Episode 216 - Bryan Cranston

Episode 216 • Released October 5, 2011 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:Lock the gates!

00:00:07Marc:Are we doing this?

00:00:08Marc:Really?

00:00:08Marc:Wait for it.

00:00:09Marc:Are we doing this?

00:00:10Marc:Wait for it.

00:00:12Marc:Pow!

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck?

00:00:14Marc:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?

00:00:16Marc:What's wrong with me?

00:00:17Marc:It's time for WTF!

00:00:19Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:20Guest:With Marc Maron.

00:00:24Marc:Okay, let's do this.

00:00:25Marc:How are you, what-the-fuckers?

00:00:26Marc:What-the-fuck buddies?

00:00:28Marc:What-the-fuck-a-Molens?

00:00:29Marc:What-the-fuck-a-Ricans?

00:00:31Marc:Hey, look, we got more here.

00:00:33Marc:Oh, no, I'm going to the suggestions.

00:00:35Marc:What-the-fuck-a-Fornians?

00:00:38Marc:Okay, that's good.

00:00:39Marc:What-the-fuck-a-Lows?

00:00:40Marc:All right, I can live with that.

00:00:42Marc:And here's a very special request.

00:00:43Marc:Hey, man, I'm a huge fan of your podcast, and I'm also Ethiopian, so I'd be psyched if you gave a shout-out to the what-the-fuck-a-opians.

00:00:52Marc:What the fuck-y-opians?

00:00:53Marc:What the fuck-y-opians?

00:00:55Marc:At the beginning of your show.

00:00:56Marc:Well, there you go.

00:00:57Marc:Welcome, what the fuck-y-opians.

00:00:59Marc:Oh, here's a bunch.

00:01:00Marc:What the fuck, guys?

00:01:01Marc:What the fuck are jacks?

00:01:03Marc:What the fuck, drivers?

00:01:04Marc:All right, what the fuck?

00:01:05Marc:I'm done with that.

00:01:06Marc:Welcome to the show.

00:01:07Marc:I am Marc Maron.

00:01:08Marc:This is WTF.

00:01:09Marc:This is an exciting day here on the show.

00:01:12Marc:I get to interview Bryan Cranston, who is an actor, obviously.

00:01:17Marc:I know him as Mr. White.

00:01:20Marc:Walter White from Breaking Bad, and I am obsessed with that show.

00:01:26Marc:I'm completely out of my mind, fucking obsessed with that show.

00:01:30Marc:I saw it Sunday night, and now I think about that show during the day.

00:01:35Marc:That's where I'm at with Breaking Bad.

00:01:38Marc:I mean, it's been a great week.

00:01:39Marc:We had Jon Hamm on from Mad Men.

00:01:41Marc:Love that show.

00:01:42Marc:Waiting for that to come back.

00:01:43Marc:But I am completely submerged, immersed and obsessed with Breaking Bad.

00:01:48Marc:I have no idea what the fuck is going to happen.

00:01:50Marc:I never know what's going to happen.

00:01:52Marc:And I wake up thinking about it.

00:01:54Marc:That's got to be the sign of a good show.

00:01:56Marc:Never know.

00:01:56Marc:It's genius.

00:01:58Marc:And I get to talk to Bryan Cranston today, and I'm not going to ask him for the recipe of meth.

00:02:05Marc:I'm not going to ask him that.

00:02:06Marc:I'm not going to ask him to speak to me as Mr. White.

00:02:09Marc:I will try to get past the fact that he is Mr. White.

00:02:13Marc:So let me work on that while we do this open.

00:02:16Marc:Let me try to get past that.

00:02:18Marc:Got some email about the rat issue under the house.

00:02:20Marc:And some of you are are indicting and slandering my cats for not doing their job.

00:02:26Marc:I don't know that Boomer did not kill that rat and drag it under there.

00:02:30Marc:The rat, quite honestly, from the bag that I held in my hand was almost the size of Boomer.

00:02:37Marc:I do not have a rat problem.

00:02:40Marc:I'm still I maybe I should have opened the bag because I still think in my heart.

00:02:44Marc:that it's a possum and that's sort of a waste of heart space to hold on to this idea that perhaps I was misled by the man with a poor grasp on the English language and that it was indeed a possum under my house.

00:02:57Marc:But don't get on my cats.

00:02:58Marc:All right.

00:02:59Marc:My cats, maybe they're they're not they're not mousers.

00:03:02Marc:But but who knows?

00:03:04Marc:Maybe the mythos that should be established is that Boomer

00:03:07Marc:killed that rat and took it under the house and placed it directly under my bedroom as a gift for me because he doesn't come in the house.

00:03:15Marc:Maybe Boomer's that smart and maybe I should be thanking him.

00:03:19Marc:So look, today was my cheat day on my diet.

00:03:23Marc:You know what's an amazing diet?

00:03:24Marc:You know how you can lose weight really quickly?

00:03:27Marc:Crank.

00:03:28Marc:Meth.

00:03:29Marc:Yeah.

00:03:30Marc:If you spend about three or four days on meth, you will take the pounds off like that.

00:03:34Marc:You'll also have a weird look in your eye.

00:03:37Marc:You'll feel like your brain is way too open and that you understand a lot more than you do.

00:03:42Marc:And you will probably have a very clean house at the end of those three days, depending on what you obsess on.

00:03:47Marc:Some people will clean their house.

00:03:49Marc:Others will draw mazes.

00:03:50Marc:Some people will insulate with the odd things.

00:03:53Marc:Uh, it's when you do crystal meth and you have an obsessive personality, look out.

00:04:01Marc:Some things are going to get shiny.

00:04:02Marc:Some things are going to get drawn and some things are going to get fixed around the house and no one's going to get any sleep.

00:04:08Marc:And eventually you'll be talking to yourself, but pretty sure you're in a reasonable conversation.

00:04:15Marc:I always said back in the day when I did do drugs, crank is a great drug for the first hour or two.

00:04:20Marc:It's what you do with the other 72 that really becomes the issue.

00:04:25Marc:Man, I don't miss that drug, and it wasn't my drug per se.

00:04:28Marc:But that show, Breaking Bad, man, it really captures it.

00:04:31Marc:You don't watch that show when you see those tweakers and ever think like, oh, there you go.

00:04:36Marc:That's the thing for me.

00:04:38Marc:And I never smoked it.

00:04:39Marc:And back in the day, what is it with me and back in the day today?

00:04:42Marc:Holy fuck, I'm not 100%.

00:04:46Marc:But the crank we had was yellow.

00:04:47Marc:It was shitty.

00:04:48Marc:It was made in someone's bathroom or bathtub, usually by bikers or Mexican gangsters.

00:04:54Marc:It always hurt going in.

00:04:56Marc:And within seconds, you would just feel it start sort of in your sinus passages, burn up behind your eyes.

00:05:02Marc:And then you would just feel your brain peel open.

00:05:06Marc:And then, of course, you could see people's bones through their face.

00:05:11Marc:Not in a trippy way, just in a very intense way.

00:05:13Marc:And you could probably, I thought the one or two times I did crystal meth that I could move things with my mind.

00:05:20Marc:I thought that.

00:05:22Marc:I have no way to prove it.

00:05:24Marc:Not unlike the rat under the house.

00:05:28Marc:Oh, fuck.

00:05:29Marc:Who the hell's calling now?

00:05:34Marc:Hello?

00:05:36Guest:Hey, Mark, it's Kevin Allison calling.

00:05:39Marc:Kevin Allison from The Risk Show?

00:05:41Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:05:43Guest:Listen, you're not going to believe what I just did.

00:05:46Marc:Okay, what did you just do?

00:05:47Marc:It seems that you need to share it with somebody.

00:05:49Marc:I'm glad I could be that person.

00:05:52Guest:I just went to this kink camp.

00:05:55Marc:Kink?

00:05:57Guest:Yeah, yeah, this camp for kinksters.

00:06:00Marc:Oh, so you're for fans of the band The Kinks?

00:06:02Yeah.

00:06:03Guest:No, no, no.

00:06:04Guest:For fans of people who like being set on fire and flogged and having fire hoses sprayed in their orifice.

00:06:12Marc:Oh, my God.

00:06:12Marc:How did that go?

00:06:14Guest:Well, I didn't realize there'd be no other gay dudes there.

00:06:18Marc:Oh, so you had to make do, huh?

00:06:21Guest:Yeah, I had to get with a woman named Strap-On Joe.

00:06:25Guest:Uh-huh.

00:06:30Guest:It was my first experience with a woman at 41 years old.

00:06:34Marc:Is that true?

00:06:35Marc:Is that true?

00:06:36Guest:That's absolutely true.

00:06:38Guest:I had only ever kissed a girl in the fifth grade.

00:06:41Marc:So out of desperation and the desire not to waste your time at kink camp, you got to stand in.

00:06:49Guest:Absolutely.

00:06:50Guest:And you know what?

00:06:52Guest:It was a blast.

00:06:53Guest:It was a blast.

00:06:54Marc:Do you talk about this on your show?

00:06:56Guest:Yeah, yeah, there's a new episode where I tell the whole kink camp story on risk.

00:07:01Marc:All right, well, that's something to look forward to.

00:07:03Marc:So are you just calling me to tell me you got fucked with a strap on?

00:07:07Guest:No, no, no, there's one other thing.

00:07:11Guest:What?

00:07:12Guest:we're doing this fundraiser.

00:07:14Marc:Yeah.

00:07:14Guest:And yeah.

00:07:15Guest:And we have all, all the like great folks who have told crazy stories on the show are like giving strange things as prizes for people who pledge.

00:07:25Guest:Yeah.

00:07:26Guest:Like, um, uh, Michael Showalter will draw a doodle of you or Margaret show.

00:07:33Guest:We'll give you sex advice.

00:07:35Marc:Ooh, that could go either way.

00:07:38Guest:Lisa Lampanelli, she'll insult you all day on Twitter.

00:07:43Marc:Oh, wow, okay.

00:07:44Guest:Janine will make a friendship necklace for you.

00:07:48Marc:Oh, yeah, she's probably got some.

00:07:50Marc:Well, I don't want to ruin anyone's surprise, but I think she's probably already got a few made.

00:07:54Guest:Janine likes to make them.

00:07:55Guest:No, no, no.

00:07:57Guest:These are so especially for you if you pledge, Mark.

00:08:01Marc:Okay, well, all right.

00:08:02Marc:So I guess I wouldn't mind being part of this.

00:08:05Marc:You need something from me?

00:08:08Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:08:10Guest:What do you got?

00:08:10Guest:Do you have anything around?

00:08:13Marc:Well, I'm in the garage now.

00:08:14Marc:I've got a broken chair.

00:08:17Marc:That's no good.

00:08:20Marc:Oh, here's a bowl that I ate cereal out of that's not clean.

00:08:25Marc:Would that be something you think?

00:08:27Marc:No?

00:08:28Guest:It's interesting, but it might be disease-ridden by the time it gets to them.

00:08:33Marc:Hey, I've got a packing tape roller, the kind you get for free sometimes when you buy packing tape.

00:08:38Marc:How about that?

00:08:39Guest:Oh, I love those things.

00:08:42Marc:I've got my Talis bag.

00:08:44Marc:I mean, I don't want to give away my Talis.

00:08:46Marc:I certainly haven't used it in a long time.

00:08:48Marc:You know what I could do is I've got these beautiful WTF posters that were done for a bell house show.

00:08:56Marc:They were kind of hand screened and hand printed on this beautiful thick paper.

00:09:01Marc:It's very nice.

00:09:01Marc:I could do one of those.

00:09:03Guest:ah that's perfect that's beautiful i love that the goal is what kevin we're trying to raise fifty thousand dollars so that we can keep the whole show going oh well shit why didn't you go go.com wait okay why didn't you just say that hold on get my let me get my checkbook fifty thousand yeah it takes a lot to run it to get people to tell crazy shit like this it takes a lot to keep it going all right so where can people go

00:09:33Guest:They go to Indiegogo.com, and the campaign is called Keep Risk Running.

00:09:39Marc:Okay, so that's to keep the show Risk Going.

00:09:42Marc:It's a great show.

