'Breaking Bad' Full Cast Reunion ft. Bryan Cranston, Bob Odenkirk and Aaron Paul

i am the danger a guy opens his door and gets shot and you think out of me no i am the one who knocks it was one of the greatest tv shows ever made tread lightly in 2008 breaking bad gave audiences something they'd never seen some straight like you giant stick up his ass all of a sudden aged what 60 he's just gonna break bat a good guy who broke incredibly bad over a 62-episode arc that was beautifully shot perfectly plotted and as for the acting just ask the emmy voters and the emmy goes to brian cranston aaron paul breaking bad thank you sir thank you so much thank you thank you so much thank you thank you so much throw up god bless you thank you very much [Music] [Applause] ten years later ew is bringing the cast of breaking bad back together for an unforgettable reunion look at these faces and you go oh my god we have so much to share but there's also a feeling of a little melancholy that it's sad that we are not going to regroup to be able to create something again and they were 10 years closer to death oh that's good the following program modern style [Applause] my name is walter hartwell white i live at 308 negra arroyo lane albuquerque new mexico to all law enforcement entities this is not an admission of guilt i am speaking to my family now the story of breaking bad began back in 2004 with writer producer vince gilligan i remember when the idea hit me i was talking to my buddy tom schnauz he is my longest term friend at this point he and i met in back in 1986 and in about 2004 he and i had been working on the x-files and that show was over and we missed it it was about two years gone at that point and we were both out of work and commiserating on the phone one day and i said you know how's by you have you got any good jobs lined up he says no nothing i said man what are we going to do he said i think what we ought to do is put a meth lab in the back of an rv drive around america see the sights and make a little money cooking i laughed but then i thought what would it take for me to actually do that in real life someone like me someone boring and kind of plain vanilla and what if what kind of what would i there's got to be a reason it would make me actually do that i have cancer and it very quickly this character kind of came to life for me it didn't have a name for him yet didn't know he's walter white yet but it dawned on me that could be a hell of a tv show the pitch i've said a million times but uh probably everyone on earth has heard it but i was gonna take mr chip's tournament scarface hello sir hello morgan shout out to my little friend the script had had kind of been around been shopped around town it wasn't really it was dead uh to to put it bluntly it was not going anywhere it's not going to be a tv show and suddenly amc comes out of nowhere and i knew what amc was amc was the channel where you saw a short circuit two you know six times in a week hello bozos i'm talking ten years ago afc right now i kid because they're kicking ass and rightly so uh and we'll continue to because they were little did i know how ballsy this outfit was gonna be you know when i had this meeting uh 10 11 years ago in this hotel these folks said to me hey you know we're interested in this and this dead project here is breaking bad and i said really and i thought you know the least i'm going to get out of this meeting is i'm going to get an 18 scotch in this bar and that'll be all right because i don't believe for a minute these guys are gonna make this thing this is just you know i was wrong i've never been happier to be wrong amc greenlit a seven episode first season next gilligan needed to find an actor with the chops to turn arthur chipping into tony montana it dawned on me pretty early this character needs to be played by someone who is very arresting very has a great deal of charisma actually it's just basic chemistry but thank you jesse i'm glad it's acceptable and i thought back uh to this actor i'd worked with on the x-files it quickly dawned on me this is the guy who ought to play this part and that that came very early in the process it just seemed a no-brainer say my name the role of the high school chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin walter white went to brian cranston the 52 year old actor was best known for his sitcom work having played the dentist tim watley in five episodes of seinfeld where where's jennifer today oh she's over dr sussman's office yeah we find it fun to swap now and then and the dad hal wilkerson in seven seasons of malcolm in the middle i want to tell you about what happens when a boy really really likes a girl you see there's a certain thing that happens between normal healthy people it's called chemistry no that doesn't happen except maybe the first time so it didn't surprise me in the early going of breaking bad when when the the the executives at amc they would say wait a minute he's like the goofy funny slap sticky guy why would you think this guy could could could do the job oh wham bam thank you jim who's gonna love it your family am and i said hey watch this episode of the x-files and they watched it mr crump call me by my last name you say mister in front of it and they said ooh this guy's got range you're goddamn right when we meet walter white in the pilot he just sort of seems like this helplessly typical kind of regular american dad uh he is working as a chemistry teacher chemistry it is the study of what chemicals chemicals no and of course in this country we don't pay our teachers enough so he also has to work another job on the side very embarrassing working at a car wash hey mr white make those tires shine huh oh my god but you just get the sense that like here's a guy who is struggling in every way possible uh he has a wife who loves him he has one child and another child on the way and is just struggling to make ends meet and you can tell that you know he's really working hard to provide for his family and then kind of the worst thing possible happens he collapses at the car wash and we find out that he is diagnosed with lung cancer you understood what i've just said to you yes lung cancer inoperable you know just the effect of that in the first episode when you've already seen just everything else that he's kind of going through on a day-to-day basis it's just like the it's the ultimate charlie brown experience it's like how can anything worse happen to this