that and start to understand we have the power to change the structure of the way things are… By voting, right? we have the power! And so we need to spread the word, and make the right choices.”
– Giancarlo Esposito, who is probably playing G.W. Bridge in Captain America: Brave New World
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