00:09:43Marc:A lot of people tell some very deep and dark and funny stories on that.

00:09:47Marc:I've been on there.

00:09:48Marc:Obviously, Janine's been on there, Showalter, some of the other people.

00:09:51Marc:Who else has been on there?

00:09:52Guest:Oh, gosh.

00:09:54Guest:Rachel Dratch.

00:09:57Guest:Let's see.

00:09:58Guest:Nick Swartzen.

00:10:00Guest:Kevin Nealon.

00:10:01Guest:Just a whole ton of like pretty much everyone from the state.

00:10:04Marc:OK.

00:10:05Guest:Lots of crazy stuff.

00:10:07Marc:All right.

00:10:07Marc:Well, it's a great show.

00:10:08Marc:I had a great time doing it.

00:10:09Marc:It's a good cause.

00:10:09Marc:I'm going to donate my WTF poster.

00:10:12Marc:Give me the give me the site name again.

00:10:14Guest:Yeah, Indiegogo.com slash keep-risk-running.

00:10:20Marc:Well, that's complicated.

00:10:21Marc:So they should just go to Indiegogo.com and look for Keep Risk Running.

00:10:26Guest:Exactly.

00:10:27Guest:And if they want to hear about me getting fucked by a girl with a strap on, they can just go to risk-show.com.

00:10:35Marc:Oh, well, that's where I'm going.

00:10:38Guest:Yeah, it's very juicy.

00:10:40Marc:I'll send you the poster, buddy.

00:10:43Guest:Great.

00:10:43Guest:Thanks so much, Mark.

00:10:45Marc:Okay.

00:10:45Marc:Thanks a lot, Kevin.

00:10:46Guest:Cool.

00:10:46Guest:Talk to you later.

00:10:56Marc:in the garage right now with me at the cat ranch i'm thrilled is uh brian cranston yeah welcome to the cat ranch i thought this was the cat house i'm sorry was it not clear no i can get you directions okay i'm uh i'm thrilled that you showed up i'm gonna just that someone drove the hell out here to east jesus yeah yeah you ever been out here

00:11:22Guest:I have.

00:11:22Guest:I shot something out here many, many years ago.

00:11:25Guest:What would that have been?

00:11:27Guest:This weird little film, I think it was called Street Corner Justice.

00:11:33Guest:Uh-huh.

00:11:34Guest:With Mark Singer.

00:11:35Guest:Yeah.

00:11:36Guest:And it was so strange because everyone in this...

00:11:40Guest:in this film had an accent of some sort there was the the street black guy there was the hispanic guy there was the korean grocer yeah there i played the irish priest there every single person had an accent was that to make up for a lack of a plot or story it's probably a diversion tactic yeah it's like

00:12:02Guest:We don't know what we're doing here.

00:12:04Guest:We can't just go out and fight them.

00:12:06Guest:You know, all that stuff.

00:12:09Guest:I can't.

00:12:09Guest:Like, how many years ago would that have been?

00:12:13Guest:Oh, God.

00:12:14Guest:15, 16 years ago, something like that.

00:12:18Marc:Look, I'm a huge fan of Breaking Bad, and I have a little difficulty.

00:12:24Marc:I'm going to have to separate you from Walter.

00:12:27Guest:Oh, okay.

00:12:27Marc:Do you have difficulty separating yourself from Walter?

00:12:30Guest:No.

00:12:31Guest:I think most people do because you're looking at me right now.

00:12:34Guest:I don't look at myself very much.

00:12:36Guest:Yeah.

00:12:36Guest:Right?

00:12:36Guest:Right.

00:12:37Guest:Throughout the day, it's like I'm looking the other way.

00:12:41Yeah.

00:12:41Guest:And when I work, you know, he's a very specific guy.

00:12:45Guest:And I kind of slip into those comfortable shoes, the wallabies.

00:12:49Guest:Yeah.

00:12:50Guest:Shave my head, put on those glasses.

00:12:52Guest:And now I'm Walter White.

00:12:55Guest:Yeah.

00:12:56Guest:So it's different for me.

00:12:58Marc:Now, seeing that, like I just saw Drive last night as well.

00:13:02Marc:Oh, cool.

00:13:02Marc:You were great in that.

00:13:03Marc:Thanks.

00:13:03Marc:And that's a beautiful movie.

00:13:05Marc:It's a really cool movie.

00:13:06Guest:Were you pretty impressed with it?

00:13:08Guest:I was, and especially because we shot it in a conventional sense.

00:13:14Guest:And Nicholas Refn, our director, really found the movie in editing, I think, and the music and...

00:13:22Guest:added that film noir type of feel to it.

00:13:25Guest:It's kind of a hybrid.

00:13:27Marc:Yeah, it's almost like there's some almost Western elements in it.

00:13:31Guest:Yeah.

00:13:31Marc:In the way that he kind of comes out of nowhere with no past.

00:13:35Guest:We don't know much about him.

00:13:36Guest:Morally dubious.

00:13:38Guest:Yes, exactly.

00:13:40Marc:You've directed some yourself.

00:13:42Marc:Mm-hmm.

00:13:42Marc:And, I mean, when you see a movie like that, so many people said, this is a great movie.

00:13:47Marc:And you hardly ever hear that anymore.

00:13:49Marc:Like people coming up to you going, it's a great movie.

00:13:51Marc:Yeah.

00:13:51Marc:And then you go to it, and it takes a while for it to build, but it's clearly a director's movie.

00:13:57Marc:And I walked out of there saying, there's no way an American guy directed that.

00:14:01Marc:Yeah.

00:14:02Marc:It's too stripped down.

00:14:03Marc:There's no pyrotechnic.

00:14:05Marc:It's all about the frame, and it's about waiting, and everything because of that.

00:14:09Marc:That scene with you and Albert Brooks, I don't want to spoil it for anybody, but that was insane.

00:14:12Guest:Yeah.

00:14:13Guest:I pitched that.

00:14:14Marc:Yeah, did you?

00:14:15Guest:Yeah.

00:14:15Guest:Come on.

00:14:16Guest:No, I did.

00:14:16Guest:I pitched that sequence, which was another part of doing Drive that was so rewarding is that all the actors, the main actors, were in Nicholas's living room here in Los Angeles.

00:14:31Guest:pitching out ideas of what they would like to say, what they don't want to say.

00:14:36Guest:And so everyone was contributing.

00:14:39Guest:And so consequently, when we started shooting that, we were all invested in this movie, much more than just hired actors.

00:14:47Marc:Well, you've been a hired actor for what, 40 years?

00:14:49Marc:32.

00:14:50Marc:32?

00:14:51Marc:Close.

00:14:52Marc:Where did you come from?

00:14:54Marc:Where'd you grow up?

00:14:55Marc:L.A.

00:14:55Marc:So was that always the thing for you?

00:14:58Marc:I mean, what drove you towards that?

00:15:00Marc:It's not the easiest career.

00:15:03Guest:No, it certainly isn't.

00:15:05Guest:But...

00:15:06Guest:My dad was an actor.

00:15:07Guest:My mom and dad met in a Hollywood acting class after the war, after World War II.

00:15:14Guest:And she gave it up to be a housewife and a mother and that sort of thing, which was the times.

00:15:20Guest:And he pursued acting and writing.

00:15:23Guest:And he had a typical actor's career where it was up and down and down and up and down and down and up and down and down.

00:15:29Guest:Yeah.

00:15:30Marc:and um it kind of got to him so he said i i just can't do that anymore you know at what age did he say that late 40s so were you uh was there because i know from from being a comic and being in show business and the way i'm in it and and knowing other actors i mean as a kid were you listening to your father go like i don't know what i'm gonna do anymore yeah

00:15:50Guest:they're not coming the parts aren't coming that and and or rehearsing lines um sometimes we'd have some you know it was loose back then so we'd have props we'd we'd have they'd bring home some army helmets and german helmets and things like that and badges and patches and things like that yeah that i thought oh that's so nice of them and i realized later my dad must have lifted these things you know like no one's gonna say here joe take these home

00:16:18Guest:Was he in films?

00:16:19Guest:Yeah.

00:16:20Guest:Yeah?

00:16:20Guest:Yeah.

00:16:21Guest:There was one that I remember.

00:16:23Guest:He was in a lot of television, a lot of film, the beginning of the end with the large grasshoppers climbing up the side of the buildings.

00:16:31Guest:It was a horror film.

00:16:33Guest:It was with Peter Graves.

00:16:34Guest:Yeah.

00:16:35Guest:And, you know, Sector 5, come in.

00:16:37Guest:Yeah.

00:16:38Guest:This is Sector 5 on the top of the roof building at 42nd and 3rd Avenue.

00:16:43Guest:It all looks clear here.

00:16:44Guest:It cuts back to them in the control room.

00:16:46Guest:Okay, let us know.

00:16:47Guest:Yeah, I'll let you know.

00:16:48Guest:And you're in the theater going, that's my dad.

00:16:55Guest:Yeah, that's my dad who just ate it.

00:16:57Marc:So when you got started, were you studying something else?

00:17:00Marc:I mean, was there another trajectory there?

00:17:03Guest:Well, early on, I wanted to be a baseball player.

00:17:06Marc:Yeah.

00:17:06Guest:That was my goal.

00:17:08Guest:And I was good in Little League and different levels.

00:17:11Guest:And then as you grow and you get into higher and higher levels, high school was the eye-opener to me.

00:17:19Guest:Yeah.

00:17:19Guest:It was like, oh, I'm just average.

00:17:23Yeah.

00:17:23Guest:Not a hero here.

00:17:25Guest:I thought I was pretty good, but I'm really just average.

00:17:29Guest:And it's like, wow, that was such a disappointing discovery.

00:17:33Guest:It's an important one to learn about being a grownup.

00:17:36Guest:You know what I mean?

00:17:36Guest:Yeah.

00:17:37Marc:Like, you know, maybe I don't got it.

00:17:39Guest:Yeah.

00:17:40Guest:It's better to learn when you're 16 than at 60.

00:17:43Guest:Yeah.

00:17:43Guest:You know, like, hmm, all these years I didn't succeed because I'm really not that good.

00:17:49Marc:Yeah.

00:17:49Marc:You never had that as an actor, plodding along for as long as you did?

00:17:55Guest:No.

00:17:55Guest:By the time I committed to being an actor, I was 23 years old when I said, this is what I want to do.

00:18:02Guest:I had gone two years to college to be a cop because I thought that was a pretty cool job, get to carry a gun and tell people what to do and be physical with them.

00:18:14Guest:I was very manly.

00:18:15Guest:What killed that dream?

00:18:17Guest:uh girls oh okay yeah you don't want to you don't want to die because you wanted to live for girls uh no actually uh the girls in theater classes were far prettier the ones and then the ones in in police science so you turned in your imaginary badge exactly right i said adios i'm going here yeah so my entire life's path yeah was chartered by the libido of a 17 year old boy isn't it usually

00:18:43Guest:I don't know.

00:18:45Guest:It's rather embarrassing to reflect back on that and to realize, so that's really why I got into acting was for the girls.

00:18:53Guest:All I did was dabble in a couple classes because I was on my track to be a policeman.

00:18:59Guest:That was my major.

00:19:00Guest:And after two years, I was completely confused, left, rode around the country for a couple years on a motorcycle, and

00:19:09Guest:You know, volunteering time at a theater in Daytona Beach, Florida.

00:19:14Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:19:14Marc:You made the whole trek across country?

00:19:17Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:19:17Marc:On a bike?

00:19:17Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:19:18Guest:I was gone two years.

00:19:19Guest:So what year would that have been?

00:19:21Guest:76 to 78.

00:19:24Marc:So you were just like, fuck it.

00:19:26Guest:Yeah.

00:19:26Guest:Now I'm going.

00:19:27Guest:Well, it was fight or flight, and I ran away.

00:19:32Guest:And your folks were like, see ya.

00:19:34Guest:Yeah, in essence.

00:19:35Guest:They're kind of free-spirited.

00:19:37Guest:Yeah, so they were cool with it.

00:19:38Guest:So it was like, hey, be careful.

00:19:39Guest:You got a helmet?

00:19:41Guest:Yeah.