guy it was such a journey for me to meet with vince um seven eight months before the pilot was shot and learning we i didn't know from reading the pilot and it was the best script i had ever read but nowhere in the pilot script does it say where that journey is going to go or how far it's going to is he just going to dabble in it for a little bit and then get out or what and when he told me he wanted to change this character from good to bad completely i we realized that this has never happened before so what vince gilligan did was change the construct of what was possible in series television dance my foot in your ass marie come here i'm i think i might have asked vince at some point should i do i need to audition again for this because it's a totally different kind of kind of character well technically chemistry is the study of matter but i prefer to see it as the study of change in 2007 amc greenlit a seven-episode first season of breaking bad with creator vince gilligan at the helm brian cranston signed on to play the soon to be iconic walter white that is veggie bacon believe it or not zero cholesterol and you won't even taste the difference the role of walter's wife skyler went to anna gunn like cranston the 40 year old actress had guest starred on seinfeld you're acting very mysteriously well i'm very mysterious by nature a lot of women find that attractive i find it annoying but gunn was probably best known for her two seasons as martha bullock on the critically acclaimed deadwood let me introduce my wife martha how do you do how do you do when we meet skylar white uh she's currently pregnant with their second kid you you get the feeling that okay you know they've been married for a long time like like any married couple they're kind of you know maybe a little too settled in their way i do not like it when you don't talk to me well i remember reading the pilot and just thinking it was one of the most brilliant pieces of writing i'd ever read worst that you can do is shut me out and skyler fascinated me because i could tell she was going to turn into something i didn't know what and the mystery of that was great and vince gave me just enough he titillated me with just enough in terms of where she was going to go that i went okay got it when he said she's going to be carmelo soprano but in on the crime keeper so i actually i know what money laundering is and that's literally how he put it i went okay good talking to you that was it so how'd they feel to be going how does it feel to be a smart ass good walt and skyler's son walt jr was played by 16 year old newcomer r.j mitty walt jr is a high school-aged kid he has cerebral palsy but he seems like he's a pretty cool and together kid what the hell is this hey veggie bacon we're watching our cholesterol eat it this smells like band-aids one of the interesting things about him is that he's played by an actor who had a slightly less extreme version of cerebral palsy and so there's something about like this kid that you're immediately just sort of prone to like him in a way are you sure you don't want to get the like a different kind like uh you know the skinny jeans because those are really supposed to be in style now skaters wear them do i look like a skater yeah i i felt i thought i could really relate to all junior in many ways with the family situation and kind of what was going on in my life and what was mirroring with the um white white family you want me to pour you some juice uh i'm taking coffee didn't know you started drinking coffee yeah i also started to tie my own shoelaces too all by myself it was really nice having a disabled character on television since breaking bad i've been able to work with numerous charitable organizations and sag after diversity division and it really helped open the door for a lot of people in the disability community with with equal opportunity employment and kind of how all junior was represented um as a character and not a disabled character you look awesome she's not showing at all is she she's showing a little carmen this is my sister marie nice to meet you betsy brandt was cast as skyler's sister marie the 35 year old actress had a long list of tv credits including ncis boston legal and er are you taking anything or drinking anything to give you a little lift another mom i know gives it to me please don't tell my husband schuyler sister marie is definitely like that sister-in-law like the proverbial sister-in-law who seems to have these like crazy issues we learned pretty quickly that there's this interesting dynamic between the sisters so it's a midlife crisis no he's just quiet how's the sex marie jesus guess i answered that marie herself will find out as a kleptomaniac and it's just you know it's an interesting kind of a character to throw into the mix here as you're kind of meeting the sort of greater family dynamic around walls the shoplifting all of it i mean did you really think it was all just neatly gonna go away well if you hadn't tried to return it apologize sure we all felt this way we read that pilot and i said to my husband this is the best pilot that i've ever read i love marie to this day i love her and i i'm so thankful for the wonderful things about her and i'm so thankful for all her faults too because it was just ridiculously fun to play glock 22 that's my daily carry okay i mean unless you're talking what plus b plus loads you forget the nine mil all right should i see one of those uh bounce off a windshield one time how are you shooting the role of marie's husband dea agent hank schrader went to dean norris gilligan remembered the 45 year old actor from a 1995 episode of the x-files mulder and uh scully that's right either you two ever run an escaped convict operation no well then you'd be a real big help if you just tried to stay out of the way but norris had since landed dozens of film and tv roles often playing a hard-nosed cop please be as specific as possible detective sergeant goodhart officer bald hank is marie's husband he's walt's brother-in-law he's a very macho guy he's a dea agent who takes great pride in his work he's big on bragging buddy i am the brains and the brawn on the whole package i think one of the most interesting things for me i kind of mentioned to you on our on our little was the the fact that he kind of went from a um a comic kind of buffoonish character which was fun to play some dude goes by cap and cook says he always adds a dash of chili powder uh you