Bryan Cranston talked about bringing back his fan-favorite drug kingpin, Walter White, for aBreaking BadSuper Bowl commercial. He also spoke about what the future holds for his Breaking Bad character.
Walter White, the villainous star ofBreaking Bad, may have died at the end of his show, but that hasn’t stopped the character from popping back up a few more times since then, most notably in theBreaking Badspinoff movie,El Camino.He most recently appeared in a couple ofepisodes toward the end ofBetter Call Saul’s run, where he memorably recreates the first time he ever met Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) when he was trying to wrangle the lawyer into helping get one of his dealers out of trouble. The last time they saw each other was when they were transported to their new lives with new identities involved.
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Now he’s returning once more, alongside former sidekick Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), to face off with Tuco Salamanca (Raymond Cruz) in a Popcorners! ad for Super Bowl LVII that Cranston tellsExtra TV, “Might be the retiring episode of theBreaking Baduniverse.” Cranston reiterated this point when he recalled howtheBreaking BadSuper Bowl adcame about. “I’ve had opportunities to bring Walter White into the milieu,” Cranston said. “I did it for Aaron’s movie ‘El Camino’ and then once again for ‘Better Call Saul.’ We were able to come back and each time, we think, ‘We’ll this is the last time we’re ever going to do this and then PopCorners calls and it was like, ‘Well we’ll do it one more time.'”
Per Cranston, the ad is “…a takeoff of the pilot episode when Walt and Jesse are in the RV and we’re actually cooking up the first batch and there’s newness to it and excitement and the unknowns.” Referring to the enduring popularity of the series, he says that formerX-Fileswriter Vince Gilligan and the crew created something special, a series that has aged like a fine wine. When asked why he decided to return for aBreaking BadSuper Bowl commercial, Cranston was glib and hilarious, saying, “Money.” He went on to say the ad allows him a reunion with his former friends, but if he only did it for the money, it’d put the actor’s motivations in line with his fictional counterpart’s.
AMC’sBreaking Bad, far from a pop-culture defining show when it began, was a weird little indie-style crime drama from writer/creator Gilligan and starring the dad from Fox’sMalcolm in the Middle,Cranston as Walter White. The series is about a high school science professor-turned-drug kingpin when it turns out his paltry salary from the district and his second job working at a carwash won’t even begin to scratch the surface of the medical debt he’ll incur for his recent lung cancer diagnosis. Top it off with a then-pregnant wife and a son with his medical disability, and the guy’s life wasn’t turning up roses.Breaking Bad’s Walter White has since become a cornerstone of American pop culture, something Popcorners! wanted to capitalize on, even if it’s for the last time.
Breaking BadandBetter Call Saulare streaming on AMC and Netflix.
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