00:19:42Guest:My brother went with me because he was kind of in the same boat.

00:19:44Guest:He was going to be a cop as well and it wasn't quite right.

00:19:49Guest:So we both just ran away.

00:19:51Marc:We ran away from home.

00:19:52Marc:You got bikes?

00:19:53Marc:You both had bikes?

00:19:54Marc:Uh-huh.

00:19:54Marc:And what did you do?

00:19:55Marc:Did you do the whole sort of vision quest?

00:19:57Marc:Did you go to the Grand Canyon?

00:19:58Marc:Did you hike?

00:19:59Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:19:59Guest:Take mushrooms?

00:20:00Guest:What happened?

00:20:01Guest:We did all that.

00:20:04Guest:world yeah i think because we're we were going to be cops it's like no that's a bad combination yeah you know they they they tend to frown on advancement when the cops are loaded sure yeah um so we we missed that whole uh experience and and you know i'm not uh it's fine that who knows what happened to your life then yeah yeah exactly you're probably lucky you didn't do it yeah but i left i left california

00:20:29Guest:uh with about a hundred bucks in my pocket which quickly ran out gas and food and it's like hey i got nothing oklahoma right now earlier we we texas uh so we we uh got jobs in cafes and and uh carnivals and any pickup kind of job of course back in the 70s it was a lot looser yeah some uh

00:20:52Guest:Cafe owner would say, oh, you want to bust tables?

00:20:55Guest:Bust tables.

00:20:55Guest:I'll feed you and pay you 20 bucks.

00:20:57Guest:You can work for a couple of days.

00:20:58Guest:Yeah, you work.

00:20:59Marc:It's like, okay.

00:21:00Marc:Wait, a carnival?

00:21:01Marc:How did that pan out?

00:21:04Guest:We had worked in a carnival once before when it came to town because they pick up transient workers all the time.

00:21:11Guest:Sure.

00:21:12Guest:And so they call them joints, those booths.

00:21:15Guest:And so we worked in the joint, the balloon in the darts.

00:21:21Guest:Oh, okay.

00:21:21Guest:Yeah, sure.

00:21:22Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:24Guest:And made some good money.

00:21:25Guest:How'd you met?

00:21:25Guest:Was it a commission deal?

00:21:26Marc:You just pocketed stuff?

00:21:27Marc:Oh, really?

00:21:28Guest:A commission deal.

00:21:29Guest:The more you can bring in.

00:21:30Marc:So it was all based on your pitch skills.

00:21:34Guest:Exactly right.

00:21:35Guest:So we were a pitchman.

00:21:36Guest:Hey, come on up here and try this out.

00:21:38Guest:Hey, come on, sweetheart, try this out.

00:21:40Guest:And just jabbering away to try to get as many people...

00:21:43Guest:to play as possible did you meet carnies were you hanging out yeah yeah we met a lot of carnies it's a it's a very dark world that carny world so we knew we were outside of that line right and they knew we were outside so basically the ones the ones who are permanent members of the carny world that travel with the carnival everywhere yeah that's a different sect than the people who they pick up locally right there's there's a definite divide between the two

00:22:11Guest:Yeah, those are people on the lam running from things.

00:22:14Marc:Exactly right.

00:22:15Marc:Big stories that you can't get into.

00:22:16Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:22:17Guest:I mean, when we were working this joint, the balloon joint, our boss's name was Ace.

00:22:23Guest:Yeah.

00:22:25Guest:Just Ace.

00:22:26Guest:Ace.

00:22:26Guest:That's it.

00:22:28Guest:You can call me Ace.

00:22:30Guest:Don't ask any questions.

00:22:31Guest:And Ace, we were there for a week and a half, and then Ace all of a sudden was gone.

00:22:35Guest:And then this guy came around, one of the owners of the thing.

00:22:39Guest:He was so pissed off.

00:22:40Guest:You guys know where he went?

00:22:41Guest:Did he tell you where he went?

00:22:43Guest:You know, I went, no, no, no, man.

00:22:45Guest:If you know where he went, you better tell me.

00:22:47Guest:You know, it's like, I'm going to kill that motherfucker.

00:22:50Guest:You know, it's like just going crazy.

00:22:51Marc:You're like 20 years old.

00:22:53Guest:Yeah.

00:22:53Guest:It's like, I don't know.

00:22:56Guest:Time for you to go.

00:22:57Guest:Yeah, it's like, it's getting too hot here.

00:23:00Guest:Too weird.

00:23:00Guest:And then there's times when you're broke.

00:23:02Guest:Yeah.

00:23:03Guest:In Houston and other places, we stayed in missions, you know, where you park your bike on the street and you get in line and you have to be proselytized there and you're listening to the whole thing.

00:23:13Guest:Except Jesus, here's some food.

00:23:15Guest:Except Jesus and his wafer.

00:23:16Guest:Here's his body.

00:23:17Guest:Yeah.

00:23:18Guest:And they lock the door.

00:23:20Guest:And then you get in line to go take a shower and you're naked and you drop all your clothes and they put all these clothes in a lockup.

00:23:27Guest:Yeah.

00:23:27Guest:Because they don't want them leaving at night.

00:23:29Guest:Yeah.

00:23:30Guest:So they lock them up.

00:23:32Guest:And, you know, we had been on the road for a couple of days.

00:23:35Guest:We thought our clothes might need a wash soon.

00:23:39Guest:Yeah.

00:23:39Guest:Oh, my God.

00:23:40Guest:The next morning it was like, oh, we couldn't even stand it.

00:23:45Guest:We went right to the laundromat and did laundry in our shorts.

00:23:49Guest:Yeah.

00:23:49Guest:And then in the morning they feed you a gruel.

00:23:53Guest:Yeah.

00:23:53Guest:We felt like Oliver from the musical.

00:23:55Marc:You just wanted to experience that or you thought that was the most inexpensive option?

00:23:59Guest:We were cheap and we didn't have any money.

00:24:01Guest:It was like, well, we can either spend 30 bucks for a cheap motel or stay one for free and then be able to get on our way faster.

00:24:09Guest:I was like, yeah, let's do that.

00:24:11Guest:Let's do that.

00:24:11Guest:So you both ended up in Florida?

00:24:13Guest:Yeah.

00:24:13Guest:We ended up in Florida.

00:24:14Guest:We had relatives in Daytona Beach.

00:24:17Guest:And you did theater there.

00:24:18Guest:And we did theater there.

00:24:19Guest:Yeah.

00:24:19Marc:And that was the beginning of the Bryan Cranston acting journey.

00:24:23Guest:It kind of was.

00:24:23Guest:Yeah.

00:24:24Guest:It really was there.

00:24:25Guest:How long did you stay over there?

00:24:28Guest:We'll stay several months.

00:24:30Guest:Yeah.

00:24:31Guest:Build up our coffers.

00:24:32Guest:And then we take off and go up on a trip all the way up north.

00:24:37Guest:Yeah.

00:24:37Guest:We were wanted for murder once.

00:24:39Guest:Nah.

00:24:39Guest:Yeah.

00:24:40Guest:Yeah, we worked at- The two of you?

00:24:41Guest:Yeah.

00:24:42Guest:We worked at a Hawaiian restaurant called the Hawaiian Inn in Daytona Beach.

00:24:46Guest:Yeah.

00:24:47Guest:They have a floor show of any kind?

00:24:48Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:24:50Guest:The hula girls and the fire eaters and the- The big questionable operation.

00:24:55Guest:Hand slapping kind of thing.

00:24:56Guest:Yeah.

00:24:57Guest:The head chef was a guy named Peter Wong who hated everyone except the ladies.

00:25:04Guest:Loved the ladies.

00:25:05Guest:Hated every single man he ever met.

00:25:08Guest:And he was a tiny little man with a big shot complex and he would carry a wad of cash with him and go play high lie, bet on that and bet on the dog races and things like that and visit hookers all the time.

00:25:22Guest:And he was miserable.

00:25:23Guest:I mean, if he came up with a bad order or God forbid you made a mistake on an order, you're screwed.

00:25:28Guest:Yeah.

00:25:28Guest:You are screwed.

00:25:30Guest:He won't help you.

00:25:31Guest:He was a screamer.

00:25:33Guest:He was angry all the time.

00:25:34Guest:He's like, ah, what you want?

00:25:36Guest:What you want?

00:25:36Guest:Go.

00:25:37Guest:Get out.

00:25:37Guest:Go.

00:25:38Guest:You know, all the waiters and I used to sit around talking about how we'd kill him.

00:25:42Guest:Yeah.

00:25:43Guest:How we'd chop him up in his own Mugu guy pan and stir fry him.

00:25:47Guest:Serve him up.

00:25:48Guest:Serve him to the dogs.

00:25:49Guest:So we were actually talking how we'd kill the man.

00:25:51Guest:Yeah.

00:25:52Guest:So the season ends, we hop on our bikes, we take off.

00:25:56Guest:What we didn't know until we came back around months later is that just a few days before we left, Peter went missing.

00:26:07Guest:And they didn't know where he went.

00:26:09Guest:And so they're talking to everybody.

00:26:11Guest:And then they found him in the trunk of a car bludgeoned to death.

00:26:15Marc:Oh, God.

00:26:16Guest:Yeah.

00:26:17Guest:And apparently it was like he was with a hooker.

00:26:20Guest:Hooker saw the wad in his pocket.

00:26:23Guest:Yeah.

00:26:23Guest:It wasn't his member.

00:26:25Guest:Yeah.

00:26:26Guest:And set him up.

00:26:27Guest:Row of bills.

00:26:28Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:26:29Guest:And some guy, you know.

00:26:30Guest:Took him out.

00:26:30Guest:Took him out and killed him and took his money and put him in the trunk.

00:26:34Guest:And so the cops come to the restaurant and go, anybody talk about killing the guy?

00:26:40Guest:Oh, well, yeah, we kind of all did.

00:26:42Guest:Anybody who's not here who talked about killing?

00:26:45Guest:Yeah, the Cranston brothers.

00:26:46Guest:They're...

00:26:47Guest:The gang.

00:26:48Guest:They took off.

00:26:48Guest:The Cranston Brothers gang.

00:26:49Guest:They're on motorcycles, and they put an APB out for us.

00:26:53Guest:Oh, shit.

00:26:54Guest:They wanted to stop us from going too far out of the state.

00:26:57Guest:So they could bust you.

00:26:59Guest:So they can at least talk to us.

00:27:00Guest:But they didn't catch us.

00:27:02Guest:We didn't know we were being sought out.

00:27:03Guest:Yeah.

00:27:04Guest:So we're just driving around and heading up north and up the eastern coast.

00:27:09Guest:And and then all of a sudden they called it off because they threw clues.

00:27:13Guest:They realized what had happened, who it was.

00:27:15Guest:They found the dude.

00:27:16Marc:Yeah.

00:27:16Marc:Isn't that weird, though?

00:27:17Marc:Because like when I think about stuff, right, even in that movie Drive, when you think about what people do, will do for for very small sums of money, it's frightening.

00:27:26Marc:People get killed for nothing because that's the world that they live in.

00:27:31Marc:I realized that last night.

00:27:32Marc:I actually thought about that movie when I woke up this morning, which is good because it's such an intimate cast.

00:27:39Marc:There's only a few characters, but it's about crime in some way.

00:27:46Marc:How intimate crime can be and how cheap life really is to some criminals is just baffling to me.

00:27:52Guest:And everybody has their own threshold.

00:27:54Guest:Yeah.

00:27:55Guest:So if I said to you, would you kill some guy for $500?

00:27:58Guest:What are you kidding?

00:27:59Guest:Right.

00:27:59Guest:But I could probably find someone.

00:28:01Guest:Sure.

00:28:01Guest:You could probably find someone.

00:28:02Guest:That $500 is like, I would do it for less.

00:28:06Marc:That sort of moral ambiguity thing, because there's a lot of that in Breaking Bad that I don't know, I imagine you must think about.

00:28:14Marc:I do.

00:28:15Marc:As a performer.

00:28:16Guest:Well, I do.

00:28:16Guest:And I think our show asks...

00:28:20Guest:that question, and you're seeing the answer to it, that everybody, any adult has been asked at a dinner party, what would you do for a million dollars?

