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When most actors in Hollywood land their big break, very few risk changing direction. For Bryan Cranston, it was a no brainer. After an iconic turn in Malcolm in the Middle, Bryan Cranston wanted something different. And Breaking Bad gave him that opportunity. But before the highs of Malcolm in the Middle and Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston had been a character actor appearing in small parts on dozens and dozens of shows. Even post Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston has proved you can't pin him into one archetype. Walter White will forever be a man of change.
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Chemistry is the study of matter, but I prefer to see it as the study of change
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Breaking Bad was about change. More specifically, it was about a talented but unassuming man who
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changes into the last thing you'd ever expect him to become. So it's kind of ironic that
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Bryan Cranston got to play the main character in the series. Because not too long before
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Walter White came along, Cranston himself had undergone a similar metamorphosis, changing from a talented but relatively unknown character actor
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into the last thing anyone ever expected him to become, a star
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Bryan Cranston was born in Hollywood, California, and both his parents were actors
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But despite allowing their son to be in some local and regional theater productions as a kid
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Cranston's parents actually discouraged him from going into show business. Instead, he decided to pursue a degree in police science at Los Angeles Valley College in 1976
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As fate would have it, though, he had to take an acting class to fulfill an elective requirement
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The experience immediately changed his life, and at 19 years old, he decided to become an actor
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He toiled at an assortment of day jobs while breaking in, but by 1980, Cranston was getting work on television
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appearing in commercials, and in minor roles on popular shows like Days of Our Lives and Chips
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He got his first role on a series as a cast member of the daytime soap Loving in 1983
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a part he'd play until 1985, and he was also a regular on the short-lived 1988 sitcom Raising Miranda
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But despite the early promise, it would be a really, really long time until he was a regular on a TV show again
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Though Cranston didn't disappear from television either. Far from it. Instead, he quietly became one of those reliable character actors
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who shows up in one episode of pretty much everything. His early resume, for example, includes one-off roles on iconic 1980s shows
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like Airwolf, Hill Street Blues, Baywatch, Murder, She Wrote, and Matlock. And in the 1990s, he showed up in series like Walker, Texas Ranger, Babylon 5
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Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Seinfeld, and most significantly, The X-Files. What else can you tell me about what's happening to you
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Mr. Crump. Call me by my last name, you say Mr. in front of it
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But we get back to that one Along the way he also racked up appearances in movies like Amazon Women on the Moon That Thing You Do and Saving Private Ryan But at the age of 44 after 20 years in the business Cranston most well part was playing Dr Tim Watley on five episodes of
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Seinfeld. It seemed like his fate was to be a working character actor
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But everything would change again for Bryan Cranston in the year 2000
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When he was invited to audition for Hal Wilkerson, a leading role on Malcolm in the Middle
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the new Fox sitcom was about a boy genius growing up under the thumb of a domineering mother
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While the boy's more laid-back father was a smaller part. Cranston's instincts for doing
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a lot with a little honed over those decades of character acting kicked in and he quickly
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developed a unique take on the character that molded him into the polar opposite of Malcolm's
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mother. According to Cranston, he figured she's not afraid of anything, so Hal should be completely
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fearful. She's insightful, so Hal is obtuse. The clever and nuanced take created a delightful push
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and pull between the two characters that not only won Cranston the part, but also convinced
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producers to expand Hal's role on the series. Critically acclaimed and one of the better
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performing shows on its network, Malcolm in the Middle would run for 151 episodes over seven
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seasons. Cranston's clownishly over-the-top performance as Hal earned him three Emmy nominations and quickly established him as one of the most gifted comic actors on television
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Once that show was done, parlaying his success into a starring role in another sitcom would have
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been a safe, easy, and lucrative route for Cranston to take, but he wasn't really interested
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in any of those things. According to the actor, I wanted a change of pace, and whether that meant
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a comedy or drama, it was going to be different because I didn't need the money anymore. That
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being the case, things were about to break in an unexpected direction. Remember when we mentioned
