In those last few days of shooting Breaking Bad with him, I reflected on the arc of Bob’s career. He did it right. He understood the ebb and flow of this business. An accomplished movie star, he now does smaller roles and enjoys every minute of it. He never developed a sense of entitlement. On set he said quite often: Happy to be here. He meant it.
In our last scene together, Walt offers Ed ten thousand dollars to stay a couple of hours and play cards with him. He’s that desperately lonely. He just wants a little company. Deadpan, Ed doubles the fee and reduces the duration. Walt agrees. The price doesn’t matter. What’s money to him anymore? Ed deals the cards for five-card stud. The first two up cards randomly come up kings.
The director, Peter Gould, hadn’t yelled “Cut,” so we both stayed in character and continued playing. Bob improvised and announced the cards: “Two kings.” The irony isn’t lost on Walter White. For a short period of time, he’d felt like a king. Now . . .
• • •
Aside from Ed’s visit, I am all alone in that cabin. Robinson Crusoe meets Scarface. I have a full beard. The cancer has come back. I can feel myself slipping away. Should I just wait for death to take me? Is this, after everything, the sum total of my works and days? A barrelful of money I can’t use and can’t get to my family? Everything for naught?
I know my family is disgusted. I feel ashamed. I was hoping I could convince my son to find some measure of forgiveness in his heart, hoping I could say I was sorry. I was hoping I could find a way to leave them something. Money isn’t everything, but it’s a lot. My family needs it. There has to be a way to get it to them without the Feds tracing it.
I lay eyes on the box of Ensure meal replacement drinks Ed brought me to help to keep my weight up. I empty it and fill it with as much money as it will hold. I trudge through the thick snow, holding the box tight to my chest. I find a dive bar. I find a pay phone. I call my son at school. I try to tell him: Everything. I was doing it for you, I tell him. I’m sending you the money so the Feds can’t trace it.
I tell him once: I love you.
I never want to see you again, he says. I want you to die.
I weep. I feel the waste of my life. My good intentions got derailed by greed and hubris and rage and resentment. I was the danger, all right. A danger to myself. To everyone around me. So much pain and loss. I haven’t left a mark. I’ve left a stain. I am . . . nothing.
I wept as we filmed that scene. When we finished, I was spent. Exhausted and a bit traumatized. It was also my birthday.
We shot Breaking Bad on thirty-five-millimeter film. Few shows, if any, do that anymore because of the expense. And the technology has improved so much that you can get similar quality on digital. We shipped the film to the lab back in LA as we shot it. Each day, we knew exactly when the flight that was carrying the film was leaving, and we’d have to “break” the film, box it up, and get it to the airport. A courier then picked it up at LAX and took it to the lab, so that the next day the digital copies were ready. The assistants loaded them up so our editors could see what they had. That way, if there was a problem with the film—say, a scratch—we could still reshoot before we were long gone from that location.
While the film of that wrenching scene with my son was being shipped from Albuquerque to LA, it fell off the back of a luggage cart. Then one of those tanklike tows that push and pull airplanes to the gates ran over the film cans. The film didn’t just get exposed. It got pulverized. Ruined. The insurance company covered it, but we would have to go back and shoot the scene again.
When I first heard that some film got ruined, I thought: Oh please, let it be the something like the scene where I walk into a store and put the milk down on the counter. Or a scene where I’m driving my Aztek. Not the scene where I hear from my son that he wishes I were dead.
But of course.
The day I had to reshoot that scene was challenging. I felt myself reenacting, rather than acting. I remembered what I did the last time and tried to extinguish that from my mind, but it was hard. I needed to find a new path back to those depths, and I couldn’t.
But it had to be done. So we did it again. And again and again.
As an actor, you have to be able to endure repetition without losing emotion or energy. You’re hysterical? Do it again. You’re experiencing the most piercing loss? Do it again. And again. How to be honest and true and feel all of those feelings on command? Then repeat? You just do. To get through, to communicate, to move your audience regardless of the problems, that’s the job.
So I wept. And I wept again. And I found a new path.
• • •
Walter White was more alive in the last years of his life than he had been in the previous fifty. He went from utter failure to great power. In the final episode, Skyler says: Give me a break, you didn’t do it for your family.
“You’re right,” Walt answers. “I didn’t. I did it for myself. I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really—I was alive.”
He was. I don’t agree with the decisions Walt made or the actions he took, of course. But I feel for him. If you have two years to live, you don’t let them cut your balls off. You go out fighting. That’s what he did.
He was alive.
And when I was doing the series, so was I.
Saying good-bye to Breaking Bad was incredibly difficult. Doing the last episodes, the characters were all dying or driving off into the sunset. Walt was saying good-bye to Skyler, and from a distance he was watching his son get off a school bus, he was exchanging a final, meaningful look with Jesse. They both knew it was good-bye.
And we knew, too. I was Bryan saying good-bye to Aaron, and to Anna and Betsy and Dean and R. J. This was likely the last time most of us would work together.
I suppose you could be on a terrible show and still feel loss when it ends. But to be on a show that was so respected, not just by us but by the world? And to feel so intensely connected to one another? We all knew we might never have that feeling again. But we had to move on.