exuberant mexicans to somewhere in the you know third season becoming a much more tragic character it's supposed to hurt pain is weakness leaving your body damn it's my foot and your aspirin come here i'm done i'm done and it's rare that you get to kind of do that kind of an arc in a in a in a uh anywhere to be honest with you so i think i might have asked vince at some point i was like should i do i need to audition again because it's a wholly separate uh not a separate but it's you know but it was a totally different kind of kind of character and it was fun to do that do that kind of arc want to cook i love this kid so much but when i first read this script i had no idea where he was going i mean he was supposed to die at the end of the first season well you got a brain the size of wisconsin we're not gonna hold that against you in 2007 breaking bad was greenlit and creator vince gilligan began putting together a group of actors that would eventually become a family look i don't know what you think you're doing here i mean if you're planning on giving me some bold wine they're about getting right with jesus or turning myself in not really high school was a long time ago okay you ain't welcome back cotter so step off rounding out the cast was aaron paul as walt's former student turned business partner jesse pinkman the 29 year old actor had landed a string of small roles on big shows like beverly hills 90210 er and the x-files oh god it's happening to me come on now but daytime tv fans may have remembered paul from his 2000 appearance as a contestant on the price is right you're the man [Applause] cree jesse pinkman aaron paul he was on the price's right as himself and his enthusiasm and word choice and mannerisms are almost exactly like jesse pinkman congratulations [Applause] when we first meet jesse pinkman aka captain cook aka chili pea he is escaping this bust that hank asked walt to ride along on for us as the audience we think that this is just some poor schmuck who got caught in this terrible thing happening but to walt it's pinkman his former student and someone he knew from teaching chemistry honestly i never expected you to amount to much but methamphetamine i didn't picture that a lot of money in it huh and that gives walt the idea to team up with jesse he goes to him with this idea that he wants to get into the whole and drug industry and that's how their partnership begins you uh you wanna cook crystal matt you you and uh and me that's right jesse pinkman was not meant to be a long-term survivor of a character i'm breaking bad what the hell man back when i was plotting out the first episode on my own right before i had a writing staff just seemed to me that the walter white who's a very square straight arrow dude needed entree needed needed a guide into the underworld you may know a lot about chemistry man but you don't know jack about slinging dope and once into the underworld that guide having served his or her purpose you know we could we could dispense with him oh god i don't want to die so you know he'll give his former teacher entree and and then he'll get killed horribly at the end of the first season he's serious and then we hired aaron paul and aaron paul is amy plays the the abrasive stuff i'd written to a t i got a wire speaking to the mic the character can be kind of a little annoying little jerk but also even at his jerkiest this character has heart what stage are you 3a contour lymph nodes and that was one of the great moments for me of breaking bad was was realizing we had you know we had this kid was gold yeah this character was gold and the young actor playing them was was a keeper we needed to keep them around want to cook to start with jesse i mean i love i i really i love this kid so much but when i first read this script i had no idea where he was going i mean he was supposed to die at the end of the first season so i don't think you know vince didn't know where he was going the writers didn't know where he's going and so um but where they took him uh was just such a brutal struggle you know this journey that he went on that i went on that we all went on um it was incredible you know at first it was just this druggy burnout but vince and the other riders were able to tell a much more interesting story rather than just this druggy burnout and uh i love that you and i will not make garbage we will produce a chemically pure and stable product that performs as advertisement breaking bad premiered on january 20th 2008 while critics raved ratings were lukewarm throughout the first season when breaking bad first came on television you know it was critically adored pretty much from the word go but you know it was on amc which at that time was not necessarily the ratings powerhouse that would become later with walking dead you know it was just like a different universe of watching television where people weren't necessarily as into serialized television as they would become but critics kind of called it out really early as a favorite so sometimes we do get things right yes [Music] yeah that's about cows yeah you know that that scene uh uh where he's trying to uh figure out if there's anything around got some big cow house way out that way like two miles but i don't see nobody then he spots a cow house cow house yeah it's like cow house he's like yeah cows where you know where they live yeah where they live a cow house a cow house like he's the idiot you know oh whatever man yeah let's cook here we were just having we were having so much so much fun in these characters god help me it's a classic kind of construct in in in narrative that yeah you have two characters who are forced to be together for one reason or another but they are so diametrically opposite in in their makeup and to have that come together so quickly and be so so obvious in in the opening episode was was just it was a striking gold remember it's the first time you ever saw gus do anything that nefarious by his own hand and he did it for a reason we never knew you just don't know what it's going to be you have great hopes but you never know in 2008 breaking bad premiered on amc despite modest ratings the show was a huge hit with critics and brian cranston took home the emmy for best actor in a drama oh my goodness oh man she's she's bald too during season two creator vince gilligan began adding a few new characters you don't want a criminal lawyer right you want a criminal lawyer the role of criminal attorney saul goodman