Breaking Bad is back for a second season with star Bryan Cranston making his directorial debut with the season premiere. He's still got a full season of meth cooking drama to deal with and Cranston is here to tell us all about it.
Crave Online: What was your favorite stuff to play this season?
Bryan Cranston: In the first season I was only partially clad with my tidy whitey underwear. I'm proud to say that in this next season, I'm completely naked. Absolutely in the buff naked, in the middle of a grocery store, so that was exciting for me.
Crave Online: Does it go to some pretty far places this year?
Bryan Cranston: Amazingly so. What happens is one of my secrets gets exposed. Dean [Norris] gets closer and closer to the truth and it's only by a twist of fate that he doesn't find out who he's been actually hunting for for a long time, right?
Crave Online: Do you want to direct another one?
Bryan Cranston: I do. I really enjoyed it. I can only direct the first episode of a season because I'm in the production, so once production starts, there's no time to take for the prep week. That's what you need to be able to take that week to prepare for the show. But I enjoy it. I really do. I also enjoy when it's over because I sleep probably for four hours a night average. It's so consuming, so amazingly pressured because you have a finite amount of time to get an incredible amount of work done. And you want to get some cool shots. You don't just want to do over, over, close-up, close-up, master, master, let's move on. You really want to stretch and see if you can tell the story in a different way.
Bryan Cranston: Ah, it's in my office. I know Aaron Paul grabbed it for a while. He asked me if I could borrow it and take it home. I said sure and he showed me some pictures of how he used it, which is not right. It's just not right. Actually, he placed it next to the toilet and put a roll of toilet paper on one of the wings. It could hold two roles, one as a backup. I had it at home in Albuquerque and it was in my kitchen. I used it as a banana tree so the bananas wouldn't get bruised. Right now it's at home, it's on my shelf in my office.
Crave Online: How did your Malcolm in the Middle costars react to your Emmy win?
Bryan Cranston: It was an "Oh my God, had we known you had any ability" riles from Jane [Kaczmarek]. Chris Masterson said, "Oh, now you did it." No, it was nice to hear from them and hear from them again because it's kind of like they've become family you see once a year. You go home for Christmas or something and then you see them. That's the way it's become now so I see them a couple times a year, Jane more than anyone else. Yeah, it was fun. I was happy to hear from them.
Crave Online: Could you see Hal breaking bad at some point?
Bryan Cranston: Hal was breaking bad constantly and that's what made him so fearful is that he lived in fear. That was Hal's emotional center and that's where a lot of the comedy stemmed from, his fear of failing at marriage, at parenthood, at his job, at everything. So that manifested in every single way and it was great for comedy to have that happen. Walt, if you did a Ven diagram of the two characters, there's more similarity than just tidy whitey underwear. Walt also lives in a world where he was numbed by his inability to cope with life. So he imploded and the best way I can describe it is numb. It wasn't until this diagnosis that automatically blew it off and he can't control his emotions anymore. Even still, as he goes through feelings of fear and anxiety, it's still better than numbness and not being alive. I think Walt would be very hard pressed to want to put the genie back in the bottle. I don't think he would.
Crave Online: How long do you see the series going for?
Bryan Cranston: I would love to have it, because my sense is that it could go five years, maybe six, maybe. But I think there's an inherently natural end to it. It feels that way. I know I won't be waking up from a dream and in a shower or something. It's not going to happen.
Crave Online: Are you practicing a great deathbed scene?
Bryan Cranston: When Walt dies, and I think that's a good bet that he will die by the end of the show, it's not going to be in bed. I can almost guarantee that. I don't think he's going to die of cancer.
Crave Online: Is it liberating to play a character you know will die when it's all over?
Bryan Cranston: But would it be liberating then to play a human being? We don't go through life going, "I'm going to die today" or "I'm going to die someday." He loses track of it just like anyone else does. It's not foremost on our minds until you're sick and then you start thinking about it. And you realize that in my own personal philosophy, there's nothing more important than good health. Love is not as important as good health. You cannot be in love if you're not healthy. You can't appreciate it. That's all you can do.
Crave Online: Have you gotten healthy as a result of playing this role?
Bryan Cranston: That's a great question. God, I wish I had an equally great answer. It's funny, I do try to maintain health. I started doing Bikram yoga which is that hothouse yoga, the 105 degrees yoga for 90 minutes. It's great, you purge out all the sweat and you're drinking water. It was a great way for me to just help me completely relax.
Crave Online: Does it help to be bald for that?
Bryan Cranston: I'm telling you, until I shaved my head, I never realized how much heat is lost through the top of the head. I walk out in winter and it feels like I have an ice pack on my head. Unbelievable.
Crave Online: What hopes did you have for the show going in?