Good-bye, Lydia.
Celebrity
I’ve seen Breaking Bad T-shirts in cities and little outposts all over the world. People dress as Walter White for Halloween. They dress their children and dogs in hazmat suits and Heisenberg hats. People have shaved my face into the back of their heads, they’ve inked it on their backs, their forearms, their legs, their asses. I’m the permanent resident of some guy’s left butt cheek. Next to Larry and Moe. I suppose I’ve taken the place of Curly, the third Stooge. It’s a little . . . odd to have your face tattooed on someone’s backside. I did not see that coming when I lied about my ability to mountaineer in order to get a Mars bar commercial.
I didn’t even see it when we were shooting the pilot. A lot of people around us were raving: Profound, they said, groundbreaking. We have a hit on our hands. Something very special and rare.
But all I knew at that moment was that we were doing something daring and we were having a good time. Nothing more.
People tend to think that actors or writers or directors know when something is going to be a hit. We don’t. We can guess. We can hope. We can do the work. But that’s all. No one can know with certainty if a movie or a show is going to work, even if it’s damn good. There are so many outside variables: marketing, music, timing. Competition also determines if something succeeds or fails. Sometimes there’s another movie about giant man-eating grasshoppers coming out the same weekend as your grasshopper movie. Social mores are another part of it. Sometimes a show is ahead of its time. Or maybe it’s just a little bit behind. You just don’t know. You keep your fingers crossed. But you don’t know.
The audience embraced Breaking Bad beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, and that changed my life. I’d been a working actor for nearly my entire adulthood, and now, suddenly, in my fifties, I was a star.
That’s never what I aspired to be. I wanted to act. I wanted to work. Being an actor and being a celebrity are different things
altogether. For a long time I had a real ambivalence toward fame. And praise. Whenever someone gave me a compliment, I would downplay it. Which would then have the unintended consequence of prompting the person giving the compliment to reiterate: You were great.
No. I appreciate it, but, no, I was okay.
No, no, no, you were really great!
Well, I don’t know. Thank you.
I said thank you more as an apology than a genuine expression of gratitude or appreciation. I did that all the way through my thirties. Maybe I felt that because I didn’t have a formal education, who was I to get these jobs? Who was I to receive this praise?
I remember I bristled the first time someone called me a television star. No, no, I’m just an actor working on a show. The show could end at any time.
At a certain point I gave in. I realized I was spending a lot of time and energy pushing away fame. I realized how taxing it was. I realized I could just say thank you. And appreciate it. And once I realized that, I got out of my own way. I had to come to terms with what was happening in my own life.
Undeniably I’ve benefitted from fame. Many, many opportunities have come my way because of the insane success of Breaking Bad. But there are downsides, too. As an actor you need to be sensitive, to be open, to be able to observe people and study human behavior. I don’t want my character to be me—but with a hat! I have my Bryanisms, and I study people to help me get away from those tics. But as a celebrity I am no longer the observer, I am the observed. I am not the one who knocks. I am the one who ducks and covers.
People who sell celebrity autographed material find out when your plane is landing, where you’re staying, where you’re eating, and they lie in wait, and they shove paraphernalia at you to sign. Many of the guys are aggressive; they bark at you. If you sign, they tell others: “He’ll sign.” And then you’re mobbed by even more people. And your time and energy get drained this way. And it’s like you’re going out there handing them money. And when you don’t hand them money, they get upset at you. (Of course it couldn’t be more different with real fans who just want to shake your hand and say that your show or film really touched them. I love that.)
I’ve become hyperaware of the catacombs, the secret exits, how to escape from any given place. I choose a hotel because I know it has a good back-door situation. At an airport, if I’m not in a lounge, I’ll look around and find old people and sit facing them. They’re far less likely to know who I am. If there happens to be a conversation, I can count on a normal exchange. It’s really cold outside. What time are we boarding?
I go to a restaurant with my wife and daughter, and I sit with my back to the room so fewer people can see my face. When Taylor sees people whispering and pointing she says, “Dad, you’ve been made.”
People rush up to my wife and me. OH MY GOD, IT’S WALTER WHITE! They hand my wife their cellphones. Would you mind? She’s gracious, always. But it’s uncomfortable at times. She’d never say anything. She realizes how lucky we are, what incredible gifts we’ve been given. But it’s hard being a plus one. It shouldn’t be that every invitation reads Bryan Cranston plus one. It shouldn’t be that photographers wave her aside to get an unobstructed shot of me. I don’t want her to feel unimportant. She’s the opposite of that.
• • •
I love work. I even love work on my birthday—especially my birthday. It’s like a gift I give myself. I’ve always believed in work. But because Breaking Bad ushered in an avalanche of new opportunities, my workload since the show ended has been enormous. Part of that is my nature. I want to do as much as I can while I can. I know that my career will slow down eventually. That’s the natural cycle of things. When that happens I want to have no regrets. I want to know that I took full advantage of my good fortune. Even if I make mistakes along the way. I’d rather fail than regret.