went to bob odenkirk hi i'm saul goodman did you know that you have rights the constitution says you do and so do i the 47 year old actor started out as a writer on snl but was most recognizable from his own sketch comedy series mr show with bob and david hi i'm don pratt and i want to help you with anything i can do chores listen to your stories or just mess around with you and for playing the fast-talking agent stevie grant on the larry sanders show i'm just exercising my right to be the best i can be that's what america is all about okay that's what makes it a great company country what did i say he is kind of very much the comic relief of breaking bad he is a ambulance chasing crooked lawyer who you know knows the underbelly of the albuquerque crime world and is willing to exploit it for his clients as long as his clients have the money to pay him i'm a lawyer even drug dealers need lawyers right especially drug dealers i mean it was a a blast and a challenge to to place all in breaking bad it was funny oh look at you should i uh call the fbi and tell them i found d.b cooper and it was a very energized character and it was great fun to play it and also to get like i say a challenge to get in a room with you know yeah these actors on this level but let's start with some tough love all right ready for this here goes you two suck at peddling meth period what you two need is an honest-to-god businessman right i was used to being around clowns they still are idiots children playing with mud pies and then i was suddenly in this top notch surrounded by these people you know someone like that let's just say i know a guy who knows a guy can i help you sir master meth distributor and fast food chain owner gustavo gus fring was played by giancarlo esposito the 51 year old actor had a long list of film and tv credits but was probably best known for his work with director spike lee in malcolm x mo better blues and do the right thing rarely do i see any american italians eating here all i see is black folks so since we spend much money here we do have some set it's almost kind of like you know this guy who owns a fast food chain is also you know don corleone on steroids basically and the way that giancarlo esposito plays him there's just this really magnetic sense that he is sort of like the gravitational force around which everything else for a long period of the show kind of rotates around if you try to interfere i will kill your wife i will kill your son i will kill your infant daughter what i enjoyed the most was being able to create a character that was calm and i didn't quite know how to do that so most enjoyable was to figure out how to drop my spirit and to be calm and to be observant of everyone else and to take time before i spoke and to develop a very methodical way of speaking i didn't know how to do it but um i'm a practicing yogi so breathing breathing really helped i don't think we're alike at all mr white you have poor judgment and in that second episode the end of season two was a stage direction which said hiding in plain sight and this brought up so um much for me in my imagination into what gus could be and uh i thought oh this is the way to go you do this all you'll have left is an 8 million hole in the ground without a doubt uh something that sticks in my head was when john carlo takes that box cutter out you kill me you have nothing dispatches that one oh my god let us just go back to work we'll just pick up right where we left off because that kind of sudden violence that's so intense you just i don't know it's very shocking and surprising remember it's the first time you ever saw gus do anything that nefarious by his own hand and he did it for a reason this is for you to become awakened because this will happen to you and i might do it to you myself well get back to work certainly the message was sent i remember that scene more than any other scene that we shot because while jane was dying i saw my own daughter's face uh come to light and die in front of me it's uh it's jane right jane i gotta say this place is awesome really does it inspire ah the second season of breaking bad also introduced 28 year old kristen ritter as jesse's short-lived girlfriend jane margolis we should do something yeah no something else jane who is jesse's neighbor starts a relationship with him and she's a recovering addict and they are not good for each other it's a very toxic relationship and once she gets back into drugs and introduces jesse to heroin she becomes a very negative force in his life wanting to blackmail walt and use what jesse knows against him to get money well jesse wants is what's coming to him no more no less what are you talking about 480 000. what's interesting about her is that she also really provokes a challenge to walt um i mean in a sense she becomes the most important person in jessie's life and she decides that jesse should have more of a share of the money what some kind of black male or something this is blackmail because what i know about you high school teacher turned drug dealer with a brother-in-law in the dea that'd make one hell of a story and so in a weird way it winds up making her into walt's nemesis of the season essentially and it leads into her death scene in a really kind of awful way how do i know she'll keep quiet i guess you don't you're not seeing straight jessie you're making a mistake when i read how wall allowed jane to die um and how he played it and it just stuck with me for the rest of the show because that was always this burning question is jesse ever gonna find out is he not jesse how it was originally scripted was much different than how we ended up shooting it uh how it was originally scripted was much more malicious in a way when jane was choking on her vomit she was oding it was originally scripted that walt pushes her on her back and in return you know i thought she'd be more comfortable maybe this will help her you know and when i read that i just you know i had to put the script down i just i couldn't believe it it was already there you know this was very early on this was season two two um and uh they i think they made a uh i don't know where the note came from but i think they made a good decision i think sony and and amc had a chat with vince and said is this turning walt too quickly for him to egregiously push her on her back doesn't that make him so culpable that there's no tournament um and it ended up where walt was trying to shake jessie awake