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his appearance on The X in 1998 Well that episode required Cranston to play a loathsome and villainous man who also had a deep resounding humanity that made him sympathetic to the audience when he died And it was written by a screenwriter named Vince Gilligan Anyway right around the
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time Malcolm in the Middle was wrapping up, Gilligan was producing a pilot for AMC called
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Breaking Bad. His top two choices for the lead role of Walter White were Matthew Broderick and
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John Cusack, but both turned him down. Recalling Cranston's performance as the thematically similar
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character from The X-Files, the actor became Gilligan's next choice. Network executives
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however, were skeptical of casting the famously goofy Hal in their edgy new drama, and Gilligan
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himself admitted that had he only known Cranston from Malcolm in the Middle, he probably wouldn't
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have called him for Breaking Bad. But after Gilligan showed them Drive, the execs relented
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and Cranston got the part. Gilligan had originally envisioned Walter White as Mr. Chips turns in a
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Scarface, but Cranston instead chose to play him as a man in the midst of a midlife crisis
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changing himself from something ordinary to something extraordinary. Heisenberg? You're goddamn right
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Cranston's choices helped fill the character out and greatly influenced how he would be written going forward
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Cranston was also instrumental in designing Walter's look, including coming up with the iconic mustache
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and even channeling his own father to find Walter's posture and mannerisms
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Breaking Bad would go on to become one of the most acclaimed shows in television history
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Walter White would become one of the most iconic fictional characters of all time, and Cranston's performance would win him six Emmys, two Golden Globes, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards
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If Malcolm in the Middle had changed Bryan Cranston into a star, Breaking Bad had made him into a legend
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I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot and you think that of me
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No. I am the one who knocks. Given his massive fame and reputation as an actor
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Cranston probably could have done just about anything he wanted after Breaking Bad
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And given how much success it brought him, certainly few would have been surprised
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if he followed up by playing similarly edgy and violent characters on television or in the movies
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But instead, the actor decided to change things up again and take on The Great White Way
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Coming right off his run as Walter White in September of 2013, Cranston switched to playing President Lyndon B Johnson in the theatrical production of All The Way first at American Repertory Theater in Massachusetts and then on Broadway The show was met with universal acclaim and Cranston performance won him the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play
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an award he would win again in 2017 for his performance as Howard Beale in the Broadway adaptation of the 1976 film Network
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At the same time, he continued to work in films, appearing in 2014's Gareth Edwards-directed Godzilla reboot
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2015's critically acclaimed Trumbo, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award
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and more recently, Wes Anderson's 2023 comedy Asteroid City. He's also routinely lent his voice to films like 2016's Kung Fu Panda 3 and 2017's Power Rangers
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The actor also branched out into the business world. He became a co-owner of the cinema's Palme d'Or independent theater in Palm Desert until its closure in 2016
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and in 2019, he co-founded the Dos Hombres brand of Mezcal with his former Breaking Bad co-star Aaron Paul
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And of course, Cranston also kept appearing on television, making guest appearances in shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm and Family Guy
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We now return to Bryan Cranston sneezes. Thank you. And even briefly reprising his role as Walter White in El Camino and Better Call Saul
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And in 2020, he returned to TV full time by playing the title role in the dark dramatic series Your Honor
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The show was met with mixed reviews, but was successful enough to earn a second season
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despite originally being conceived as a one-season miniseries. But the point is, Bryan Cranston could have easily continued to milk his success as Hal
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and be a sitcom star, or played crime bosses for the rest of his career after Breaking Bad
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But instead, he's still finding success in wildly different roles across a host of different genres and mediums
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And he did it by being open to change. In fact, he's so open to change, in 2023
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he announced he was going to change the paradigm once again by hitting the pause button on acting so he could support his wife's career
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So if you followed all that, he changed from a police science student to a character actor to a comedy star to a dramatic icon into a businessman
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and from a businessman into a thoughtful and supportive husband. The man's whole life and career path has really just been one big study in the power of change
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a grand chemistry lesson from the great Heisenberg himself
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