“I don’t have to work”: Bryan Cranston Refused To Work With Ryan Gosling After His Breaking Bad Fame, Almost Lost Out on $78M Movie
Millions of fans worldwide consider Bryan Cranston, who is best known for playing Walter White in the AMC criminal drama series Breaking Bad from 2008 to 2013, to be one of the greatest performers in the business. The actor, who would go on to win numerous awards for his work, revealed that his father served as the model for the well-known character Walter White.
In the 2011 film Drive, which was helmed by Nicolas Winding Refn and had a script by Hossein Amini, the actor portrayed Shannon alongside Ryan Gosling. Based on James Sallis’s 2005 novel of the same name, the film garnered praise for its direction, actors, and other aspects from both reviewers and viewers. Bryan Cranston was not very excited to be a part of the movie initially so what changed?
Bryan Cranston ‘almost’ refused to work with Ryan Gosling in Drive
Actor Bryan Cranston’s portrayal of Walter White is still very clearly present in the minds of the people who watched Breaking Bad in and out, which explains why the actor is still associated with the character even though the show ended in 2013. It has been no secret that the actor had grown very popular at the time of the show being aired and during his season off was in very high demand for other projects.
Cranston said during the interview via The Things, “I’m in a very, very opportune position where I don’t have to work.” The actor was offered a role in 2011’s Drive by Nicolas Winding Refn, who had wanted to work with the actor ever since his show became popular, but Cranston wasn’t sure if he wanted to appear in the movie or not because according to The Things, the actor thought it was underdeveloped.
Refn explained in an AV Club interview that he was adamant about getting the actor on board;
“I’m probably the biggest fan of Breaking Bad in the world. [Cranston] was the actor I basically went straight for, and I had to woo him because Bryan has a lot of opportunities.” The director said after having a conversation with the actor, there was no reply from his side.
Director’s call changed Bryan Cranston’s mind about appearing in Drive
Bryan Cranston, who had worked in the industry for a while, was skeptical about how an underdeveloped character would appear on screen and wanted to join the cast only if his character was developed in a way that he could be proud of.
The director Refn explained to AV Club at the time:
“Bryan Cranston’s character was instrumental in how he would voice himself and be a guy who was always talking, always a bit nervous, always having anxiety attacks. His way to communicate was through dialogue, which was a good counter to The Driver, which is the exact opposite.”
He continued to share,
“I called him, and at the moment I called, he was sitting with a blank piece of paper writing the pros and cons of doing Drive or not. He said, ‘Well, since you’re calling, there must be meaning, so I’ll do your movie.’”
The two of them later worked on developing his character to a place where the Breaking Bad actor was excited to play him on-screen.
Also read: Bryan Cranston Didn’t Like Working With One Director Despite Loving the End Result Later
Bryan Cranston explained his pitch for his character’s death on Drive
During an interactive session at the 2018 Tribeca TV Festival via THR, Bryan Cranston revealed how he pitched his character’s death on Drive. He explained that in the original script for Drive, his character and Albert Brooks’ character liked each other, which he thought was a great problem to have. So he pitched,
“We have this confrontation, and I have a bum hip so I can’t run away from him, and he says these nice things about me and he intimates that he might let me go. In fact, he offers his hand.… And now I’m thinking I could exhale because he’s going to let me go, so I shake his hand and he looks at me, and before I know it, he just twists my wrist and slices it with a blade.… I pitched it that Albert says, ‘That’s all right, no more pain, that’s all.’”
Cranston added that Albert Brooks’ character lays Cranston’s character’s head against the bumper of the car and is in shock and looking at his arm and does not feel the pain and that’s how he dies. He added that the pitch did shock Ryan Gosling and Refn.