and in that jostling of her of you jesse wake up she flops to her back which she starts choking and then yeah and then she eventually dies and in my experience there's there's something that happens that we were talking about earlier about your body and your emotions when you are voluntarily putting them through something traumatic your body and emotions don't recognize that you're acting as you're still going through trauma yeah and i remember that scene more than any other scene that we shot because while jane was dying i'm seeing kristen ritter giving her her all and uh her face then kind of blends away and i saw my own daughter's face uh come to light and start and die in front of me it was so upsetting that and you couldn't shake it but you one of the things that i wrote when i was doing my work before the scene of what could be possible emotionally is that why should i save her well she's she could be my daughter she's yeah and and somewhere in my subconscious that just came to the conscious level and there she was i saw my own daughter dying in front of me and to this day that makes my heart uh you know feel heavy but that that's one of the things it's it's emotional risk i think is is the most dangerous that we face and that was it for me that scene everything is going to be okay i promise sit tight i know who to call jane's death opened the door for another new character fixer and occasional hitman mike ermantrout played by jonathan banks the 62 year old character actor had enjoyed a four decade long career but was perhaps most recognizable from the 1984 hit beverly hills cop are you still pissed at me oh no no but i should have taken care of you in detroit when i popped your little buddy when we first meet mike it's kind of not entirely clear who he works for he has connections to saul he has connections to gus but we do know that he's a fixer come on inside so after the death of jesse's girlfriend jane mike is brought in to fix the situation and make it so that no questions come from the authorities about what happened here's your story you woke up you found her that's all you know no they needed somebody to come in and clean up a mess right yeah and and bobby couldn't do it because he was doing some sitcoms somewhere i'll see you later uh randall wilkerson marshall eric's gary dinkersfield right so they called and i went in and i thought i was doing a day job and i went in i did it i slapped aaron in the face very hard which he still whines about and went home and i guess the happy accident jane has died and he calls the uh saul his lawyer and and that was the way it was scripted but bob wasn't available because he wasn't a serious regular at the time he's still not a serious record but one day one day one day just keep fighting man that's right and so hence the the need to have another character and and i think vince and the writers realized wait a minute saul wouldn't be the guy to come clean up the mess anyway he would know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy and and that's who uh jonathan banks is he's the fourth i know a guy yep down down the road a long career of being the fourth guy that walked through the door yeah yep do i need to state the obvious i was not here figuring out when to end breaking bad was an agonizing decision please tell me how much is enough how big does this pile have to be [Music] everybody the world the strobia in 2008 breaking bad premiered to rave reviews yet mediocre ratings and by 2010 not much had changed viewership for the first three seasons was almost identical while cranston won three straight best actor emmys i love this business and thank you so much god bless you lee trevino was struck by lightning twice and and now i know how he feels god bless you all thank you to the academy good night [Applause] hard to believe it took so long but in the fall of 2011 audiences finally started to catch on oh how long do you think that would take that september amc reached a deal with netflix suddenly viewers had instant access to the first 33 episodes this word that this phrase i'd never even heard binge watching the practice of it allowed for people to catch up with a very serialized show i mean when i started in television it was anathema to have a serialized show you wanted an episodic show but a serialized show like breaking bad hyper serialized where you only are really truly rewarded if you pay strict attention to the smallest details that only really works in a post netflix world that only really works in a post streaming video on demand world i mean just you know i'd love to say oh yeah i saw this coming and we planned for it we were just lucky i was lucky it was a pretty drastic difference when breaking bad made it on to netflix and i think you're right i think breaking bad was it was the first bingible show that was still airing i think it was like 30 of their streaming at one point yeah and i wish i'd bought their stock back then netflix really really was a yeah by the time the season 4 finale aired ratings were up 20 percent and nearly 2 million tuned in to see walt end his two-year feud with gustavo fring for me there was a sadness but yet a relief at letting this character go because i felt like you know it's time it's time to go now it's this is walter white's journey and gus has been a really wonderful nemesis [Music] i felt like i was leaving something behind with gus that people could really enjoy and if i could do that then then my time is done my job is done what happened i won in 2012 it seemed like the entire country was binge watching breaking bad and that july almost three million were glued to their sets for the premiere of the fifth and final season yeah magnets oh amc ultimately decided to greenlight it for a slightly longer fifth season of 16 episodes and they split it up into eight and eight so it was essentially two shorter seasons rather than just one single season running along and vince gilligan has sort of talked about how he almost kind of felt there was a need in the first half of season five to reset the show set the board so then he could kind of get to the ending that he was sort of hoping for in the back half of the season well what happened there it's my birthday yeah happy birthday figuring out when to end breaking bad was an agonizing decision please tell me how much is enough how big does this pile have to be one of the things i'm proudest of is that we did end the show you know the show was designed as