The other reason I work so much is that my work life is more protected than my nonwork life. I asked Robert De Niro about it once. We were both at a hockey game at Madison Square Garden, guests of the New York Rangers. We’d never met before, but between periods we were hustled into a green room, a protective area, which is easier for security to guard. Otherwise people constantly come down to say hello or get an autograph. We got to talking. I mentioned at some point that it seemed he worked nonstop.
He said, “I just feel more comfortable when I’m working.”
If he’s not working, it means he’s stepping outside of his apartment, walking down the street, being pointed to and stared at. He’s Robert De Niro! How can he have a normal day? Ever?
As a celebrity, you can easily create your own kind of self-imprisonment. I think of the Alzheimer’s ward where my mom spent her final years. You have your gardens and your walking path and your illusion of freedom, but you don’t go beyond this wall. You’re not really free.
We were shooting the film Contagion in Chicago, and I was on the street with Laurence Fishburne. We were done working for the day and we wanted to get a bite to eat. I commented it was a nice night. It would be great to walk. But then I said, “I guess we should get a car, so we don’t have to deal with the public attention.”
Fish said, “No, we can walk. You can deal with it, just don’t stop moving.”
“What if there’s a stoplight?” I said.
“Just keep moving. Wave. And then find a way around.”
And we did.
Slowly, I came to understand why celebrities make celebrity friends. Because you can be yourself. Tom Hanks doesn’t need anything from me. I don’t need anything from him. We can relax in each other’s company. After I saw his work in Captain Phillips, I told him his performance was so heroic yet deeply vulnerable. I told him it really affected me. It’s not adulation or fawning. It’s collegial appreciation, on a human level.
Since I became famous, my personality has changed. I tend to leave my house less. If I leave my house I’m in a hat and sunglasses, and when I’m walking down the street and I pass by a group of people, I’m looking down at my phone, pretending to be absorbed in it. If I don’t happen to have my phone with me I’ll pretend to wind my watch or wipe dust off my sleeve. Head down. Louis C. K. told me he feels the same things, but he fights it. He tests himself, pushes himself out. But he always feels vulnerable. Armorless.
Every time I feel claustrophobic or hemmed in by my fame, I remember the first time I was nominated for a Golden Globe for Malcolm in the Middle. I was so excited and greatly honored. At the Beverly Hilton they’d cordoned off the hallway that led from the ballroom to the parties. Once the ceremony was over, security would escort everyone out of the hallway and into the party rooms. Plenty of people on both sides of the rope would be asking for an autograph. We were told: please don’t stop. If one actor stops and another one doesn’t, the one who doesn’t is going to look bad. Please just nod and say hello and move into the party.
Robin and I did as we were told. We walked the long gauntlet, waving and smiling but ignoring all the requests. But about halfway through the lobby we hit a bottleneck. The procession came to a dead stop. We were standing just a few inches away from two thirteen-year-old girls.
“Please, please, please!” They were leaning over the rope, begging me, almost crying. It was like Beatlemania.
“I really can’t. They told us not to.”
“But PLEASE. PLEASE.”
I looked around. The line wasn’t moving. I said, “Okay, but don’t tell anyone.”
I surreptitiously took their autograph books, and as I was about to write my name, one of the girls said, “Who are you?”
Robin and I burst out laughing.
I wrote: With love, Tom Cruise.
Visitor
Not too long ago, I visited a teenage boy, a huge Breaking Bad fan, at the Children’s Hospital in LA. Not long to live, I was told. The doctors couldn’t do much more than make him comfortable.
To be honest, I was dreading it.
What could I do? I wasn’t a doctor or a healer or eve
n a speaker with a positive message. I was just an actor. I didn’t know how I could help him or his parents.
I was stressed. I wanted to be on time and yet I didn’t want to go at all. Robin and I parked the car and hurried toward the elevator. “Can you come in with me?” I asked. I needed support.
“Of course I’ll come,” she said.
But as we walked down the corridor toward the kid’s room, it started dawning on me: my dread and stress were selfish. This wasn’t about me, about how I felt. This was about Kevin. It was my responsibility to do whatever small thing I could for Kevin while I had the chance. I needed to get out of my head and focus on the boy. I took a few deep breaths. I had the same feeling I have when I’m standing backstage, before I make my entrance. I’m filled with nervous anticipation, but once I step on stage it dissipates. And that happened the moment I entered the room. It was all right.
I walked in and said, Hi, Kevin, casually, and he responded in kind. We exchanged ideas and thoughts, and I challenged him. I took the contrarian point of view. He said Walter White was evil. WHAT? I said, pretending to be angry. You like Jesse? WHY? Oh, you’re crazy. That’s insane. I started pacing, pretending he was driving me mad. The fact that he was ill did not come into the conversation. Except I told him he looked like Walter White with his bald head. He thought that was funny. You need to grow a mustache and goatee. Can’t you grow any facial hair, kid?!
For a moment it wasn’t about his illness. It wasn’t a doctor giving him more bad news or a nurse drawing blood. I was this guy on his favorite show, and we were together, alive in that moment.
A Life in Parts Page 22
