“That was despicable, an ugly venomous person”: ‘Breaking Bad’ Star Bryan Cranston Reveals How He Created Walter White
Bryan Cranston became a household name with the portrayal of Walter “Heisenberg” White in the Netflix crime- drama Breaking Bad. The Emmy Award winner has a crazy fan following across the world. The Vince Giligan-directed crime drama franchise is still one of the top shows on Netflix.
This is not the first time when the talented actor-director duo collaborated together. Bryan Cranston and Vince Gilligan came together for the sci-fi thriller X-Files. The series was aired in the early 90s and spanned eleven seasons.
Bryan Cranston On What Led To The Character Development Of Walter White
Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston, was a part of the season 6 installment named Drive. He played the character of a mentally unstable person who becomes a victim of an undisclosed government experiment and suffers from excruciating pain. The episode revolves around Mulder played by actor David Duchovny taken hostage by Bryan Cranston’s lunatic, Crump.
During a recent episode of Josh Horowitz’s Happy, Sad Confused podcast the actor spoke about how the seed of Walter White was sown on one of the episodes of X-Files. Josh Horowitz went on to ask whether he was aware of the famous that were in competition against him for the character of Walter White. He said-
“I thought, I mean growing up as an actor, you know you’re always auditioning and there are other people on that side-in list. I didn’t want to pay too much attention to it. I was very lucky to have met Vince, on X-Files, because I had just finished writing and directing my own little movie in the California desert and I was just back in Los Angeles, maybe four days when this call came in do you want to audition for X-Files and I thought Oh God! yeah man if I get that it would be great because I am broke.”
He further mentioned-
“So I did get it and he liked it what it was. He wrote this character in X-Files that was despicable, an ugly venomous person filled with anger and hate, and yet he wanted the audience to still care for him from a basic human standpoint and that was the seed of Walter White, is that he knew he wanted to turn that character as he says from Mr. Chips to Scarface right, and in order to do that he needed someone who felt he could still carry empathy with him as he’s making this ugly turn and it was, he is brilliant and that’s Vince Gilligan.”
Vince Gilligan directed Breaking Bad became one of the most widely watched shows on Netflix. The character development of Walter White was done so uniquely that despite his negativities people watching him empathized with him.
Bryan Cranston On Working With Wes Anderson In Asteroid City
During an interview with the media outlet The Guardian, Bryan Cranston spoke about his movie Asteroid City and collaborating with Wes Anderson again. The actor mentioned the familial environment on the set and the herculean task of fitting into the vision of the celebrated director. He said-
When you work for an author like that, it is a big trust exercise. We did this movie coming up, Asteroid City, in Spain, and it wasn’t easy work. Working for Wes is not easy. It’s very detailed and very specific and so you really have to really concentrate hard. What offsets that is the congeniality and the togetherness of the experience. We’re all at this five-star hotel in Spain and every single night is a banquet
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He further added-
“Every single night you are exchanging thoughts and laughter and someone brings a guitar, and you’re singing, and you’re talking. It’s just so familial. It’s like fulfilling an actor dream camp. It was a really, really great experience albeit, again, the work was very specific and very difficult.”
Bryan Cranston even compared Wes Anderson to Tom Hanks as everybody wants to work with the Academy Award-nominated director.
Breaking Bad is currently available on Netflix.
Source: Happy, Sad, Confused