00:28:30Guest:How far would you go?

00:28:31Guest:What would you do?

00:28:32Guest:And when that stays in a hypothetical like that, you can easily cast it off and take the high road and say, well, I wouldn't break the law, and I wouldn't do that.

00:28:40Guest:But if it was really there, if I laid out a million dollars in cash, untraceable, right in front of you,

00:28:46Guest:You might have a little different answer.

00:28:48Guest:And then the other question is, what would you do if you had two years to live?

00:28:52Guest:Yeah.

00:28:53Guest:How would you live your life?

00:28:54Guest:Yeah.

00:28:55Guest:And so Walter White is exploring both of those those questions in this in this series.

00:29:00Marc:Now, when you got that script, I mean, let's let's go back a little bit, because so you after you do your motorcycle thing, you come back here and you start working intelligence.

00:29:08Marc:Did you take classes?

00:29:09Marc:Did you study?

00:29:10Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:29:10Marc:With who?

00:29:11Guest:Well, I studied here in Los Angeles with Ivan Marcota, with Shirley Knight, with a bunch of different people.

00:29:21Guest:And I kind of took the... I was so eager to get going that I took the path of, I'm going to go be a street collector.

00:29:31Guest:You know, I want to pick up as many things as I can from as many different teachers as I can.

00:29:36Guest:And you can do that here.

00:29:38Guest:Harry Master George was another...

00:29:40Marc:And did you know, was there a whole circuit of dudes that you were coming up with that were sort of showing up in different places, like a generation of actors who were trying to break in?

00:29:51Guest:Yeah, you see the same faces in commercial auditions and on the rounds at different studios and television networks to audition for bands.

00:30:01Guest:For whatnot.

00:30:02Guest:But at that time, what was your goal?

00:30:04Guest:Did you care?

00:30:04Guest:I mean, you just wanted to be a working actor.

00:30:06Guest:Yeah, that's that was the goal.

00:30:08Guest:Become a working actor.

00:30:09Guest:If I could make my living as an actor, that's a very successful life because very few people can really do that.

00:30:15Guest:Yeah.

00:30:15Guest:So that was the goal.

00:30:17Guest:And that was I made that goal when I was 23 years old.

00:30:21Marc:And it wasn't like I want to be a movie star.

00:30:23Marc:I want to do theater.

00:30:24Marc:I want to do films.

00:30:25Marc:Right.

00:30:25Marc:I want to do television.

00:30:26Marc:It was just I want to work.

00:30:27Marc:Right.

00:30:28Marc:I just want to work.

00:30:29Marc:Yeah.

00:30:30Guest:And that was sort of the way your father was too, huh?

00:30:32Guest:Yeah.

00:30:33Guest:That's the way most actors are.

00:30:34Guest:Yeah.

00:30:34Guest:Really, most actors would just love the opportunity to work as an actor.

00:30:40Guest:And that's, you know, at whatever level that brings, I was willing to go.

00:30:44Guest:But that meant I was living in a studio apartment with a roommate for the rest of my life.

00:30:49Guest:Well, then that's the way it was going to be.

00:30:51Right.

00:30:51Marc:But really.

00:30:51Marc:But there was no like because I always wonder about that.

00:30:53Marc:I mean, doing a commercial or doing something there must be you must see it as some part of an arc.

00:30:59Marc:You're not saying like, well, I'm going to do commercials for the rest of my life.

00:31:02Guest:No, commercials were a means to an end.

00:31:03Guest:Commercials were by a waiter's job.

00:31:06Guest:Right.

00:31:07Guest:It paid into my health insurance.

00:31:09Guest:It paid into my pension.

00:31:11Guest:Right.

00:31:11Guest:It gave me got you in the union.

00:31:13Guest:Yeah, it did all that.

00:31:16Guest:And it was great.

00:31:17Guest:I'll never put down commercials that were a viable option for young actors and actors of any age.

00:31:25Marc:And all of them have done it.

00:31:27Marc:There seems to be this weird trend with bigger movie stars who don't do American commercials, but then they're in Australia or Japan pushing pomegranate soda or whatever.

00:31:36Marc:Exactly right, yeah.

00:31:37Marc:So do you remember your first TV gig or movie gig?

00:31:41Marc:uh yeah i i i've done a lot i think um i know i can't i like i looked at your i mean chips was your first yeah chips um i just i just had dinner with chris pine yeah yet last night and his dad robert pine was a regular on chips and we talked about that is that show so there's this whole have you do like there are a lot of guys that are part of this community of actors that you've known for years and

00:32:06Guest:there's that and then it grows and then you know it expands and you start to appreciate someone else's work and you want to meet them and but when you got chips you were probably like yeah fuck yeah absolutely i got chips it was a great job and it was an extremely popular show i know back in the day yeah you know yeah and then you just started doing episodic work over and over well you start out by doing what they call under five you know here here's a line here and a line there right so

00:32:31Guest:Then you work your way up to a co-starring role that is clerk number two where you have a few lines.

00:32:38Guest:And then you work your way up to a guest starring role.

00:32:42Guest:And that was the chain you were climbing.

00:32:45Guest:And then once you get to the guest star level, you never want to dip below that.

00:32:48Guest:So you make the rounds once again, doing all the shows you can at a guest star level.

00:32:55Guest:And then from there you want to, you know, hopefully get a shot at doing, you know, auditioning for a series regular or in the case of films, you know, just meeting more and more directors and having an opportunity to do good work and hopefully work with them again.

00:33:11Marc:So was there points in the career, though, where you were like, this isn't, you know, happening fast enough or this isn't working out?

00:33:19Marc:No.

00:33:20Marc:Really?

00:33:21Marc:No.

00:33:21Guest:That's amazing, a sort of determination.

00:33:25Guest:Well, I think it's because I didn't have any attachment to an outcome.

00:33:30Guest:I think when people enter this business with that, like you'll hear people say, I'm going to give it a year.

00:33:36Guest:I'm going to give it a good solid year.

00:33:38Guest:And if I haven't made it by then, and I'm saying, what do you mean?

00:33:41Guest:What's make it?

00:33:42Guest:What does that mean?

00:33:43Guest:Made it.

00:33:44Guest:And so everybody has their different idea.

00:33:47Guest:But that's attaching your life to an outcome of some ambiguous kind of way.

00:33:54Guest:But if you love this art form and you commit your life to it, then all you really want is opportunity to be able to make a living.

00:34:06Guest:And however that takes you, in its circuitous roots, it's never A to B to C to D. Sure.

00:34:13Guest:It's always a different way.

00:34:14Marc:Well, I mean, it must be thrilling now.

00:34:19Marc:I mean, how old are you now?

00:34:20Marc:55.

00:34:21Marc:I mean, you had this amazing success with Malcolm in the Middle.

00:34:24Marc:That was a huge show.

00:34:24Marc:Yeah.

00:34:25Marc:Hilarious show.

00:34:25Marc:People love that show.

00:34:26Marc:People love you on that show.

00:34:28Marc:It was a groundbreaking comedy in the way it was constructed, and it was darkly funny and good.

00:34:33Marc:Yeah.

00:34:33Marc:And and that was a very specific role.

00:34:36Marc:And then for was there a point because I know, obviously, you made enough money to, you know, to be pretty comfortable with that.

00:34:44Marc:And there's part of me that thinks like, well, after that's done, I mean, was there a moment where you like, well, I could hang out?

00:34:50Guest:No, I'm a guy who I love to act.

00:34:56Guest:So I love all parts of it.

00:34:59Guest:I actually love to work on scenes and perform.

00:35:04Guest:And so I didn't, there's the idea of retiring from that because you might have secured yourself financially didn't make sense to me.

00:35:14Guest:Now, that being said, after Malcolm in the Middle ended,

00:35:17Guest:I had no idea that an opportunity like Breaking Bad would come along.

00:35:22Guest:I mean, that was out of left field.

00:35:24Marc:Did you ever do any other kind of performing when you were younger?

00:35:27Marc:Did you ever do a lot of plays or stand-up or anything?

00:35:32Guest:I did stand-up comedy when I was 22 years old.

00:35:37Guest:I did it for nine months.

00:35:39Guest:And only because it scared me.

00:35:41Guest:So I thought, the only way I can get out from under this fear or this sort of dichotomous attraction to it and also rejection of it, I thought, I just better just do this.

00:35:58Guest:Where'd you do it?

00:35:59Guest:I did it all over the place.

00:36:00Guest:Back in the day, in the early 80s, it was the Playboy Club, Laugh Stop.

00:36:05Guest:Certainly the improv, the comedy store, open mic nights.

00:36:09Guest:I never was paid for it, nor should I have been.

00:36:11Guest:Right.

00:36:11Guest:I was only mediocre.

00:36:13Guest:I rose to the level of mediocrity in my stand-up career.

00:36:17Guest:Do you remember your jokes?

00:36:18Guest:Oh, sure.

00:36:19Guest:I mean, my biggest jokes were, you know, I would say...

00:36:25Guest:You know, it seems to me that Detroit is having problems attracting men to buying new cars.

00:36:32Guest:And I said, well, I have a simple solution to this.

00:36:34Guest:It's easy.

00:36:34Guest:Just name the new cars after women's body parts and men will buy it.

00:36:40Guest:For instance, it's the all new Ford nipple.

00:36:43Guest:Yeah.

00:36:43Guest:You know, the perky little nipple.

00:36:45Guest:If you're looking for safety, nothing can be safer than the foreign import, the Volvo.

00:36:50Yeah.

00:36:50Guest:But if you really want performance, slip into a Dodge vagina.

00:36:56Guest:Once you get inside a vagina, you'll never want to get out.

00:36:59Guest:And lo, it has that new vagina smell.

00:37:02Guest:Did you write that?

00:37:04Guest:Yeah, of course.

00:37:06Guest:Who else would write that crap?

00:37:07Guest:Was that your closer?

00:37:10Guest:That was the closer.

00:37:11Guest:Yeah, that's how bad it was.

00:37:12Guest:That was the closer.

00:37:15Marc:You probably got laughs.

00:37:16Guest:I did.

00:37:17Guest:Yeah.

00:37:17Guest:But it's so fickle, and I have such tremendous respect for all the stand-ups, you know, who dedicate and do it well.

00:37:26Guest:I've worked with many of them, and, you know...

00:37:30Marc:how long it takes to really get a feel for it knowing what kind of jokes how to structure the joke how to abandon a joke if it's not going well go to another I mean it's really your thought process eject is clicking so fast when you're up on stage well you did you got pretty well known for a recurring role on Seinfeld yeah so you work with Jerry a bit right who you know as an actor was sort of different than he is as a stand up you know he surrounded himself with a lot of funny people and it took him a while to get the hang of acting I think as a stand up

00:37:59Marc:seeing other stand-ups and having a little acting experience myself we're a little too self-conscious sometimes yeah and uh it takes us a while to to ease into that i don't know if jerry actually got the hang of acting i mean jerry was doing jerry yeah uh

00:38:15Guest:funny guy and and it was a a coup for me really to be able to get that role as as tim whatley the dentist on seinfeld and watch them work and see the influence that jerry has and larry david had and just how the dynamic of that whole worked well did that help you in in coming into uh doing a comedic role that sort of defined that middle part of your career yeah it did it well what it really did is seinfeld

00:38:41Guest:started out very slow.

00:38:42Guest:It wasn't a big hit.

00:38:44Guest:Brandon Tartikoff said, no, I like the show.

00:38:46Guest:It stays on despite the low ratings.

00:38:49Guest:And he saw something in it.

00:38:52Guest:And then it found its legs and it became this iconic, probably the best sitcom ever made.

00:39:02Guest:Because it was the first sitcom that I can recall where

00:39:07Guest:all four main characters had an agenda on every show whereas other sitcoms got a story and a b story yeah and people are sitting around having coffee all the time yeah whereas those four were constantly doing something going somewhere had it had an agenda and then how it all wrapped up near the end and intersected each other and it was brilliant hard to do that larry david brilliantly written buttoning that thing up

00:39:34Marc:Unbelievable.

