Breaking Bad - How Aaron Paul Perfected Jesse Pinkman

[Music] it's hard to say what makes one breakout performance more special than another Landing a major role in a movie or a TV series is challenging enough and it's always a long shot that any project will ever become popular let alone a hit but I can't think of a more challenging position to break out from than being cast as a character that the writers are fully intending to kill off in the first season and somehow turning that around to starring in every episode you had originally intended to kill off a character in episode 9 but you only got to episode seven yes who are you going to kill off I was going to kill off this gentleman right here thank God for the rights foreign Paul's career would have looked like if he had been killed off early as Breaking Bad maintained such a revolving door of Charisma that he may have just been forgotten about prior to playing Jesse Pinkman Aaron Paul was a jobbing actor typically Landing a small TV role here or there for just one episode but it was in 2008 at the age of 29 that his life would change forever when he became the co-star of what many consider to be the greatest series ever made the performance unsurprisingly earned him three Emmys as the character became not just the heartbeat of the series but the moral guiding voice but what is it about this performance that made the writers change their mind from what I can tell there are three keys to understanding what made Aaron Paul so captivating as Jesse Pinkman let's start with the physicality of the character because he has a father-son teacher-student relationship with Walt Aaron adopts a less mature more rebellious physicality he drags his body around he leans lazily he looks away dismissively all of these traits are quite big which makes the character more memorable to the point anyone could easily do an impression of Jesse Pinkman probably by saying his catchphrase yeah magnets early on in the series he serves as the comic relief as Walt and Jesse's Dynamic resembles The Odd Couple except the stakes are so much higher but there's so much more to Jesse than just a catchphrase Aaron shows us the character's vulnerability through his physicality as someone who flunked out of school and is looked down on by his own family Jesse is insecure and defensive so he always feels this need to verbally fight with everyone he feels he has to speak louder to ensure his voice gets heard but he doesn't just turn the volume of his voice up he turns his physicality up notice how literally in your face Jesse is with every word Aaron jerks his face forward getting closer and closer to the person he's talking to or screaming at this happens consistently throughout the series Jesse makes his point by moving his head closer to the character which physically places him closer to us so now our relationship with him feels more intimate because Walt is the more stoic and mature one we often see him standing or sitting still while Jesse is a tornado of motion around him this contrast is why Cranston and Paul create such great chemistry on screen no pun intended because Aaron isn't just selling us on Jesse's feeling in each scene he's helping to highlight Waltz if they were both stoic the scene is steady but less emotionally intense if they're both highly physical then the scene devolves into Hysteria but by having two characters with completely different temperaments the audience can identify with both and usually Falls somewhere in the middle not knowing what they do in this situation either Aaron physically makes Jesse a chaotic Livewire he's not someone who thinks he's someone who acts so we see him constantly in motion running pacing turning away from the person he's talking to belting his face forward at the person he's talking at or using lots of wild hand gestures this feeds into the next key emotional transparency Breaking Bad is a stressful show to watch the characters are always Under Pressure to find ways out of life and death situations and in this stressful environment Jesse is the most visibly stressed character which subconsciously makes us empathize with him more than everyone else it's important to remember how many different ways this character could have been played he could have just been the comic relief with a catchphrase he could have just been angry or irrational or much cooler about what's going on but Aaron makes Jesse completely emotionally transparent what do I mean by that there's not a single scene in which we don't know exactly what Jesse is feeling even if he's trying not to show it Breaking Bad is a show filled with Secrets deception and betrayal so having just one character that's consistently emotionally transparent makes him more trustworthy we never have to worry about Jesse pulling a fast one on us or outsmarting everyone for his own self-interest he's not built that way Jesse feels everything and therefore we emotionally attach to him because we're feeling it with him Aaron uses many different tools to show us what the character is experiencing internally he usually allows the emotion to squeal its way through his entire body so you can feel it even if he's not saying anything a trademark Jesse Pinkman move is to look up to the sky as if he's searching for answers unable to comprehend the cruelty of this world it's as if the feeling punches him in the gut and then he looks up to the heavens we see this when his own parents kick him out of his aunt's house when Andrea tells him that her younger brother was the one that shot combo when he sees the news report of the missing boy that Todd Shot and even when he's about to be killed by Jack in the desert when he stressed he's always rubbing his face or hiding his head in his hands and when he doesn't know what to say or he's holding himself back from saying something he rolls his tongue around his mouth and gnashes his jaw from side to side to express his discomfort with what's happening he's never just sitting perfectly still and thinking he's always physically feeling something let's take this scene as an example Jesse has just discovered that children are being used to push their product and wants to take revenge on Gus's men right up front we see Jesse's face he looks nauseous and