as i said before is kind of an experiment it was designed to be a finite thing it was the character was designed to not be in stasis but rather to change to evolve or devolve however you'd like to look at it we had our good guy and a certain number of episodes then he was going to be the bad guy and at a certain point as a writer you say to yourself well just how bad can a bad guy be and as we saw walter white got pretty bad indeed that's right now say my name heisenberg you're goddamn right i really was saying goodbye to you your character but also you you know you know what i'm saying it was all right there [Music] skylar bring the kids here and now we'll talk that is not going to happen after nearly a year-long hiatus the second half of season five premiered in august 2013. and almost 6 million viewers tuned in then maybe your best course would be to tread lightly what's interesting about when you get to the back half of breaking bad's final season you had this incredible just feeling that a show that had been a kind of critical darling and it had sort of like a smaller but devoted fan base suddenly you know you could just feel that there was this excitement brewing around it it's like it's comparable to how uh people feel now about like the final season of game of thrones it was just this this feeling people were talking about it all the time and wondering you know what would happen to walt and what would happen to jesse what would happen now that hank knows who walt is i think the best testament any of us who are so inside and connected is that we could not accurately predict from one episode to the next what was going to happen right how is that possible when you read a script you go i didn't see that coming i didn't know that i didn't know it was going to go that way yeah it was uh it was a journey every script was like opening a present so you're here to confess there's nothing to confess when i think about the awkward guacamole scene in that day when you talk about what you went through telling you all day that you should go and kill yourself what do i have to do to make you believe me kill yourself and to look you in the eye and mean it every time i say that to you and i was having chest pains and i felt just like just kill yourself this whole thing dies with you right and um and then i i asked him which i did this a lot i would ask if we got it and then i would cry because marie was so uh that's what you're saying here is that hank should just let it go and wait for you to die or maybe you should just go ahead and die then but i remember saying i said i need to hug you and and then i said i'm ready to go do a comedy now and i and i just thought we did exactly what we were supposed to do with these characters and i i always i loved marie and the character that vince wrote and i just wanted to take her on the journey that she deserved and that they all deserved and i felt like we did that and that was i never wanted it to end but it was it was such a good feeling to feel like we really did them all in this world justice you know and you don't always get that it was the irony of the awkward guacamole scene about where marie tells me i should just go kill myself [Music] is essentially what happened is that ultimately he did i wanted to tell him to go kill himself a bunch of times never got that one walter white you have the right to remain silent anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law there's tons of great moments towards the end of the show but hank's death has to be the most memorable and shocking moment the show had ever done coward at this point jesse is in cahoots of the dea and him and hank lure walt into the desert walt finally gets arrested by hank and he's about to be taken into custody but our current baddies the neo-nazis show up please drop your weapons and a horrible gun battle ensues hank's left on the ground out of reach of his firearm oh shimmer down there sparky he's about to be killed by the head nazi sorry man just no scenario where this guy lives no no no listen and walt for the umpteenth time in the show tries to use his words and brains to talk his way out of the situation the dea doesn't know about this not yet hank nothing can change what just happened but you can walk out if you're alive in one final attempt to save hank walt begs for his brother-in-law's life you gotta tell him now that we can work this out please please what you want me to beg hank doesn't back down he says one of the best lines in the whole series you're the smartest guy i ever and met too stupid to see he made up his mind 10 minutes ago and i remember looking uh you know at brian saying you know new 10 minutes ago i was like i really was saying goodbye to you your character but also you you know you know what i'm saying it was all it was all right there it was like and it was all kind of mixed in you know with the fact that i was saying goodbye to you and walt disney and walter just just just said yeah let's make this stick around a little bit longer and it was um it was a very it's an emotional you know ends emotional and endings you know do what you're gonna do when hank dies the camera actually focuses on walt's face and you just see like everything kind of draining out of him thanks to him like you know a member of his family has been killed a member of like the law enforcement agency has been killed like it's hank like hank is dead now um it just seems like from here on out you know walt is kind of as much dead as hank is to a certain extent hey i had such a hard time with hank's death and that wasn't the finale but it was part of everything ending and you know sometimes we would read the script and we'd all email and everyone was emailing about that episode and i i said if i don't read it does that mean it won't happen you're never gonna see hank again i still have not seen that scene because i just can't watch them drag you and i just can't i just can't and i get it's pretend i you know it's not like i text like marie all day and you know expect you guys to you know show up at my house wearing purple but um i just i i really and this is what i said about him and i feel her too i said especially in this story it was so fun to be a part of that relationship because they were you know flawed maybe but like such good people and to be part of the love and i just thought hank should be in the world you know the world is better off with some people in it and he's one of them like he should