00:39:35Marc:But in terms of acting comedy, it's like when you said that he was playing himself, so he had to learn how to play himself in an ensemble situation, which is difficult for comics to talk to other people.

00:39:47Marc:And to give stage.

00:39:48Marc:Yeah, and not to feel like it's... But see, Jerry's smart.

00:39:51Marc:He knew how to do that.

00:39:53Guest:Yeah, he definitely did.

00:39:54Marc:He really knew how to do that.

00:39:55Marc:Yeah, it was definitely a smart thing to do.

00:39:57Marc:Now, when you act...

00:40:00Marc:Because you're aware enough to know that.

00:40:02Marc:So what are some of the things that you engage, you know, as an actor that when you step up, I mean, how do you to make a shift into a character?

00:40:10Marc:Because it seems that like talking to you now and good actors and certainly character actors seem to have themselves in place.

00:40:17Marc:You're going to bring yourself to wherever you're going to go.

00:40:19Marc:But what what kind of things what are some tools you use when you start to act?

00:40:24Guest:Well, the first thing I like to do is to find the emotional core without sounding too lofty about it.

00:40:33Guest:But it's find the emotional core of who you're playing.

00:40:36Guest:Where does everything spring from?

00:40:40Guest:For instance, in Malcolm in the Middle, my character Hal...

00:40:44Guest:his emotional core was fear.

00:40:46Guest:He was afraid of everything.

00:40:48Guest:He was afraid of failing as a husband, as a father, afraid of getting fired, afraid of heights.

00:40:54Guest:Then, oh, afraid of people walking in the room, afraid of spiders.

00:40:57Guest:And so a lot of comedy was able to spring from that.

00:41:02Guest:But what it does for the actor is it grounds you.

00:41:05Guest:It gives you a point of reference to come from.

00:41:08Guest:Your point of view is strongly set.

00:41:11Guest:Right.

00:41:11Guest:And it's not, you know, lifting up into the heavens.

00:41:15Guest:It's in your body.

00:41:16Guest:You're not floundering.

00:41:17Guest:Right.

00:41:17Guest:Yeah.

00:41:18Guest:So if you can find that point of view, it gives you anchor points to ground you so that when you're reading a script, you know how your character would respond or deliver a line with...

00:41:29Guest:Or how they would feel about someone else's conversation or that sort of thing.

00:41:34Marc:So you just show up with your own emotional equipment.

00:41:37Marc:Then you find the core of the emotion of the character that drives it.

00:41:40Marc:And then you temper it by the script.

00:41:43Guest:Right.

00:41:43Guest:And then it's also tempered by the other actors and by the director.

00:41:47Guest:And you massage it and work it into a place that makes sense for everyone concerned.

00:41:53Guest:That feeds the text.

00:41:54Guest:Right.

00:41:55Guest:So you could be doing a brilliant performance of a character, and yet how does that help the story?

00:42:02Guest:How does that feed into the dynamic of the story, the tempo of it?

00:42:07Guest:And it may be out in left field.

00:42:09Guest:That's why when sometimes you see a movie and it seems like a character or two are in a different movie, the tone, the style, that's a director's fault for allowing it to go spin out of control.

00:42:23Marc:Yeah, and sometimes things are shot without other people around, or they've got to do pickups, and you have to capture an emotion that isn't engaging with somebody else.

00:42:31Marc:So, okay, so now, in terms of doing comedy, in terms of acting comedy, do you have a preference?

00:42:39Marc:I mean, do you like to do comedy?

00:42:40Guest:I do.

00:42:41Marc:So, because I've got a big question.

00:42:43Marc:I guess we should talk about Breaking Bad now, but I'd like to talk about directing that movie of yours.

00:42:48Marc:What was that called?

00:42:49Yeah.

00:42:49Marc:The movie I directed?

00:42:50Marc:Yeah.

00:42:51Guest:Last Chance.

00:42:52Guest:And you wrote that as well?

00:42:53Guest:Yeah.

00:42:54Guest:And what was that about?

00:42:56Guest:It was a gift to my wife.

00:42:58Guest:It was about a woman who doesn't feel she has any choices or options in her life and

00:43:04Guest:And it really is how we perceive things.

00:43:07Guest:That options are always available to us if we are able to stand back and look at it from a different perspective.

00:43:15Guest:And that's true.

00:43:16Guest:Yeah.

00:43:17Guest:Usually.

00:43:17Guest:So it empowered her as a character.

00:43:20Guest:And she's an actress?

00:43:22Guest:Yeah.

00:43:22Guest:And that's empowering women in general.

00:43:24Guest:It was for that.

00:43:25Guest:And can you get that on Netflix?

00:43:27Guest:Yeah.

00:43:28Yeah.

00:43:28Guest:it's available and it was a well last chance it was we won several awards around the country very it's a micro budget you know but the i think the story is strong the characters are good and uh you know i and and i literally finished editing the movie when i was told by the producer came in we are officially out of money it's like yeah

00:43:52Guest:the we're done and we're done and we're done yeah you know so i mean it's not the way you want to do it i would have loved to gone back in there and trim and do some other things but it is what it is and uh and that's fine and and the story is there yeah you'll forgive most people will forgive other elements of filmmaking if the story is compelling and if the if the characters are engaging yeah absolutely yeah is that something you want to do more of

00:44:19Guest:Yes, I always write, but I'm very particular and very tough on myself to be able to want to let my material get out there, and it's not until I feel it's really ready.

00:44:33Guest:Are you a good judge of that?

00:44:36Guest:I actually am.

00:44:37Guest:Oh, that's good.

00:44:37Guest:Yeah, and I'm not too hard on myself.

00:44:39Guest:I...

00:44:42Guest:I write it.

00:44:42Guest:Yeah.

00:44:43Guest:I never, ever show anyone a first draft.

00:44:45Guest:Nobody.

00:44:46Guest:Nobody.

00:44:46Guest:Huh.

00:44:47Guest:I let it sit for a month or so.

00:44:50Guest:Yeah.

00:44:50Guest:And then come back at it with fresh eyes and then go, what are you thinking?

00:44:54Guest:And red line everything.

00:44:55Guest:And then take another crack at it.

00:44:57Guest:And that becomes my new first draft.

00:45:00Guest:Are you writing a movie now?

00:45:01Guest:Yeah.

00:45:02Guest:What's it about?

00:45:03Guest:Ah, it's a cool one.

00:45:04Guest:Yeah, that's all you got?

00:45:05Guest:It's really cool, yeah.

00:45:07Guest:It's a father-son relationship movie that also has a murder storyline in the background.

00:45:15Guest:I mean, so it's kind of both, and they're needed because the murderer and the murderer present, you know...

00:45:24Guest:a threat to the existence of our father and son and it's in a little town and it's the the dynamics of a little town and how gossip spreads and that sort of thing and it's oh wow whispers and it's very sexy and uh and how close are you to finishing i'm done with a draft and now it's uh now it's time to to shop it around and and um and see what can come of it now is that kind of stuff easier for you now

00:45:51Guest:easier to get it yeah to get money to shop well it's easier to have a door open but um it doesn't mean that it's you know it's going to not be slammed in your face right uh but the you know there are doors open to that and so i'm i'm able to get my scripts around and and have people

00:46:09Guest:It's a very, very long process.

00:46:12Guest:It takes years to develop.

00:46:13Guest:I know, I've heard.

00:46:13Guest:It just sounds crazy.

00:46:14Guest:It is.

00:46:15Guest:It's very tough.

00:46:15Marc:To get money together and then to pull a production together.

00:46:18Marc:So how much time was there between Malcolm in the Middle and Breaking Bad?

00:46:22Marc:A year.

00:46:22Marc:That was it.

00:46:24Guest:Yeah, we finished in... We finished in May of 06, and then in... Well...

00:46:34Guest:I did the pilot of Breaking Bad in in March of oh seven.

00:46:38Guest:Yeah.

00:46:39Guest:And and it aired in January of eight, I think.

00:46:46Guest:Yeah.

00:46:47Marc:And were you when they what was the process around that?

00:46:51Marc:Did you audition for that role?

00:46:52Marc:Were you offered that role or how that come about?

00:46:55Guest:This is something I always like to talk about with young actors and not so young actors.

00:47:02Guest:It's about having faith and the knowledge that do all you can, be ready, but every single successful actor has needed a healthy dose of luck in order to become successful.

00:47:16Guest:Right.

00:47:16Guest:I'm absolutely 100%...

00:47:19Guest:Firm and assured on that.

00:47:21Guest:You can't manufacture that.

00:47:22Guest:Can't manufacture it, but you can be ready for it.

00:47:24Guest:Sure.

00:47:25Guest:I was shooting this movie, Last Chance, in the desert.

00:47:28Guest:Your movie.

00:47:29Guest:Yeah.

00:47:30Guest:It pushed several times.

00:47:31Guest:Yeah.

00:47:31Guest:Weeks, weeks, weeks.

00:47:32Guest:Yeah.

00:47:33Guest:We finally got it together and said, we got to do it now.

00:47:35Guest:Yeah.

00:47:35Guest:We did it.

00:47:36Guest:I came back in.

00:47:38Guest:Three days after I got back to Los Angeles and start editing, I get a call from my agent saying,

00:47:43Guest:Who says, look, I don't know if you want to do auditions or not because there's something up on X-Files that you're right for if you want to.

00:47:51Guest:No, no, I definitely do want to go because I'm broke.

00:47:54Guest:Yeah.

00:47:55Guest:You dumped all your money into the movie?

00:47:56Guest:I dumped all my money.

00:47:56Guest:It was like, I have nothing.

00:47:58Guest:I need to get a job.

00:47:59Guest:You went into the movie?

00:48:00Guest:Yeah.

00:48:01Guest:Oh, my God.

00:48:01Guest:Yeah, I need to get a job.

00:48:04Guest:Yeah.

00:48:04Guest:X-Files, a real son of a bitch kind of character named Crump on an episode called Drive, ironically.

00:48:13Guest:And it takes place where there's a bug in this guy's head.

00:48:17Guest:And unless David Duchovny drives 80 miles an hour in a westerly direction, my head will explode.

00:48:24Guest:Anything less than that, my head will start to get more and more pain.

00:48:28Guest:And if he stops, my head explodes.

00:48:29Guest:What was the emotional core of that character?

00:48:32Guest:Oh, pain.

00:48:33Guest:Deep, deep pain.

00:48:37Guest:So that was written by a man named Vince Gilligan.

00:48:42Guest:Vince Gilligan is the creator and writer of Breaking Bad.

00:48:46Guest:Right.

00:48:47Guest:But at the time, he was the writer and producer of this episode of X-Files that I was doing.

00:48:52Marc:Just that episode.

00:48:53Guest:That he wrote.

00:48:54Guest:That episode.

00:48:54Marc:He was not a regular writer?

00:48:55Guest:No, he was a regular writer, but you're assigned every so often.

00:48:58Guest:Yeah, right.

00:48:59Guest:And I just so happened to meet him there on his episode.

00:49:02Yeah.

00:49:02Guest:What shows you the nuance of Vince Gilligan is that he wrote this character to be a miserable son of a bitch, this anti-Semite, this horrible, horrible man who is prodding Duchovny the whole time.

00:49:17Guest:If he wrote this character as a nice person, well, of course, the audience would say, yeah, David, save him.

00:49:24Guest:He's a nice man.

00:49:25Guest:We like to see him save.

00:49:26Guest:Yeah.

00:49:26Guest:But you're not invested in that.

00:49:28Guest:And it's an easy choice for your lead actor.

00:49:30Guest:Right.

00:49:30Guest:Instead, he wrote him as this horrible son of a bitch, which put an emotional dilemma in the middle of his main character.

00:49:37Guest:He wanted more than anything.

00:49:38Guest:I'm just, pull over.

00:49:40Guest:Let this guy die.

00:49:41Guest:Let this guy die.

00:49:41Guest:What am I?

00:49:42Guest:He's an it.

00:49:43Guest:He's an ass.

00:49:44Guest:Yeah.

00:49:45Guest:But for the main character, emotionally, you put that question in.

00:49:51Guest:Is this man worth saving simply because he's a human being?

