Giancarlo Esposito (Moff Gideon) knows Baby Yoda is “the star” of The Mandalorian

Giancarlo Esposito’s character in The Mandalorian is fascinating, and possibly Force-sensitive. But he knows what people are really here to see.

The Mandalorian picked up a surprise 15 Emmy nominations for this year’s upcoming ceremony, including for the top award of the night, Outstanding Drama Series. It’s a great inaugural haul for the new Disney+ series, and Giancarlo Esposito, who plays the vile Moff Gideon, couldn’t be more pleased.

Of course, he knows the real reason The Mandalorian has proven so popular. “The Child is the star,” he told SyFy Wire, referring to the adorable green tyke the internet knows as Baby Yoda. “I knew the first time that I set eyes on him that this particular Child, this role would have to be expanded. I’ve made myself very clear, I’ve told [showrunners] Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni that I want more scenes with the Child, and they need to figure it out. [Laughs.] We’re all obsessed with the Child.”

"Three of my daughters had such a good time coming to visit me on the set, and really struck up a relationship with Baby Yoda. And I took a shot of all the young Baby Yodas lined up on my couch. That exists somewhere because I got so enamored with the Yodas. I wanted to get one for my children, even though they’re not young. My youngest is 16. And then some for me. So now I have about six. [Laughs.] They actually look like they belong in my living room, so I’ll have to break those out, of course, on [Emmy night]."

It’s okay, Giancarlo: you can just admit that you’re a grown adult who wants a Baby Yoda of your own; the rest of us do. “It really takes us back to that place of wonder and enchantment when you’re around any baby,” he continued. “And the Child has that as well, but coupled with some visionary power. It’s a tantalizing element of our show.”

The next questions is: what’s in store for Baby Yoda (I plan to keep calling him that until the internet changes course) in the upcoming second season of the show? “Mando is in service to this Child, and we don’t know yet what Moff Gideon wants completely, but we know he has the power to use it for good or for evil,” Esposito said. “We don’t know quite what that is. So that’s why I love playing in this world, because it juxtaposes, compliments, and questions what we’re doing here and the world we’re in right now.”

The last time we checked in with The Mandalorian, the title character was on a quest to find Baby Yoda’s homeworld, with Moff Gideon on his trail. It’s true that we don’t know what he wants with the Child, but we know he’s determined to get it, and that he has the weapons to challenge anybody who tries to stop him. The final moments of the first season saw him cutting his way out of a downed TIE Fighter with the Darksaber, a key weapon from Star Wars lore.

Esposito isn’t a Star Wars geek, but he is aware that his character is in possession of something special. “They did tell me, ‘You realize you’re the only person in The Mandalorian who is wielding the Darksaber.’ I got really excited. I know that previously my dear friend Samuel L. Jackson had a [lightsaber], and I was so excited about that. But in our show no one has that but me, so that’s just a great honor.”

Wielding any kind of lightsaber begs the question: Is Moff Gideon able to use the Force? Esposito said that it’s “a possibility”:

"I can’t say for sure that that is completely the truth, but look, we’ve seen him come out of his TIE fighter, and we’ve seen him also with the Darksaber. I would have to say that there’s some surprises coming down the pike in regards to the connection he has to the Force. You don’t quite know where he fits in there, but he certainly has some information that we don’t that connects him to the old school."

All the lore is great, but Esposito is able to tie Moff Gideon to some real-world events, too, drawing on the experiences of his own family. “My father was from Naples, and he and his father worked in the opera house,” he explained. “This was a time when Mussolini was in Rome, and my grandfather hated Mussolini. He would get arrested all the time for protesting and cursing at Mussolini. And they faced down and eventually had to flee to the mountains. They fought in the Resistance. That certainly is an analogy for when I look at the way Moff Gideon is depicted, the way Moff Gideon is dressed, that clean, straight line, his jackboots. It gives me a very fascist feeling.”

From the Empire to the First Order, the bad guys in Star Wars have long been analogs for facism, and Gideon sounds like he fits right there, possibly with a twist. “I still hold out that there is something different about Moff Gideon than the other fascists or wardens of this particular part of the universe, because he knows more than everyone else. I like that to be ambiguous.”

The Mandalorian season 2 is due to start in October. Hopefully we’ll be getting a firm release date, or a trailer, any day now.

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