have been in it and i i still i just i can't watch it you let that sink in it was incredibly moving it was really beautiful and we just hung on to each other you know and cried when we were done with our work [Music] i thought if people love this show that much god bless them i want to do right by after five seasons 62 episodes 58 emmy nominations and 16 wins including two for best drama breaking bad came to an end on september 29 2013. more than 10 million tuned in for one of the most highly anticipated series finales in tv history i was dreading it because you i just didn't want it to i didn't want it and it came too quickly when you're looking at 16 episodes to finish your story and then it it just came too quickly our feelings were were exacerbated by the fact that we were not just saying goodbye to our characters we were saying goodbye to each other that that under those circumstances we weren't ever going to be able to be in this situation again so it was the actors saying the real people saying goodbye and the characters it's a goodbye to them so it was like that that effect was was very profound well what happened there it's my birthday yeah well happy birthday the finale kind of circles back around to where we began season five um you know walt having turned 52 congratulations last birthday ever he's going to return to albuquerque after he's been on the run and he's returned with some unfinished business part of that business has to do with his family at least y'all got to talk though one more time that you did this for the family i did it for me i liked it you know i mean honestly walter white's saying i did it because i liked it i mean that is like a massive pulling the rug out shocker i was good at it but also resonates and makes perfect sense and is there's just their ability to vince's ability to to to take all these elements and they were talking earlier about surprising you with the next script and what's going to happen and yet it makes emotional sense i was alive that's the trick it doesn't come out as random it doesn't come out as just throwing against the wall to surprise you or change things up that's the real incredible trick uh that he did and continues to do before i go may i see you the most moving scene of that episode uh just to be witness to on the set uh i'll never forget was the scene where walt says goodbye to his uh his his baby daughter in her crib that was one of the finest moments of acting by anna gunn and by brian cranston of course it was sad there was a real sense of watching an era you know and and something extraordinarily lucky and important uh for all of us you know come to a close but it came to a close in such a good way it was incredibly moving it was really beautiful and we just hung on to each other you know and cried when we were done with our work so and then those guys have to go on they were like we're not done get out of here but it's all kind of leading up to this final showdown while such a meticulous guy he knows that he has an unfinished business with uncle jack and with the neo-nazis and we also know that he got that gun way back in the season premiere what's he going to do with that the worst thing all was a damn m60 machine gun because we planted that and i would i would recommend to anyone starting out doing their own show their own serialized show don't get cute and put put something like ooh the hero slash villain you know protagonist buys an m60 machine gun at the beginning of a season what will he use it for i have no freaking idea but it sounds cool let's do it we did that to ourselves we painted ourselves into this corner and one of the worst parts as i remember one of the moments i've never been more angry at myself we'd be in the writer's room and we'd say you know okay we got to pay off this machine gun walt bought that machine gun and i literally at a certain point and this is why you need good people around you to keep you honest i said you know let's forget the machine gun the audience is not going to remember the machine gun and they were like are you crazy so we stuck with it we finally figured out the machine gun but it was uh it was rough sledding for a while there it was i don't want to go through that again damn man this thing's a classic waltz arranges to meet the nazis he drives to their compound kind of parks his car in this very specific way and you know you know you're not really thinking about what that means precisely no no just straight in man just all right fine yeah whatever so he asked to see jesse and jesse at this point has been held captive by these guys he's alive isn't he he's cooking for you what are you gonna lie him being alive is not him and me being partners not by a damn sight and it's just sort of like i mean it's awful to see jesse in this way he's clearly just like essentially their little roach monster who's just like making meth and is being held captive go get him bring him here it's just you know this moment that like you're shocked to see jesse this way walt is also shocked to see jesse this way he thought that jesse was working with them he didn't realize he was imprisoned so there's a very kind of delicate moment where walt is seemingly kind of attacking jesse he's really kind of grabbing his key fob presses the sort of trunk thing and that sets up this whole mechanism that he's built and in one of the most satisfying reveals of the show this gatling gun pops out of the trunk of the car starts spraying the entire compound and everyone who is not lying on the ground is completely and utterly decimated and you know it's a little bit of a stretch to imagine that like they all lined up perfectly right in front of the bullets like i sort of think that's one situation where the show's kind of like okay yeah we can accept this because it's good but you know the final showdown in the aftermath of the only two left standing are walt and jesse and walt slides the gun over and asks jesse to kill him do it jesse can see that walt has been shot and he doesn't want to answer to him ever again so he refuses to pull the trigger then do it yourself jesse escapes and in the end we just have walt alone dying of a gunshot wound and you realize that he's kind of wistful and happy and there's this moment of almost satisfaction at what he's accomplished [Music] we start hearing the tones of baby blue by bad finger playing and you realize for walt this is it final shot of the show is the camera pulling up a dead walt