00:49:55Guest:That moral dilemma was firmly planted in our lead character.

00:49:59Guest:It's brilliant.

00:50:00Guest:It was a little tiny change.

00:50:02Guest:But he also felt that my character had to be somewhat sympathetic despite my aggression and behavior.

00:50:08Guest:So flash forward 10 years.

00:50:10Guest:He writes this little speck about, he and his buddy said, what if they caught us?

00:50:15Guest:They said, you can't, right?

00:50:16Guest:Get out of here.

00:50:17Guest:You can't do this anymore.

00:50:18Guest:What would we do?

00:50:19Guest:We'd go buy a trailer, an RV, and go out in the middle of the desert and cook crystal meth.

00:50:25Guest:And then he started thinking about it.

00:50:27Guest:He said, hey, do you mind if I run with it?

00:50:28Guest:He goes, no, take it.

00:50:30Guest:So Vince starts writing.

00:50:31Guest:So, well, what would make a man do that?

00:50:34Guest:A criminal.

00:50:34Guest:Yeah, but that's what you'd expect.

00:50:36Guest:What wouldn't you expect?

00:50:38Guest:A family man.

00:50:39Guest:Oh, OK.

00:50:39Guest:You know, and so he kept going at it that way and wrote this spec was never going to be done until the advent of and the and the and the growth of cable television.

00:50:51Guest:You know, beyond HBO and Showtime, but the smaller thing.

00:50:55Guest:For instance, AMC, their basic mandate was, if it could be shown on NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, we don't want it.

00:51:03Guest:Right.

00:51:04Guest:We need to have product that you can't find anywhere else.

00:51:06Guest:So this script was sitting around for a while?

00:51:08Guest:Yeah, he wrote it, and it was just kind of sitting and...

00:51:11Guest:You know, he had a lot of success with X-Files, and they said, what else you got?

00:51:17Guest:And his agents sent, and it was developed at FX.

00:51:21Guest:Right.

00:51:21Guest:And they paid him to flush it out and write it and turn it in, get notes.

00:51:26Guest:Just the pilot script?

00:51:28Guest:Yeah.

00:51:28Guest:And they ended up getting a little cold feet perhaps on that or thought it was just it's just too weird.

00:51:35Guest:It's not going to work.

00:51:36Marc:It's a mind blowing.

00:51:37Marc:Well, how did before I lose it?

00:51:38Marc:How did you invest some sympathetic attributes into that character?

00:51:44Marc:The screaming guy whose head was about to.

00:51:45Guest:Well, I think because he's still a human being.

00:51:49Guest:Right.

00:51:49Guest:And.

00:51:50Guest:a lot of times people are lashing out because they're fearful themselves.

00:51:55Guest:And he was.

00:51:56Guest:He was afraid of dying.

00:51:57Guest:And so he's trying to act tough and create this false bravado.

00:52:02Guest:And I think you see through that paper lion type of performance and go, oh, no, this guy, it's tough, but he's in a lot of pain.

00:52:11Guest:He's afraid.

00:52:12Guest:And that's something that almost happens on an unconscious level.

00:52:15Guest:Well, it was conscious for me.

00:52:16Guest:Right.

00:52:16Guest:No.

00:52:17Guest:But when you're watching it, it should happen on a conscious level, on a subliminal level to the audience to have for some reason, have some some measure of sympathy for this.

00:52:27Guest:This jerk.

00:52:28Marc:Yeah, because that's the tricky thing about Walter White in that.

00:52:32Marc:OK, so he develops it at facts.

00:52:34Marc:And then what happens?

00:52:35Marc:They don't want it.

00:52:36Guest:They freak out.

00:52:38Guest:They let it go.

00:52:39Guest:It was shopped at HBO, Showtime, TBS.

00:52:44Guest:Everybody turned it down.

00:52:46Guest:So Vince thought, oh, it's exactly what I thought.

00:52:48Guest:No one's going to do this.

00:52:49Guest:Okay.

00:52:50Guest:And just move on.

00:52:52Guest:But...

00:52:54Guest:There was a junior executive at FX who left FX and went to AMC named Jeremy Ellis, a really good guy.

00:53:03Guest:And now he left AMC and he's now, gosh, I'm trying to remember where he went.

00:53:09Guest:But he's a really good guy.

00:53:12Guest:And the first thing he did when he went to AMC was, that weird story about the high school chemistry teacher, is that still out there?

00:53:20Guest:Let's get that in here.

00:53:21Guest:And AMC was looking for new, fresh ideas.

00:53:26Guest:And Mad Men hadn't aired yet.

00:53:29Guest:They were just about to premiere that.

00:53:32Guest:And in fact, Mad Men's pilot was one of the deciding factors for me when I was negotiating for this.

00:53:39Guest:I saw the quality of that product and the storytelling and the richness of it.

00:53:43Guest:And I thought, well, if this is what they're doing, then sign me up.

00:53:47Marc:So you read the script at that point?

00:53:48Guest:Oh, yeah, I read the pilot script for Breaking Bad.

00:53:50Guest:What was your first reaction to Breaking Bad?

00:53:53Guest:I called my agent right away.

00:53:54Guest:Well, first of all, I read straight through.

00:53:57Guest:Yeah.

00:53:57Guest:And that's unlike most pilots.

00:54:00Guest:Right.

00:54:00Guest:Most pilots, you go, oh, he's a doctor.

00:54:02Guest:He's having sex with one of the nurses.

00:54:04Guest:Okay.

00:54:05Guest:Oh, I think I'll make some tea.

00:54:06Guest:Yeah.

00:54:06Guest:I think I'll call this person back, and then I'll get back to him.

00:54:09Guest:Sure.

00:54:09Guest:You're not compelled to get back to it.

00:54:11Guest:Yeah.

00:54:12Guest:Breaking Bad was one page after another.

00:54:14Guest:Boom, boom, boom.

00:54:15Guest:Couldn't stop.

00:54:16Guest:All the way through.

00:54:17Guest:Called my agent immediately.

00:54:18Guest:Yes.

00:54:19Guest:They said, we have it set up for next week.

00:54:22Guest:I said, see if you can set up for this week.

00:54:24Guest:To audition.

00:54:25Guest:Yeah.

00:54:25Guest:Uh-huh.

00:54:26Guest:I said, well, it's not an audition.

00:54:27Guest:You're just meeting with him.

00:54:28Guest:He knows you and he wants to see you on this.

00:54:32Yes.

00:54:32Guest:I'm trying to remember what he looked like.

00:54:34Guest:I'm going, that was 10 years ago.

00:54:35Guest:I was like, really?

00:54:36Guest:I don't really remember.

00:54:38Guest:And so sure enough, I go in there and I'm loaded for bear because the hardest work that an actor has ever done.

00:54:49Guest:and ever has to do is on poorly written material.

00:54:53Guest:The easiest work that we do is when it's good.

00:54:56Guest:You can trust it.

00:54:57Guest:You trust it and it seeps into your psyche and your soul.

00:55:01Guest:You daydream about it.

00:55:03Guest:You dream at night about it.

00:55:05Guest:You can't help it.

00:55:07Guest:It comes in.

00:55:07Guest:You're excited.

00:55:08Guest:You're excited about it.

00:55:09Guest:So I was excited about it.

00:55:11Guest:I went in there and I pitched him how I think he walks and what he wears and how his hair is and

00:55:18Guest:Where did you go with all that?

00:55:20Marc:What were your models in your head?

00:55:22Marc:What were the feelings around that?

00:55:24Guest:The feeling was that this man has gone to seed.

00:55:28Guest:He's given up.

00:55:29Guest:He's depressed because of missed opportunities in his life.

00:55:33Guest:He's a 50-year-old man.

00:55:34Guest:And proud.

00:55:35Guest:Yeah.

00:55:35Guest:proud but depressed yeah loves his wife yeah has a special needs son with cp at 16 yeah needs to have a second job in order to pay for the physical therapy that my insurance wouldn't cover right but he's willing to do it he's willing to do what what choice do i have i do what i have to do right like many many people around the world yeah so he's very relatable from that sense right i got to know him as a man

00:55:59Guest:a family man who's trying to make the best of a tough life, a paycheck-to-paycheck life.

00:56:05Marc:And this was your feelings on the pilot.

00:56:08Guest:Yep.

00:56:09Guest:And I pitched him that, and I pitched him how he would look, that he should wear pale yellows and taupe and sand color and just cream, just blend into the walls.

00:56:23Guest:He should be invisible to himself and to the world.

00:56:26Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:56:26Guest:And along with our makeup artist, Frida Valenzuela, we designed my mustache.

00:56:32Guest:By the way, your mustache is far too manly, okay?

00:56:36Marc:You want me to take it down a notch?

00:56:37Guest:Well, I had a mustache like that when I walked into the makeup and hair trailer and I said to Frida, we need to figure out how to make this impotent, was my word, impotent.

00:56:46Guest:I want to look like it's, I want people to look at my mustache as Walter White when I first started and say, what's the point?

00:56:54Guest:Yeah.

00:56:55Guest:Either grow it or shave it.

00:56:57Guest:What is that?

00:56:58Guest:Right.

00:56:58Guest:Yeah.

00:56:59Guest:And it was indicative of his of how he felt.

00:57:03Guest:He didn't care.

00:57:04Guest:Yeah.

00:57:04Guest:He gave up.

00:57:06Guest:Yeah.

00:57:06Guest:He always had a mop of hair that had no.

00:57:09Guest:We took the color out of my hair.

00:57:11Guest:Any kind of highlights is just pale brown.

00:57:14Guest:Then it carried on into the car.

00:57:16Guest:The car was repainted to that flat avocado.

00:57:21Guest:Oh, God.

00:57:22Guest:Right?

00:57:22Marc:So this was your creative input in talking to the guy.

00:57:27Guest:In talking to Vince.

00:57:28Guest:And then that expands to incorporate other things, how his life is.

00:57:35Marc:So now let's get back to that core thing.

00:57:37Marc:What was your instincts initially on the core of this dude?

00:57:41Guest:That was what was so troubling for me is that I was trying to find... I knew he was invisible.

00:57:46Guest:I knew he was depressed.

00:57:48Guest:But I couldn't get to the core because... And then I realized...

00:57:52Guest:After trying to find my way in, I realized, oh, I know why, because he doesn't even know.

00:58:00Guest:He's so calloused over from years after years of covering, covering, covering, covering, not allowing his emotions to come out, to being numb.

00:58:10Guest:He was numb that he had none.

00:58:13Guest:And then all of a sudden the diagnosis,

00:58:16Guest:That two years to live, he's going to cook crystal meth, be selfish, make as much money for his family as he can before he dies, and then check out.

00:58:25Guest:That's the plan.

00:58:26Guest:Simple plan.

00:58:27Guest:Everything explodes.

00:58:28Guest:That's when his emotional core...

00:58:31Guest:just exploded like a volcano.

00:58:34Guest:Yeah.

00:58:34Guest:And lava and everywhere.

00:58:36Guest:Yeah.

00:58:37Guest:So now it's just a mess.

00:58:38Guest:And you see Walter White, his emotional life is just a mess.

00:58:41Guest:He's constantly in anxiety.

00:58:44Marc:Yeah.

00:58:44Marc:But when you started to build this character in the pitch, all you had to go on was a pilot.

00:58:51Marc:Right.

00:58:51Marc:Nothing had been written yet.

00:58:52Marc:Right.

00:58:52Marc:There was no discussion of arcs or story arcs or how these relationships would grow.

00:58:57Guest:There was one thing that he said to me.

00:58:59Guest:Which got me excited and realized that what he just said has never happened before in the history of television.

00:59:06Guest:Which is?

00:59:07Guest:Oh, I can't tell you that.

00:59:08Guest:No, I can't.

00:59:12Guest:We'll go to commercial and come right back.

00:59:14Guest:Yeah, that's like the cue for the commercial break.

00:59:17Guest:What it was, he said, I want to take this guy and turn him from Mr. Chips to Scarface.

00:59:25Guest:Yeah.

00:59:26Guest:And I'm looking at him like, what?

00:59:28Guest:Yeah.

00:59:28Guest:He goes, I want to change right before our eyes as the series goes on.

