Breaking Bad's Giancarlo Esposito Was Originally Asked to Play King Cobra In Captain America: Brave New World

One of the most fun things about movie-making is remembering all of those little things that almost were and could have been. So many things change in pre-production, post-production, and even the actual production itself — and for Captain America: Brave New World, one of those things was the role Giancarlo Esposito was going to play.

Esposito ultimately played Sidewinder in the film, but was originally approached to play King Cobra. The Breaking Bad legend revealed to Empire in a recent interview (via Collider) that producer Nate Moore had originally asked him to portray Klaus Voorhees’ alter ego.

"If I'm walking around the neighborhood, African-Americans go, 'What's up, King?' I love it. They call me King, baby! I mean, that's the highest honor," Esposito recalled thinking in those early days. "But as it turned out, there [are other Kings] in the Marvel world, and this was connected to the Serpent Society — they were going back to the comics and trying to figure it out, and Nate said, 'We can give you all the characteristics of King, but we think he should be Sidewinder.' "

Voorhees appears in the Captain America comics as a former convict who has to contend with a radioactive snake bite after his murder plot to axe colleague Professor Ezekiel Schektor doesn’t quite go as planned, hence the name King Cobra. In his time on the page, he has battled the likes of Mr. Fantastic, Thor, and Daredevil, as well as Cap and Falcon.

That said, the creatives behind Brave New World ultimately had Esposito play Sidewinder, aka Seth Voelker, an economics professor who gets chemically mutated by the Roxxon Oil Company and becomes a crime boss and the leader of Serpent. Over the years, he’s had major face-offs with Scarlet Witch, The Thing, Triton, and Stingray — but now he’s having one with Cap himself.

"They spoke about creating a character that was really grounded, in a mercenary fashion,” Esposito added, noting that the character was shaped in the film's robust reshoots. “They wanted to ground the movie when they went back in to do some additional shooting, and their focus now was on this additional character. So it was a bit of a whirlwind for me. I focused myself and I went in there and knocked it out."

As for the character’s future in the MCU, it seems at least Esposito wants him to stick around. "I'm hoping to be in this universe a little longer," he said.

It’s no secret that Captain America: Brave New World didn’t exactly light the world on fire in terms of critical response, fan response, or box office. Check out IGN's feature, Captain America: Brave New World’s Real Budget? You’ll Never Know… and This Is Why, to find out more.

Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.