Better Call Saul and Manny Montana: Answering the Internet's Burning Questions

An insightful review of Better Call Saul and Manny Montana: Answering the Internet's Burning Questions—uncover what experts are saying.

Examining the professional trajectories of both actors reveals entirely separate creative environments. Michael Mando was born in Quebec City, Canada, training classically at The Dome Theatre program at Dawson College in Montreal. Before stepping into the shoes of Nacho Varga, Mando earned cult fame within the gaming community by voicing and motion-capturing the psychopathic villain Vaas Montenegro in Ubisoft's 2012 release Far Cry 3. That performance caught the attention of casting directors worldwide, leading to key recurring roles in Orphan Black and a brief turn as Mac Gargan (the Scorpion) in Marvel's Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Manny Montana, by contrast, grew up in Long Beach, California, attending California State University, Long Beach on a football scholarship before an injury pivoted his ambitions toward journalism and acting. Montana’s major television breakthrough arrived in 2013 on USA Network's sun-drenched procedural Graceland, where he starred as undercover FBI agent Joe "Johnny" Turturro across 38 episodes. While Mando was crafting the tragic arc of Nacho Varga in New Mexico, Montana was working on series like ABC's legal drama Conviction before landing his signature role in Good Girls.