00:59:34Guest:And by the end of the series, I want to make him from this family man, nice guy, depressed, trying to do the right thing.

00:59:42Guest:Never got a ticket before in his life kind of guy and have a set of circumstances that constantly feed him that change his emotional core and

00:59:52Guest:to a bad guy breaking bad right and that was the whole point and i thought this is unique this has never been done and you don't even know what is it possible right will it work and the danger of that just i said this is what i gotta do this i gotta do this anything any way i can attach myself and i you

01:00:15Guest:Kip, you know, told the agency and they knew and we're trying to angle for them to offer it to me.

01:00:21Guest:Yeah.

01:00:21Guest:But Sony, our studio, as supportive as they were for the project as a whole, they were a little dubious about me.

01:00:32Guest:Why?

01:00:32Guest:Well, because I was the goofy dad on Malcolm in the Middle.

01:00:35Marc:Right.

01:00:36Guest:So he's not right for Walter White.

01:00:38Guest:What do they know?

01:00:39Guest:Right.

01:00:40Guest:But that's what Vince was saying.

01:00:41Guest:No, he's an actor.

01:00:42Guest:This is what he does.

01:00:43Guest:Right.

01:00:44Guest:He can do this.

01:00:45Guest:Trust me.

01:00:46Guest:Trust me.

01:00:47Guest:And they're going, we should test.

01:00:49Guest:We should test.

01:00:49Guest:And AMC is saying the same thing.

01:00:52Guest:I don't know.

01:00:53Guest:It's like, oh, God.

01:00:55Guest:So what did it come down to?

01:00:56Guest:How did the deal go down?

01:00:58Guest:The stars aligned.

01:01:01Guest:I got a call from Fox where Malcolm in the Middle was on for seven years.

01:01:07Guest:And Peter Liguori, who was the head of Fox at the time, called me and said, Brian, I have a pilot offer for you.

01:01:13Guest:I want you to be in this pilot called Nurses.

01:01:16Guest:You'll be the head of the department and your daughter is one of the head nurses and you have a bad relationship.

01:01:21Guest:You're trying to mend and this whole thing.

01:01:23Guest:Sitcom.

01:01:24Guest:No, it was an hour-long kind of sexy Grey's Anatomy kind of thing.

01:01:29Guest:So I said, anytime anybody wants you to do so.

01:01:32Guest:Oh, great.

01:01:32Guest:Thank you, Peter.

01:01:33Guest:Let me take a look at it.

01:01:35Guest:And I read it, and I go...

01:01:38Guest:Okay, it's not bad, but it's not Breaking Bad.

01:01:43Guest:Nothing was Breaking Bad.

01:01:43Guest:So now you had a little leverage.

01:01:45Guest:So now we go to the agency and we say, is there any way we can get this news out that I've been offered this other pilot?

01:01:53Guest:And that...

01:01:54Guest:breaking bad might lose me if i take this other pilot can we get that word out yeah and without without making an announcement if can we filter it yeah and they're all putting their heads together yeah yeah we can do that and sure enough the word gets out and fox is waiting they got a deadline you got to tell us you got to let us know are you going to accept this are you going to accept this and finally we said no because uh sony called and said he doesn't have to test if he wants breaking bad it's his

01:02:22Guest:Oh, what a day.

01:02:24Guest:What a day.

01:02:25Marc:Because that part, I tell you, man, you know, I don't get locked into a lot of television.

01:02:29Marc:And this this thing, I've never watched a show where every episode you have no idea what the fuck is going to happen.

01:02:37Marc:There's no way, and it's been that way since the beginning.

01:02:41Marc:Every episode, I'm like, you can barely even speculate.

01:02:46Marc:You can speculate a little now.

01:02:48Marc:People are going to be listening to this show, and there's one episode left of this season.

01:02:51Marc:There's two episodes.

01:02:53Marc:I just watched the last one.

01:02:56Marc:And, you know, so there's really no spoiler other than the final episode.

01:03:00Marc:I don't know what I can't.

01:03:01Marc:I don't know what the you know, I don't even want to ask you because I'm excited about watching it.

01:03:05Marc:But what I want to talk about this character as it's evolved with you, you know, given what you started with, that it's.

01:03:12Marc:It's a lot about what you were talking about with that role you did with this guy originally.

01:03:17Marc:How do you make this guy who's clearly becoming morally more and more bankrupt on some level, but you still like him?

01:03:25Marc:I guess there's a couple camps on this because I had a discussion with someone else who they like everybody else, but Walter White causes him trouble.

01:03:32Marc:I mean, he causes me trouble, but how...

01:03:35Marc:How are you going to redeem this guy?

01:03:37Guest:Well, remember the story about X-Files with putting the moral dilemma in your central character.

01:03:44Guest:What Vince Gilligan has done with Breaking Bad is put the moral dilemma in the audience.

01:03:52Guest:Right.

01:03:53Guest:Which has...

01:03:54Guest:I mean, we've dealt with moral ambiguity before like that.

01:04:00Guest:You look at Dexter and you look at Damages and you look at Sopranos and Rescue Me and you see these characters that come out that are questionable and have tremendous faults and they're trying to overcome.

01:04:12Guest:What we did in the beginning of Breaking Bad and what we talked about, we knew we had to do.

01:04:16Guest:We had to set the hook.

01:04:18Guest:that you related to this man, that you felt for this man.

01:04:20Guest:Or you knew him.

01:04:21Guest:That you knew him, this guy, this poor bastard, and what he's got to go through.

01:04:26Guest:I feel for him.

01:04:28Guest:And all of a sudden, we've got you.

01:04:29Guest:And then you start rooting for him to cook crystal meth and get away with it.

01:04:33Guest:And then you stop yourself and go, wait a minute, what am I saying?

01:04:36Guest:What am I, what?

01:04:37Guest:And now we're challenging the audience.

01:04:42Guest:If Vince Gilligan's intention was to create a character, which is on the minds of most networks and studios, it's to create characters that you continue to be challenged by, perhaps, but you will always like.

01:04:59Guest:You can't lose your likability.

01:05:03Guest:How are you going to still like you?

01:05:05Guest:So I get that question a lot.

01:05:07Guest:And the freshness of Breaking Bad is that we're not asking for that.

01:05:11Guest:We're not asking for you to continue to like Walter White.

01:05:16Guest:we got you early on.

01:05:18Guest:If you've been a viewer from the beginning, we have that sympathy there.

01:05:23Guest:And as the seasons go on, that sympathy starts to erode.

01:05:28Guest:And now you're far down the road with me, and you're wondering, am I morally bankrupt in watching this guy and rooting?

01:05:35Guest:What am I thinking?

01:05:38Guest:And where are we going?

01:05:39Guest:And it creates that water cooler conversation of,

01:05:42Guest:You hate that guy?

01:05:44Guest:You hate Walter White?

01:05:45Guest:Yeah, he's a criminal now.

01:05:47Guest:And some people hate Skylar White.

01:05:49Guest:And it's like, she's in his face all the time, and she should get out of his... And other people saying, how can you hate her?

01:05:55Guest:Her husband's lying to her.

01:05:58Guest:She wants him safe, and she wants him home.

01:06:00Guest:So that's exactly what you want to create.

01:06:04Marc:Right, but as an actor, I mean, you must have been... As this script evolved, I have to assume... I mean, you've won, what, three Emmys for this movie?

01:06:12Marc:for this role, that given what you knew at the beginning and not knowing exactly how he was gonna do what he said he was gonna do, although it obviously was very compelling, was that there were narrative turns in this thing that must have just been fucking thrilling when you saw the script.

01:06:30Marc:When you start to realize that out of his pride,

01:06:33Marc:he turned his back on millions of dollars.

01:06:37Marc:I mean, the depth that you were able to go with that character at that moment must have been like, this is a gold mine.

01:06:44Guest:It is.

01:06:46Guest:Part of the agreement that we have with the audience is that we're going to expose them to the...

01:06:54Guest:to the disintegration of this man body and soul not just how he's physically uh you know killing people or you know becoming uh this aggressive kind of guy but also emotionally how he's sold his soul how he's lost his soul how he's lost his his moral compass uh

01:07:16Guest:Getting into avarice and his lust for money, lust for power, his ego, all those things are a part of it.

01:07:24Guest:And we're exposing the audience to all of that, which is which is the right way to go.

01:07:30Marc:But right now, I mean, where we are at this in this season, this is last week.

01:07:36Marc:will be two weeks ago when he listened to this, was the first time that he actually had some sort of uncontrollable emotional reaction about his actions.

01:07:48Marc:Yeah.

01:07:48Marc:And it was about Jesse.

01:07:51Marc:Now...

01:07:51Marc:What I want to know and what's been really that I never hear talked about is that the dynamic between you and Aaron, right?

01:07:59Marc:That's his name.

01:08:00Marc:Aaron Paul.

01:08:00Marc:It's fucking hilarious now, but it's genuine.

01:08:04Marc:There are comedy team dynamics that occur with you guys.

01:08:08Marc:Yeah.

01:08:08Marc:And also reoccur with other characters.

01:08:11Marc:Like, you know, Odenkirk is a comic actor.

01:08:14Marc:And I think that there's something that tempers that character because of his comedic instincts.

01:08:21Marc:He's not trying to be funny.

01:08:22Marc:No.

01:08:22Marc:But it's just his nature.

01:08:24Marc:Yeah.

01:08:24Marc:And I think that for the... He plays Saul.

01:08:26Marc:Yeah.

01:08:27Marc:For the first two seasons of this thing, the back and forth between you and Jesse borders on vaudevillians sometimes.

01:08:34Marc:Right.

01:08:34Guest:Well, it came about quite by accident because the role of Jesse was intended to be killed off in the second or third episode of the first season.

01:08:46Guest:But after the pilot, we saw how well Aaron Paul handled that character and what it did to the teaming.

01:08:54Guest:You you had these two people who would never under any other circumstances have any business being together.

01:09:02Guest:Yeah.

01:09:03Guest:And that's hilarious.

01:09:04Guest:Oil and water.

01:09:05Guest:That's where comedy comes from.

01:09:07Guest:It's like that oil and water.

01:09:10Guest:Yeah.

01:09:10Guest:Coupling is fascinating.

01:09:14Guest:It gives both perspectives and creates an opportunity for some dark humor.

01:09:19Guest:And you guys were aware of that.

01:09:21Guest:We became very aware during the pilot when he was chiding me and I'm like, you don't.

01:09:28Guest:Are you kidding me?

01:09:29Guest:You're using a round-bottom boiling flask for titration?

01:09:32Guest:What an idiot!

01:09:33Guest:And he's looking at me like, what did you just say?

01:09:36Guest:Who's the idiot?

01:09:37Marc:And so we have two different worlds colliding.

01:09:42Marc:And now, in terms of Vince's, the creator and the writers, are they...

01:09:49Marc:So they are aware that there is comedy in this thing.

01:09:53Marc:Oh, very aware.

01:09:53Marc:It's it's it's laid layered in there.

01:09:56Guest:Well, it is.

01:09:57Guest:So I just wanted to be confirmed on that.

01:10:00Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:10:01Guest:No, it's it's I think any good dramatic writing has a nice dose of levity.

01:10:08Guest:And conversely, any good comedy.

01:10:11Guest:has some sincerity to it and some pathos.

01:10:14Guest:Yeah.

01:10:14Guest:So that it gives the audience a chance to catch their breath and to see that these characters and this plot is rooted in something real, which makes it more important.

01:10:26Yeah.

01:10:26Marc:And there's those scenes where when you start wearing that outfit, that the choice of that hat, there's something that reminded me of McCabe and Mrs. Miller and just the power of that.

01:10:36Marc:I mean, that was a funny hat.

01:10:38Marc:I mean, there's almost something Chaplin-like about it.

01:10:40Guest:You're playing a badass, but it's... I know, but isn't it interesting how it now feels different?

01:10:46Guest:Yeah.

01:10:46Guest:That when you wear that pork pie hat, some mayhem is about to start.

01:10:50Guest:Yeah.

01:10:51Guest:And that's, you know, I liked it because...

01:10:54Guest:Walter White needed those things to make him feel different.

