Bryan Cranston Reflects On ‘Breaking Bad’ – And Life After
Breaking Bad may have ended a year ago, but Bryan Cranston is still thinking about it. The breakthrough AMC series about a high-school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with lung cancer, causing him to start a meth-making empire to acquire money for his family, is still up for awards, believe it or not.
The show recently won Best Drama Series from the Critics Choice Television Awards, Program of the Year from the Television Critics Association, and finally Golden Globes for the show and Bryan Cranston after the Hollywood Foreign Press virtually snubbed the show for its entire six-year run.
Now, Cranston’s show is up for an award once again as Breaking Bad is Emmy-nominated for its final season from last year.
Bryan Cranston as Breaking Bad’s Walter White – AKA Heisenberg – has won the Emmy for Best Lead Actor three times during the show’s run. Aaron Paul won two statues for the series, and Anna Gunn finally won an Emmy last year for Best Actress. The show has only won one Emmy for Best Drama – and that seems unfair to the show’s many fans. Breaking Bad is considered by many, many viewers to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest show on television. Ever.
According to Deadline, Bryan Cranston values being nominated for a statue yet again.
“It means a lot. Primarily you have people in your peer group who are watching this. I look at the nominees and it is extremely difficult in the television world because TV is anything that’s on the internet and elsewhere.”
When asked about his thoughts on how Breaking Bad ended, Bryan Cranston said:
“There’s nothing more gratifying than to be able to go out on top and I think, story-wise, we did that. If we were able to go out on top from an awards point of view that’s the cherry. It makes it so much sweeter.”
Bryan Cranston understands that Breaking Bad rode the wave of binge-watching via Netflix at just the right time. Just last spring, the entire series was thrown up on the streaming service not more than six months after the show ended on AMC. Those who had missed the program – or the millions that just wanted to take the ride again with Walter and Jesse – tuned in, in big numbers.
“A lot of it had to do with the advent of how the platforms of viewing were created at this same time, the Netflix of the world, the marathon viewing and being able to see it on your iPad or even your iPhone, it’s astonishing where it’s gone. We couldn’t have foreseen this happening, but it’s here.”
Since Breaking Bad wrapped, Bryan Cranston has done work on Broadway, winning a Tony Award for Best Actor as L.B.J. in All the Way– a role Cranston will reprise in a televised version of the play for HBO, according to Rolling Stone. Before doing that, Bryan will star in another HBO flick, Trumbo, about blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.
And then there’s Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad spinoff that could include glimpses into Saul Goodman’s life before, during, and after the events of Breaking Bad… and that means we could see a return of Walter White.
Regardless if Bryan Cranston wins any more awards or not, his stature as one of America’s finest actors is secure.
