When the celebrated actor is asked how he wants Breaking Bad to end after the upcoming sixth season, he replied to the GQ journalist’s question with, “However Vince Gilligan [Breaking Bad creator] wants it to end.”
An evasive move, but that shouldn’t be a surprise to fans of the rabidly popular AMC series, whose writers are often one step ahead of viewers. On Aug. 11, Breaking Bad will rev up this beginning-of-the-end finale season with Cranston at the helm, playing cancer-stricken Walter White, a New Mexico chemistry teacher who turns to dealing crystal meth in order to leave his family with money after his death.
The GQ profile goes in-depth to learn more about what the finale season will offer fans. Gilligan is quoted as saying, “I think these final eight episodes have a real chance of satisfying…not everybody, there’s no way to satisfy every last viewer, but the bulk of our viewers. I certainly hope so. They satisfy me, and that’s saying a lot.”
Is Cranston, 57, getting anxious about the end of the show, how it’ll turn out? “No, I’m fine, but you should go see Vince–he’s tearing his hair out.”
More interestingly, Cranston revealed how playing this troubled man affected him. During a season-two episode when White, rather than intervene and help her, stands by to watch his drug partner’s girlfriend choke on her own vomit after a junkie binge, Cranston broke into tears. “There was one point where I was going through the range of Walter’s emotions and, involuntarily, I saw my daughter’s face. I must have been conjuring the idea that she was somebody’s daughter, and I saw [my daughter’s] face, choking,” he told GQ.
Describing the process of getting in White’s skin, Cranson says, “When you first start working on a character, it remains outside of you. And then, the more you work on it, it’s like you start dating, getting to know each other, and then trusting each other, feeling confident in each other’s company, until pretty soon…you kind of glide in.”
Cranston has dove so deep into his character, and the series, he couldn’t help but get a tattoo commemorating his years spent as the meth dealer. The small tat on his hand wil be instantly recognizable to Breaking Bad viewers.
Breaking Bad is one of those shows your friends have told you to check out, like the many TV junkies who insist you need to watch The Wire. Critics and award shows agree; it’s won six Emmy Awards since its debut in 2008. Viewership is steadily increasing, season by season: The show averaged 1.9 million viewers in Season 4 — an increase of 23 percent from Season 3 — and the first half of the final season brought in an average of 2.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen, Wired writes.
For those still itching to learn how Breaking Bad will end, perhaps this buried quote by Gilligan offers a small clue. When discussing other shows and how they’ve handled their finale season, Gilligan refers to M*A*S*H and the writers’ move to send everyone home after war. “Sometimes the best moment in a TV show is an unpredictable moment but sometimes it’s actually being predictable.”