Bryan Cranston: When I talked to Vince [Gilligan] the first time, it was a 20 minute scheduled meeting and it ended up being an hour and a half. We went back and forth. What I was fascinated by, there were two things. The script itself of the pilot was a page turner and it's rare. I'm sure other actors have told you that you don't get pilot scripts and just go. You put it down, you pick it up, you put it down. This was I couldn't stop it and I called right away and said, "Get me in on this. It's unbelievable." The other thing that struck me is that what he told me, he's mentioned this before so it's no secret, but I've never seen or heard of this in any series history. That is to take a character from one kind of person and over the course of the story, justifiably turn him, through a metamorphosis, into another person. So given an opportunity to tell our story in completion, five years, six years maybe, we will take Walter White from being the milquetoast, self oppressed science teacher to becoming a sometimes, often ruthless drug dealer, kingpin. Has anyone ever seen that?
Crave Online: Most shows couldn't. House couldn't get nice. Archie Bunker couldn't get tolerant.
Bryan Cranston: Well, I think that's the key word. It can't happen suddenly. Everything has to be justified. If you can accept where my character has come to thus far and it's justified, then just imagine then keep pushing that envelope, keep pushing the conditions that change a person. You talk about a mother with superhuman strength if her child was in danger. These are things that happen. Given a death sentence of a year to live, it changes you. It changes you and this man who is so depressed and for lack of taking chance or opportunities that he missed in his life, now has a pocketful of money which he never had before, adrenaline is pumping in his veins, he feels like a man. He's got nothing to lose so these are natural changes in a person. Now, can that sustain? No. You can't sustain on adrenaline. Yet this seems to be what's happening. He feels that even feeling fear or anxiety is better than being numb. So he's not resisting the changes. He's welcoming the changes as they come. As abhorrent as they may be from time to time when he takes the time to analyze what exactly he's doing to society, to his family, to himself, it doesn't seem to outweigh the impact of what he's going through personally.
Crave Online: Isn't it all about the nest egg to leave it for his family?
Bryan Cranston: Right but after a while, it could change. Now what's happened in the second season that you'll see is that he's been given more time than he initially thought. It's not one year. He goes through a procedure that allows him maybe a few years. Now, he's got the moral dilemma of oh, do I just go back to teaching now? Never mind what happened. What do you do? Well, you can't go back. He's a completely different man, so it creates a wonderful moral dilemma for the show to figure out. Then things start to happen that you go, "Yes, it's for my family." Well, it could get kind of self-righteous. It's for my family I'm doing it, bang, it's for my family. I'm killing for my family. As long as you can justify your actions, then any means is justifiable then, right?
Crave Online: He might want more than $700,000?
Bryan Cranston: I think he might find some justification or some manufactured need. No, no, I need more than that.
Crave Online: Is it kind of like Michael Corleone?
Bryan Cranston: Maybe. "I try to get out, I keep getting sucked back in." Yeah, it's very seductive. He's never felt this before and so he's being totally seduced by power, by corruption, by the sense of omnipotence almost. He can call his shots, people are afraid of him. It's like wow, he's never felt that before. It is seductive.
Crave Online: Does that come with the discovery that he can reinvent himself?
Bryan Cranston: It has to. It certainly was not in the cards when he was contemplating this decision, his first decision. He couldn’t have foreseen this change in his personality. He made this decision because he felt backed up against a wall. He had no choice.
Crave Online: Which role are you recognized most for: Malcolm, Breaking Bad, Seinfeld?
Bryan Cranston: Seinfeld is a lot and of course Malcolm is a lot. I was just in Egypt for two weeks on vacation in little bazaars around the city or something and Germans, Australians, Spanish, Italians and Brits, they were for different things. Whatever they were recognizing me for, I was like oh, that must be playing more in that country.
Crave Online: What do you prefer, comedy or drama?
Bryan Cranston: I probably enjoy performing comedy more just for the obvious reasons. If you're laughing most of the time, that's a lot of fun. Yet, I did a comedy for seven years and it was time not to do it and to hopefully look for a character. When I left Malcolm, my goal was to find something where I can get lost in another character. Probably the biggest compliment I can get is not, "I love your work" but "I can't believe you're the same guy from Malcolm in the Middle." That to me is the end all.
Crave Online: Did you imagine finding that?
Bryan Cranston: No, and certainly there is no sense of deserving something like that, having two incredibly well written series that hopefully will become both successes.
Crave Online: Does this success change the way you think of yourself as an actor?
Bryan Cranston: No. Just like anyone, you want to live a well rounded existence, life. I was offered a couple comedies, playing dads when I left Malcolm and turned them down. The response was mostly, "Why would he turn it down? It's perfect for him." Then I go, "What you're thinking is the exact reason why I have to turn this down," because I don’t want to be the guy who does, "Oh, he's doing another goofy dad."
Crave Online: Your costar, Jane Kaczmarek, had to go play a bitchy judge.
Bryan Cranston: Well, she is one in real life so that's actually… I'm teasing.
Crave Online: Does your deadpan ever get you in trouble?
Bryan Cranston: Yes. Yeah, of course. I was telling my daughter this a little while ago. I said, "Never be afraid of saying I'm sorry or I apologize." I would rather have to apologize than to not take risks. It's just not in my realm. Occasionally when you do take risks, and our business is inherently risky, so you'll run that gamble. But it's okay. You more than likely won't make too many huge faux pas. Maybe a few here and there.