01:11:00Guest:And that's why he kept his bald head.

01:11:03Guest:because he didn't recognize the man in the mirror, even though his oncologist told him, well, you're in remission.

01:11:09Guest:Your hair is going to grow back.

01:11:10Guest:You're going to gain weight back.

01:11:12Guest:But he kept, and there was a very important scene in the second season, I think his second season, where he sees the razor and sees the stubble starting to grow in his head, and he shaves it off because now his life has changed, and he's this other guy.

01:11:26Guest:He doesn't want to look like the teacher Walter White.

01:11:29Guest:He wants to look like Heisenberg.

01:11:31Guest:In some way, it gives him permission.

01:11:34Guest:In some way, it gives him allowance to go there.

01:11:38Guest:Yeah, and the guy who plays Hank.

01:11:41Guest:Yeah, Dean Norris.

01:11:43Marc:What a fucking performance he's doing.

01:11:45Marc:Yeah.

01:11:45Guest:I mean, everybody is so damn good.

01:11:47Guest:Good, thank you.

01:11:48Guest:Yeah, I'll let them know.

01:11:49Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:11:50Guest:No, I won't.

01:11:51Guest:I'll keep it all to myself.

01:11:52Marc:No, I mean, I'm blown away by it.

01:11:55Marc:Now, is there another season coming?

01:11:56Guest:Yeah, we have 16 more episodes after this fourth season.

01:12:01Marc:Oh, my God.

01:12:02Marc:Are we going to get a little closure?

01:12:05Guest:Oh, it'll come to an end, my brother.

01:12:09Guest:It'll come to an end.

01:12:11Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:12:12Guest:Don't worry about that.

01:12:12Guest:Do you now know the full arc of the series?

01:12:14Guest:No, I don't know any of it.

01:12:16Marc:I never knew it from the beginning.

01:12:18Marc:But you know, obviously, we've shot the one more that we're going to see this Sunday.

01:12:23Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:12:23Marc:I know this year.

01:12:24Guest:Yeah, of course.

01:12:25Guest:You want me to give you a little tease?

01:12:26Guest:I won't tell you anything about it.

01:12:27Guest:Of the finale?

01:12:27Guest:Yeah.

01:12:28Guest:The tease of the finale coming up on Breaking Bad season finale.

01:12:33Guest:Yeah.

01:12:33Guest:There is an, oh my God moment.

01:12:38Guest:Yeah.

01:12:39Guest:Almost near the end.

01:12:40Guest:It's like, hold your head.

01:12:41Guest:You can't believe what you just saw.

01:12:43Guest:Really?

01:12:44Guest:Yeah.

01:12:45Guest:Then there's a scene with two characters that tie up some loose ends, answer a couple of the questions that were lingering and that's resolved.

01:12:56Guest:And then almost insignificantly, almost forgettable,

01:13:00Guest:The last scene, there is no dialogue.

01:13:04Guest:There are no actors.

01:13:07Guest:It's a familiar exterior scene.

01:13:11Guest:If you've watched the show, you'll recognize the place.

01:13:15Guest:Exterior shot.

01:13:17Guest:And you don't even know really what you're looking at.

01:13:19Guest:You're looking at some of it.

01:13:19Guest:It's like, yeah, so.

01:13:21Guest:Uh-huh.

01:13:21Guest:And the camera slowly pushes in, pushes in, pushes in, and you don't even know where it's going.

01:13:26Guest:It's innocuous.

01:13:28Guest:Yeah.

01:13:28Guest:And then all of a sudden, it rests on an object.

01:13:32Guest:Uh-huh.

01:13:32Guest:And once you recognize and understand the meaning of that object, you hold your head once more and go, no!

01:13:40Guest:Holy shit, no!

01:13:43Guest:Blackout, end of the season.

01:13:45Yeah.

01:13:45Marc:All right.

01:13:46Marc:Now, in the whole period of working, I mean, has this been the most rewarding thing you've ever done?

01:13:53Marc:It really has, I mean, in many ways.

01:13:55Marc:What did you learn about yourself as an actor in doing this?

01:13:58Marc:I mean, I don't know how to really frame that question, but you seem to be really hitting your stride in terms of giving this opportunity to build this guy.

01:14:10Marc:And now it seems like movies are coming your way, and you've really got deep control of your craft.

01:14:16Marc:Mm-hmm.

01:14:16Marc:You must be grateful as hell for one thing.

01:14:20Marc:But what was the most exciting thing about doing this?

01:14:24Marc:I mean, during the arc of this show, were there moments where you're like, holy shit.

01:14:31Marc:I mean, this is like the greatest thing I've ever done.

01:14:33Guest:Yeah.

01:14:34Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:14:35Guest:Well, I knew that if somehow, someway...

01:14:39Guest:This show manages to get on the air and is successful and stays on the air.

01:14:44Guest:That whoever got the role of Walter White, it will change their life.

01:14:48Guest:Just because it was such an amazing character.

01:14:49Guest:Just an amazing character.

01:14:51Guest:And to know that he was going to go from one type of person to another completely changed.

01:14:57Marc:Well, now even after you tell me the arc of what happens and now knowing there's 60 more episodes, I see where we are in this season.

01:15:02Marc:I don't see the end line.

01:15:04Marc:I don't see it.

01:15:05Marc:Good.

01:15:08Guest:I don't know where it's going to go either because my experience on this has been such a journey.

01:15:14Guest:How soon do you get the scripts?

01:15:16Guest:We get the scripts a week and a half or two weeks in advance.

01:15:20Guest:I only read it a week in advance.

01:15:22Guest:It still gives me time to raise any questions or clarify anything that's a little confusing or vague or whatever.

01:15:30Marc:With the director?

01:15:32Marc:No, with Vince, yeah.

01:15:33Guest:And this is still all his baby?

01:15:35Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:15:36Guest:Now, we have a great writing staff, and they're assigned specific episodes.

01:15:40Guest:And then we have a great core of directors who come in and get the tone.

01:15:46Guest:They get the show.

01:15:47Marc:You directed a couple?

01:15:48Guest:Uh-huh.

01:15:49Guest:That must have been fun.

01:15:50Guest:It is fun.

01:15:50Guest:It's a lot of hard work.

01:15:51Guest:And I'm going to do one more, I think, before all is said and done.

01:15:54Guest:It's different than film directing because it's sort of a little quicker, isn't it?

01:15:57Guest:A lot quicker.

01:15:58Guest:You have eight days.

01:15:59Guest:We have eight days to shoot an episode of Breaking Bad.

01:16:02Uh-huh.

01:16:03Guest:And we're on location about five of the eight and inside our stages about three of the eight.

01:16:09Guest:So it's very challenging.

01:16:12Guest:Every single episode is a push.

01:16:15Guest:We're right up against the time.

01:16:18Marc:fighting for daylight or fighting for time and trying to get it done how much of it breathes on set i mean like how much creative input do you have in in with vince what is there i i it's so tight i can't imagine there's a hell of a lot of improvising no no there isn't yeah no uh very very little yeah

01:16:37Guest:But, you know, each character brings their own little nuanced essence to that, that you can't write, that comes through.

01:16:47Guest:But there's very little.

01:16:48Guest:I mean, when something is, like I said before, when something is so well written, just stand back.

01:16:53Guest:They're doing all the heavy lifting.

01:16:56Guest:Just know your stuff.

01:16:58Guest:Show up on time.

01:16:59Guest:Have a good attitude.

01:17:00Marc:you know yeah have fun and go home yeah well it's it's great and uh you know and it's very exciting to to see somebody uh have such an explosion of uh of craft and opportunity and and brilliance uh at this point in your career thank you man i appreciate that i mean it's fucking amazing yeah it's it's a good opportunity and

01:17:21Guest:You know, I got to work.

01:17:22Guest:I'm in Contagion as well.

01:17:24Guest:I know.

01:17:24Guest:I got to go see that.

01:17:25Guest:Terrific film.

01:17:26Guest:Yeah.

01:17:26Guest:It sounds pretty heavy.

01:17:27Guest:Steven Soderbergh film.

01:17:28Guest:It's just, it's scary and plausible and it's a good film.

01:17:34Marc:Had you given up on a film career before?

01:17:37Guest:No.

01:17:37Guest:Remember what I said?

01:17:39Guest:I know.

01:17:39Guest:Well, don't, you know, that's what it is.

01:17:41Guest:All right.

01:17:42Guest:If you truly buy into that, it's not giving up on anything.

01:17:45Guest:It's like whatever comes along.

01:17:47Guest:I'm available to it.

01:17:48Guest:What's today?

01:17:49Guest:Oh, here it is.

01:17:51Guest:Okay.

01:17:51Guest:Well, how about this?

01:17:52Guest:How about that?

01:17:52Marc:Right.

01:17:53Marc:But the one thing that's good about having that outlook for real is like it just must be mind blowing.

01:17:57Marc:I mean, you must be just sort of like, God damn it.

01:18:00Marc:Yeah.

01:18:00Guest:And I was a poor kid from the valley.

01:18:02Guest:Yeah.

01:18:03Guest:So there's no way you can develop a sense of entitlement when you have nothing.

01:18:09Yeah.

01:18:09Guest:right it's like boy anything that comes to you is like wow how about this yeah oh it's just it's a it's a humbling experience and so and you're so ready for it man you know i mean that's fun i'm ready to take it let's let's see how far this will go that's the best thing about it is that you know no one's throwing something at you really like oh god i gotta you know it's like i'm here i'm here yeah jump in well congratulations man thanks so much appreciate it

01:18:39Marc:Well, there you go.

01:18:40Marc:How is that for an exciting, non-spoiling tease for Sunday night's Breaking Bad?

01:18:47Marc:God damn it.

01:18:48Marc:Why didn't he bring me a DVD of it?

01:18:50Marc:I got connections over there.

01:18:53Marc:I'm going to wait, just like the rest of us.

01:18:56Marc:I'm not special.

01:18:57Marc:Okay, before I forget, my buddy, who's also been on the show, Australian comic Brendan Burns, is going to be at the Nerd Melt.

01:19:07Marc:That's at the Meltdown there.

01:19:10Marc:That's Chris Hardwick's joint, Meltdown Comics.

01:19:13Marc:Sunday, October 9th, go to nerdmeltla.com and poke around there and find tickets for Brendan Burns, An Evening with Brendan Burns,

01:19:22Marc:And you'll see, you know, where to get tickets.

01:19:27Marc:I told him I'd hit you to that.

01:19:29Marc:That's this coming Sunday at the Nerd Melt.

01:19:33Marc:What else?

01:19:34Marc:WTFPod.com.

01:19:35Marc:Go get yourself some Just Coffee.

01:19:39Marc:You know, I'm not going to shit my pants this time.

01:19:41Marc:I'm just going to suck it up and hold it in because I've adapted, man.

01:19:45Marc:I can drink six pots of just coffee, .coop coffee, and I'm holding it in.

01:19:53Marc:Anyways, you can get that at wtfpod.com.

01:19:55Marc:Get on the mailing list, please.

01:19:57Marc:Leave some comments if you'd like.

01:19:59Marc:Also, go to merch.

01:20:01Marc:New merch coming.

01:20:02Marc:Going to put together some buttons packages.

01:20:04Marc:Going to make some stickers available.

01:20:05Marc:Going to get tote bags in a few weeks.

01:20:07Marc:There's already some mugs up there.

01:20:09Marc:People are digging those because I just had to reorder some.

01:20:12Marc:T-shirts.

01:20:12Marc:Good gifts.

01:20:13Marc:Start thinking ahead.

01:20:15Marc:Gift time is coming.

01:20:16Marc:Reasonable gifts with my face on them.

01:20:19Marc:Fucking Bryan Cranston.

01:20:20Marc:Was that amazing or what?

01:20:21Marc:Seriously.

01:20:23Marc:You know what?

01:20:24Marc:I'm going to go out and buy some meth and just stay up until Sunday's Breaking Bad.

01:20:31Marc:Because that will fuck my head up, man.

01:20:33Marc:I think this cheat day thing has gotten to my... It's like the sugar.

01:20:38Marc:I don't know.

01:20:41Marc:Oh, God.