Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is the son of Giovanni "John" C. Esposito (1931–2002), an Italian stagehand and carpenter from Naples, and Elizabeth "Leesa" Foster (1926–2017), an African-American opera and nightclub singer from Alabama.
Esposito lived in Rome, Italy, until he was five, when his family moved to the United States, settling in Manhattan, New York City. He attended Elizabeth Seton College in New York and earned a two-year degree in radio and television communications.
