'Breaking Bad' Bryan Cranston and Vince Gilligan interview, plus cast

By April MacIntyre Mar 7, 2009, 3:08 GMT

02/14/2009 - Bryan Cranston - The second season of the Emmy winning series "Breaking Bad" premieres on March 8 at 10 p.m. Sundays on AMC. © David Gabber / PR Photos

The second season of the Emmy winning series "Breaking Bad" premieres
on March 8 at 10 p.m. Sundays on AMC.

Creator Vince Gilligan has crafted a complex, shocking and bitterly funny
drama that explores the transitions of Chemistry teacher, Walter White.

Walter is a husband, father, a high school teacher and Vince turns him into
a kingpin of the drug trade. He has taken Mr. Chips and turned him into Scarface.

There were so many dark twists in the AMC series "Breaking Bad" that the effort just to get people to watch and advertisers to buy into the premise was as grim as the prognosis for the protagonist, a 50-year-old high school chemistry teacher suffering from inoperable lung cancer.  Walter works a second humiliating service job at a car wash, he has a newly pregnant wife, a high school son who has cerebral palsy and then has a lightbulb idea that hatches a plan to make the big nest-egg money he needs to amass before his death, as he cooks high quality methamphetamine.

The first season took two Emmy awards including Best lead Actor for Bryan Cranston.

Monsters and Critics spoke to the show creator Vince Gilligan, and actors Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, Dean Norris, Betsy Brandt and RJ Mitte at the recent winter TCA press tour, and joined other critics with questions for the new season.

Bryan, your Walter goes through an amazing physical transformation. How much weight have you lost since you began this series?

Bryan Cranston: When we did the pilot, I was 186 pounds. Then I got down when my character started his chemotherapy, I got to 170 pounds. I've now started beefing up. I'm ready for a slaughter. But because we've finished for the season, but I had to go back down to 170 again when we started the second season.

Vince, you've shown so much expertise on such skills like masking certain drugs, and how to dispose of a body...can you talk about your research for this show?

Vince Gilligan: Luckily so far, it's just...write what you know (laughs) The body thing you're referring to was a fun one. I remember reading in Popular Science ..which I am a big fan of...which is about the level of my scientific expertise. It's a little above my head. But I remember reading about hydrofluoric acid, which is very interesting. it's very, very corrosive and it will eat through glass and ceramic, but it won't eat through polypropolene plastic.

And that struck me years ago. When it came time to do season one of 'Breaking Bad', I remember thinking that might be a fun mistake that a layperson such as Jessie might make, put that kind of acid in a ceramic bathtub and have it eat through. Stuff like that sticks with you in your brain, little bits of stuff that you never know if you'll ever use and it may be years later.

But I'm not much of a scientist. I have a lot of research help. Vince, when you conceived the series - did you think Walter would die at any point? Vince Gilligan: No, I never thought of him dying in the first season.

That definitely is something we think about being on the horizon. Just the horizon, how far the horizon stretches is unknown. But I knew I wanted to take this far as we believably could and hopefully that will be season 13 or 15.

Vince, are there things about Cancer that you've learned that have influenced the second season?

Vince Gilligan: Yes.  I am no scientist... and no medical doctor.  But I did as much research as I could on cancer before we started writing.  But I've learned far more since out first season about it than I knew then.  And ona personal note, an aunt very close to me passed away from lung cancer after the show went on the air.  It brought it home for me. 

Unfortunately a lot of people in my family have had cancer in the past, but that specific cancer that, my hatred for cancer grows with everything I learn about it.  It's this terrible disease that unfortunately is very hard to pin down, and it just robs a lot of really good people of their lives and a lot of people who mean a lot to me.  And in a weird way, I see it as sort of the villain, the ultimate villain, of the who show.

I've learned more about it, and what I've learned is there's hopeful stories and not-so hopeful stories.

Walter is living , but for how long is always the question.  Cancer at that stage he has stage IIIA cancer.  It doesn not have a great outlook.

It's possible people do live, and it's possible people do win the lottery, but most people don't.  What I want to do more than anything else it keep it realistic as possible and not suddenly, with the success of the show, have it be that he magically gets cured.  I want to make it as real as possible.

Bryan, did you direct any of the episodes?

Bryan Cranston: Yes I did, I directed the first episode of our second season, much to the chagrin of our cast...

Aaron Paul: He was amazing...

Bryan Cranston: But I made them sleep with me so I was...

Anna Gunn: Again with the sleeping... Is that tough?

Bryan Cranston: To sleep with me? Very tough...

Anna Gunn: Yes. Oh my God.

Bryan Cranston: ...and quite frankly, disappointing.

Bryan, just being so heavy in the series in terms of acting, is that tough to separate from?

Bryan Cranston: It is. I remember just seeing this clip where Walt was calculating how much money he needs before he can get out.. I remember shooting that scene and realizing 'okay, now I want two cameras here and we're going to go on the other side and shoot that. all right. We ready? Let's...oh jeez, I got to..I gotta do this.' I quickly had to get the script and refamiliarize myself with the lines.

So yes, it is difficult, but fortunately we have a lot of help on our set with our producer Karen Moore, and we have a writer. Whoever wrote the episode is on our set with us, and I can confer with them and say, 'this is what I'm looking for in this take,' and that sort of thing.

Then I print everything that I'm in just for my own entertainment late at night.

What do the other actors think of your directing?

Bryan Cranston: Wow, be kind. Aaron Paul: I think he is amazing to sleep with.

Anna Gunn: As a director...

Bryan Cranston: Now, what would I want to be known for more? I guess that's all your going to get, wow..

Betsy Brandt: I'm just thinking, so Bryan had mentioned that sometimes he was talking about how he works with actors and he directs. He did this while we were seated just like this, and said, how, if he's not getting what he wants from his actor, he'll say, 'well, give me more of this, give me more of that tenderness...'