nervous about what he's about to reveal compared to waltz who's completely fine then as he pitches his idea we see a mixture of sadness and rage his lips are tight and snarling as each word tumbles out of his mouth as if he's Furious he even has to explain why this is wrong then watch this moment closely Jesse is about to show us that he wants revenge before he even tells Waltz that's what he wants take a look [Music] the way the emotion squirms through his hands it's communicating that he wants to ring their necks try as he might he can't contain his anger now let's contrast this to when Jesse doesn't want to take violent action because the victim is innocent when Walter asks Jesse to shoot Gail after Walt killed those thugs on Jesse's behalf Aaron shows us a completely different set of emotions so many feelings rush to the surface here firstly shock at what he's hearing he can't believe they're really talking about murdering someone that isn't trying to harm them also notice Aaron's eyework little micro movements to show Jesse is calculating what it all means and what to say next very briefly they shoot up to waltz then his pupils pan away and he closes his eyes as if he doesn't want to see that this is really happening then turns his whole head so it starts as shock but the predominant emotion that keeps traveling through him is shame and that's what's so complex about this scene Aaron isn't just playing it as a guy who doesn't want to do something he's also playing it subservient and ashamed because he feels he owes Waltz for wiping out those guys but he knows he can't return the favor as he just can't handle this I can't I can't do it this temperament is a sharp contrast to the Jesse we're used to seeing the big bombastic always getting in your face Jesse instead we see someone subdued and broken [Music] this leads into the final key emotional intensity when Jesse isn't trying to restrain an emotion Aaron is Sensational at serving it up raw for the world to see outwardly showcasing the psychological distress of the character whether he's in the process of hurting someone or feels in danger himself just look at how he reacts when he finds the rice and cigarette the stress of the situation floods through him and he starts rubbing his face stretching his skin then locks his hands around his own throat restraining his breathing then starts to Weep the veins beginning to Bubble from his forehead all of this completely makes you forget that you're watching a fictional TV show because he's selling the emotion as completely candid and authentic in the most goat-wrenching scene Jesse is forced to watch Todd shoot Andrea on her doorstep and for me two equally powerful performances are taking place at the same time how it looks and how it sounds visually if you took a still photograph of this the horror is written all over it his face is red with pressure his eyes are streaming his mouth a gape but when you just listen to the sound it's a disturbing experience of its own whoa this is because Aaron Paul always dares to go all in in every scene he gives it everything he has which must be emotionally draining to do take after take after take what's lovable about Jesse Pinkman is that he's never just being violent or evil when he points a gun at someone he cares about it emotionally impacts him just as much as the victim when he accuses Waltz of poisoning Brock there's a unique blend of boiling rage grief betrayal and fear we see a huge flow of Tears literally squirting off his face as he speaks and yet again Cranston and Paul's complementary contrast is at play here Waltz being steady and stoic while Jesse is a tornado of physicality and emotion even though Jesse is technically the violent threat in this scene Aaron plays it as the victim his lips are trembling his eyes scrunch together in pain Dennis the scene peaks in tension Jesse presses the gun against Walt's Temple and just look how expressive he is veins are literally bursting out of his head you can see the agony inside of him it feels real and as the final example when Jesse realizes Saul had he will lift the rice and cigarette from him he bursts into the room in a maniacal rage but he's so emotionally charged but his eyes start to glisten with tears Aaron never just plays one emotion at a time there are always several bouncing around inside of him pulling him in different directions denisol confesses and the Betrayal sinks in he's like a wild animal his eyes locked onto his Target no blinking and his breathing is so intense that it causes his teeth to chatter Aaron never chooses to play it cool calm and collected he plays it raw and intense these are just some examples but there are countless others as Aaron manages to manifest the character's true feelings with every second he's on screen sometimes it's pouring out of him other times it's with something as little as a look or a physical twitch in the first season Jesse pinkman's character description calls for someone who's a bit cheeky a bit funny and a bit cool but by playing him as someone so emotionally wounded and transparent we connect with him faster intuitively trust him and therefore root for him on a deeper level and that's why keeping Jesse alive was the best decision the writers ever made as it allowed Aaron Paul to do what he does best and breathe life into the show [Music] if you enjoy content like this and want to see more of it please do consider supporting me on patreon as it really does make a difference to how much content I can pump out or if you can't afford that then simply like the video subscribe and leave a comment down below to help the algorithm do its thing

Channel: Just an Observation

Views: 726,677

Keywords: breaking bad aaron paul jesse pinkman, aaron paul acting, aaron paul breaking bad, jesse pinkman breaking bad, jesse pinkman, aaron paul, jesse pinkman aaron paul, aaron paul video essay, aaron paul analysis, jesse pinkman video essay, jesse pinkman analysis, jesse pinkman character study, aaron paul intensity, emotional transparency, how aaron paul acts, aaron paul career, breaking bad jesse, breaking bad acting, bryan cranston, just an observation

Id: wVgmN9TXPiU

Length: 13min 42sec (822 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 21 2022