Life Goes From Jesse Pinkman To Jesse James For ‘Breaking Bad’s’ Aaron Paul

It’s life in the fast lane and pedal-to-the-metal for “Breaking Bad” star Aaron Paul, who stars in the video-game-made-movie Need For Speed, racing into theaters March 14.

Paul, whose portrayal of Jesse Pinkman in AMC’s “Breaking Bad” earned him two Prime Time Emmys, is switching gears to the role of Tobey Marshall, a wrongfully-imprisoned street racer with reckoning on his mind.

Fresh from prison, a street racer who was framed by a wealthy business associate joins a cross country race with revenge in mind. His ex-partner, learning of the plan, places a massive bounty on his head as the race begins.

So meth cook to speed freak? Sounds about right. When asked about Need For Speed’s lighter moments, Paul explains that levity exists wherever you look for it.

“Even with ‘Breaking Bad,’ even though it got super-dark, the show is pretty funny,” Paul said while promoting the film with costar Scott Mescudi (rapper Kid Cudi), via the Daily Mail. “You find yourself laughing at very terrible things. Bodies being melted by acid. It’s funny, but in reality it’s not.”

“Here, we’re having fun,” the “Breaking Bad” star contrasted. “It’s really an intense story, but there’s the story between Tobey and Julia, the two people stuck in the Mustang on the cross-country venture, that’s a pretty funny one.”

Aaron and Dominic Cooper are the only real proven quantities in the film. Helmed by stuntman-turned-director Scott Waugh—whose only other full length feature was the well-intended Act of Valor—and serving as the writing debut for George Gatins, Need For Speed will likely be adored by genre fans and loathed with the same intensity by cinema snobs. Although it’s not his first foray on the big screen, Paul admits he misses his small screen life on “Breaking Bad.”

“We’re all having withdrawals,” he said in an interview with Vulture’s Jada Yuan. “It was such a beautiful, functional family that we didn’t want to leave one another, and we’re still very close. I’m just keeping busy. I think that’s the thing. I haven’t stopped since we wrapped.”

When asked whether or not he texts with his adopted professional family, Paul made the strength of their bond emphatically clear.

Me and the Breaking Bad family? Yeah. The day after we wrapped, I was already in northern California on set shooting Need for Speed. I worked on the final day of “Breaking Bad” — Bryan and I were shooting on the final day and there was a plane waiting for me to take me to northern California to start shooting Need for Speed and the next morning, I got a text from Bryan Cranston saying, ‘I miss you already.’ We really loved — we really love — one another.