on the floor as the police arrive the ending is almost perfect because walt does get what he deserves as the song says in the sense that he deserves to die my you know my own mom gail gilligan back in chester county virginia uh sweet uh well she'll kill me for saying it's a sweet a little old lady as you could hope to me you know picture aunt b from the andy griffith show and at the end of breaking bad she said to me why did you have to kill him i really wanted him to get away i was like mom are you kidding me i i had no idea people going to relate to this character like they did and i got to tell you hats off to brian cranston it really it's it's all it's all all due to brian cranston for being so sympathizable [Music] we started uh better call saul i was walking around a lot going where is everybody aren't they going to come from around the corner [Music] i kind of knew after the success of breaking bad that if i didn't get onto something else too sweet you know i would probably get into this state of of of creative paralysis i would say i would start to second guess and triple guess everything from that point on i wanted to do and i would say man you know is this thing i'm i'm contemplating is it good enough the final episode of breaking bad aired in september 2013 and just 18 months later gilligan's brand new prequel series better call saul premiered on february 8 2015. frankly i don't go looking for guilty people to represent i mean who needs that aggravation right we rolled right in i think we finished a mix on a friday of the last breaking bad we rolled into the writers room on on the following monday as i recall i better call saul it was the best thing we could have done because it kept us moving and and for me that was what i needed better call saul takes place six years before saul goodman aka jimmy mcgill first meets walter white the hell kind of math is that 700 per defense no no defendant dent three defendants 2100 which by the way bargain what i did for them they're going to jail ain't they sausage when does that matter what can i say my show this story is still going on for me so but there's a pretty big leap there between uh the saul and breaking bad and the jimmy mcgill saw of better call saul so i mean you only saw one dimension of him pretty much in breaking bad so that this show was a setup and then and then this has been a massive journey about the many sides that they brought to this character in this uh second show better call saul is almost kind of like his origin story in a way but of course the most interesting and most compelling person who transferred from breaking bad to better call saul as a supporting character is mike erman trout you want to know why i didn't take that money is that what you're asking yeah that's what i'm asking me personally i was hired to do a job i did it it's as far as it goes for bob and i it continues uh it's it's hitting the lottery it's whatever cliche you want to use and it is painful by the time you get to the end of the couch to be with you guys me what is it i don't know where that came from um when bob and i started when we started uh better call saul i thought there was a ghost on the lot bobby was nervous bobby couldn't talk probably was this he was going into the show but i was walking around a lot going where is everybody aren't they going to come from around the corner i didn't know i was gonna do this oh i haven't had enough sleep that's probably what is y'all um how good how lucky and i love mike my favorite scene was killing mike ermatra this whole thing could have been avoided let me die in peace and if it took you long enough you want to bring that up you know what we're going to do some kick-ass right now [Laughter] it's been 10 years since walt's first cook and breaking bad remains on the short list of the greatest tv dramas ever made i think that it's about a timeless aspect to it because of what it explores about human nature and how it delves into the human psyche and again i'm sorry i'm getting choked up because it just reminds me of filming those scenes and how real and terrifying and heartbreaking and all of it was and uh yeah very lucky to have had that oh my god they really have gotten older haven't they i love these people you know i feel blessed to have shared this incredible experience uh that is breaking bad with each and every one of these people i remember when we were shooting the first season dean and i were talking he goes you know in 10 years we're gonna look back and say god damn it i used to be a part of breaking bad and uh and now it's crazy that 10 years has passed and i am still constantly thinking that you know it's like wow how lucky we all are it's like you know as the great philosopher kenny rogers once said you gotta you gotta know when to hold them and you gotta know when to fold them and uh you know we we we folded them and i think in hindsight we did it at the right time you don't want to leave the party you don't want to be the last guy at the party with the lampshade in your head and everybody's like when's he gonna get the hell out of here and uh so it was it was better to leave leave them wanting a little more he he created a realm of storytelling that that opened up to the world what was now possible that the box that you thought you were in before can be completely obliterated and and we're seeing derivatives of breaking bad you know in many ways and i i find that i find it flattering and flattering in many ways you know i mean people said it was the best show ever ever on television you know you can argue that i guess no you can't but but we came if we're not the best show you guys weren't the best show ever it's best for other people to to determine yeah it's for me to determine determinant thank you so much for taking the time thank you thank you thank you damn i don't want i mean can we just keep talking [Music]

Channel: People

Views: 4,852,415

Keywords: PEOPLE, People magazine, breaking bad, breaking bad cast, breaking bad cast interview, breaking bad cast reunion, breaking bad cast funny moments, breaking bad cast then and now, cast reunions, breaking bad reunion, breaking bad reunion 10 years, breaking bad reunion ew, entertainment weekly breaking bad reunion, breaking bad 10th anniversary reunion full, breaking bad fan theories, breaking bad full cast interview, breaking bad cast reaction, breaking bad secrets

Id: 96n08GFBe3c

Length: 66min 16sec (3976 seconds)

Published: Fri May 27 2022