Anna Gunn: 'I love what you are doing with that tenderness.' So, in other words, it's all a ploy.

Betsy Brandt: It's a ploy and he outed himself when we were all...'we can hear you'...

Anna Gunn: 'we can hear you. We're sitting right here...'

Betsy Brandt: 'We can hear you'. And then I said, 'I can't wait for you to direct us next season. I can give you more of whatever it is I'm not giving you....'

Anna Gunn: He bought a riding crop, though, one day, and I liked that. That was good.

Betsy Brandt: Yes.

Bryan, talk about Emmy night, what did it mean to you?

Bryan Cranston: I had three previous nominations so, and didn't win...so I was pretty comfortable with not winning and familiar with that feeling, and I was preparing myself for the same thing.

My wide, on the other hand, was starting to hyperventilate a little bit and get sweaty palms, which is very attractive, one of the reasons I married her. I just told her that relax, don't get all worked up because they're not going to mention my name.

We had seven episodes and let's just have fun and enjoy this. And then Keifer Sutherland said 'Bryan Cranston', and the first millisecond of that went 'that's sounds familiar..' And then you realize, 'oh my God, that's me...' The one thought I had when I was...after I kissed my family and started to walk up the stage was please please God, let me put a sentence together with a...you know, a nice noun and a verb and adjective, perhaps.

I'm not too choosy. And not to say, 'oh God, oh wow, oh wow. oh God. oh God. This is so surreal. Oh God. Oh wow. Oh times up. Oh God, Oh God... Because, you know, that wouldn't be ...you don't want to look back on that and go, 'that's what I said?' So hopefully I said something that was coherent and appreciative, which is how I felt, and it was a wonderful night.

Bryan, Vince, what does that Emmy mean for the second season of the show?

Vince Gilligan: It doesn't hurt. It's so well deserved, I gotta tell you, Bryan that night, Bryan knows this. I didn't think he was going to win either, not because he didn't deserve to, but because so many fine actors were up for shows that are so much more well-known than ours.

We only had seven episodes. I don't know. I'm no expert on the Emmys but it seems to me dramatic lead actor in a drama winning off only seven hours of television. I don't know if it has ever happened before.

That was one of the finest moments in my life. And I kid you not, when they called his name, I just teared up. And I was like...I yelled...I don't know if I can say this: BRYAN CRANSTON!!! F*ck yeah!!!! as loud as I could. Not even realizing I was jumping to my feet doing it. But it just felt so unexpected and so earned at the same time. It was one of the greatest nights of my life. I've never had kids. That would be first. I would think...but this was...

Bryan Cranston: No. No. I've had kids...It's not... (laughter) It's the award.

Vince, did you really shave your head while filming season one?

Vince Gilligan: Yes, Yes thank you. I shaved my head in deference to and solidarity with Mr. Cranston. Because that was not a skin-head wig. He really shaved his head for us. So I shaved my head.

Vince, what did you learn from this past season, what are you taking forward into the new season?

Vince Gilligan: That's a good question. What did I learn. I just learned more about how to do my job, 've never had my own show before. I've been a second or a third on other people's shows and sort of learned my craft on that..but sort of being the showrunner is new to me. It's scary and exhilarating at the same time.

I've got the best writers in television. I've got the best crew in TV. The cast is okay. They're pretty good, you know. No, I 've been so lucky to have all these great people around me that I'm learning to just sit back and relax and let all these wonderful people do their jobs.

Going forward into the new season, did the arc change where you thought you would go?

Vince Gilligan: We have...this season we start off in our first image of our first teaser of our first episode this season. We start off with a clue as to how the whole season will end.

We have a big slam bam ending this season I am very excited about. And we knew where we were going from the first episode on. But there's lots of interesting side roads you take getting there. For instance, the house that Jesse lives in that was sort of their base of operations in season one got sold out from under us.

The lady in Albuquerque loaned it, sold the house, and so we had to quickly scramble and figure out what do we do with something like this? You take these interesting meandering side roads that wind up getting you back onto the main highway of the story, I guess, is how it works.

So you start out a series with a hero you immediately give lung cancer. But do you know how you want this series to end?

Vince Gilligan: I do and I don't. There's certain things implicit in the idea of a character who has terminal lung cancer in the first episode that I probably don't need to spell out. Certain things are implied by that, that imply and ending of some sort. Having said that, we...no...I do. And I don't. I guess things I think I want to do, my writers come to me with better ideas very often, and this is such a group effort between the people behind the camera and the people in front of the camera.

Vince, when you conceived the series - did you think Walter would die at
any point?

Vince Gilligan:  No, I never thought of him dying in the first season.  That
definitely is something we think about being on the horizon.  Just the
horizon, how far the horizon stretches is unknown.  But I knew I wanted to
take this far as we believably could and hopefully that will be season 13 or
15.   

DVD News: AMC’s Emmy-Award drama, Breaking Bad, follows protagonist Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a chemistry teacher who lives in New Mexico with his wife (Anna Gunn) and teenage son (RJ Mitte) who has cerebral palsy. White is diagnosed with Stage III cancer and is given a prognosis of two years to live. With a new sense of fearlessness based on his medical prognosis, and a desire to secure his family's financial security, White chooses to enter a dangerous world of drugs and crime and ascends to power in this world. The series explores how a fatal diagnosis such as White's releases a typical man from the daily concerns and constraints of normal society and follows his transformation from mild family man to a kingpin of the drug trade.

DVD extras include behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes, commentary, screen tests (Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, Dean Norris, Betsy Brandt), and more.

The complete first season of Breaking Bad will be available nationwide February 24th.  Get it online at LINK, or iTunes at LINK.