It's difficult to match the image above — of a grizzled, bald Bryan Cranston — to the actor's recent and well-known role as Hal, tighty-whitey fan and father of Malcolm in the Middle. But Cranston's spent thirty years proving himself a fearless chameleon, from roles in Saving Private Ryan to the dentist Tim Whatley on Seinfeld. Last year, Cranston changed his colors again, winning a best-actor Emmy for his role as Walter White, a high-school chemistry teacher-turned-meth dealer, in the critically acclaimed AMC series, Breaking Bad. Diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and desperate for fast cash to provide for his special-needs son and pregnant wife, White begins cooking crystal meth for the seedy underbelly of Albuquerque. Cranston's portrayal of a man wholly unprepared for a life of crime is heart-breaking, brutal, and at times darkly hilarious. The second-season premiere, directed by Cranston himself, airs this Sunday at 10 p.m. Our favorite exhibitionist took time out of his busy production schedule to speak with Hooksexup about chemistry, working both sides of the camera, and of course, public nudity. — Derrick Sanskrit
Your portrayal of a chemistry professor is stunningly convincing. Did you undergo any special training? "Proper handling of Bunsen burners" or "How not to use hydrochloric acid"?
I shadowed a chemistry professor at University of Southern California, to get reacquainted with the nomenclature, the materials and how to handle things. What chemicals you need respirators for and what don't you? What is volatile? You're tapping into a world that's fascinating, and I certainly didn't appreciate it back in high school. I love the juxtaposition on Breaking Bad, of the orderly fashion and numerical answers to questions in the chemistry lab [where] Walter White is at home — then I step out of that classroom and enter a world of crime and everything is the opposite.
Walter White has no clue what he's doing in this world of the underground. He's around nefarious characters and bad-asses and unreliable drug users. He doesn't have the skill set for this. He woefully underestimated getting involved. It was a rash, stupid decision and now he's got to pay for it. And there's no going back.
Did you ever feel the urge to go home and try some experiments with an easy-bake oven?
Well, I have no desire to do that. However, as consultants on the set, we've had DEA chemists show us how to do it; I have a thriving sideline going now. When we show the making of the product on the air, we don't show it step-by-step, we do it in a montage. We don't want it to become a how-to video. In the first episode of the second season, I directed, and you have my character making a poison out of a bean. I didn't want to show that, so we have a policy that we put it into a montage format. It's much more effective that way, and also you don't show the world.
You don't want kids actually handling ricin.
Exactly.
Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan also wrote the episode of The X-Files you were featured in over a decade ago. Did he remember you, or was getting together for Breaking Bad just a small-world coincidence?
He did remember me, which I'm so grateful for. It's like advice to actors, you know? Do your best and be on your best behavior at all times; you never know what job is going to lead to another. My character in X-Files was this guy in the backseat of a car. The title of the episode was "Drive," and David Duchovny had to drive eighty miles an hour or my head would explode. No one likes to clean that up. The interesting thing is that if [Gilligan] wrote my character to be a nice guy, everyone would say, "Yeah, try to save this guy, he's a sweet guy." That's obvious, [but] Vince made my character a miserable, bigoted son of a bitch, and so it raised a moral dilemma within the lead actor: "Is a human life still worth saving if it's this guy?" And that's the kind of sensitivity that he brings to Breaking Bad. He's able to write a character that you embrace as a human being, and yet you completely hate what he's doing and the decisions that he's made.
You had the opportunity to direct with Breaking Bad's Season 2 premiere episode. How did it feel to boss everybody around behind the camera, after spending so much time being pushed around by others on-camera?
I finally get my revenge! The first day I work I always bring a new crew member on staff for the sole reason that I could fire them and scare everyone else into doing my bidding. Of course, I'm jesting.
You first appeared on Malcolm In the Middle completely naked in the kitchen. For your first appearance on Breaking Bad you sported tighty-whities in the desert. Are you growing more modest over time?
Modest, yes, next I'll have another article of clothing on. I initially wasn't going to wear the tighty-whities as described in the pilot episode of Breaking Bad, because I wore them in Malcolm. Vince said go ahead and change that, and I intended to. I went to my wardrobe call, and they had all kinds of underwear. I chose the tighty-whities for Malcolm because he was a big boy himself, and it really said he still hasn't outgrown this, and made it funny. In Breaking Bad, I kept looking at the other underwear and then I kept looking over at the tighty-whitey. I realized I have to wear these again, [but] for different reasons: a manifestation of Walt's lack of care. His point of view gets stunted at some point, as well, and he just doesn't care what he's wearing. It was indicative of how he felt.
That shot of you in the tighty-whities is the DVD cover for Season 1, and was plastered on billboards here in New York City — billboards which used to feature images of Kate Moss. How does it feel to be such an atypical sex symbol?
You know, I don't want people to just think of me as a sex symbol. Of course, I am, but I don't want them to think I'm shallow. There's more to me than just the obvious sexiness. Beyond the gorgeous exterior is a functioning human being with thoughts and feelings.
In season two, episode three, you're going to see me in all my glory, sans clothes entirely. I don't have a stitch on me in one sequence. There were a couple scenes last year that I actually insisted on [nudity]. There was a moment in the bathroom where I was naked and I said, "You're missing a shot here" to the producers, "a shot of this man who finds himself curled up on the cold tile floor in the bathroom in the morning. He should be naked because that's the way he feels. He's naked to the world." So I curled up into a position that was similar to that of John Lennon curling up to Yoko in bed when he was naked — although he had someone warm to curl up to, I had no one. Without someone next to you, it was a very lonely feeling.
In this season, I'm in a very public place without any clothes. In Season 3, I hope I'll be completely naked, perhaps in some national park somewhere.
I just want to make sure our readers know that they have something to look forward to.
Either to look forward to, or cautionary! "At six minutes into the episode, please divert your eyes as to not burn your retinas."
Walter White has been a physically demanding role: you've grown a mustache, gained weight, shaved your head and then lost weight for the cancer treatment. How'd you do all that so quickly, during what was essentially a seven-episode run?
The easiest thing for a man is to cut things out — not to start calorie-counting, because I couldn't keep track of all that stuff. I borrowed the Atkins/South Beach philosophy of no carbs. All the simple carbs left: pasta, bread, rice, potatoes, that sort of thing, all gone. I'd reduce my portions a little bit and maintain my exercise program, along with no alcohol, no simple sugar. I'd still have, like, an apple. I'd get sugar that way — and bulk and vitamins — and I'd still have vegetables, so I'd get carbohydrates that way without the simple carbohydrates. If you starve your body of carbohydrates, and you're still asking it to function, it has to use something as fuel. Its first desire is carbohydrates. Gimme the sugar. Gimme the sugar. It burns that fast. If you deprive it of sugar, it goes to fat. It's a really simple philosophy, but it works.
Breaking Bad and beyond: what else can we expect from you in the future?
I wrote and directed Last Chance, a sweet romantic drama, that's going to premiere the night before Breaking Bad, on WE. I wrote it as a valentine for my wife, Robin Dearden, who stars in the movie with me.
How did your wife feel about you making this for her?
She was lovin' it! Of course, as a guy, I'm saying, "Look what I did here for you for Valentine's Day. I don't need to do anything romantic for the next five or six years, right?" That's not the way it works, but I was hoping I could skate for a while.
Derrick Sanskrit is a graphic artist and pop culture junkie operating out of NYC. He has produced critically acclaimed* work for Pitchfork, Hooksexup, Babble, ESPN, Upright Citizens Brigade, the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art and more. He pontificates about the collaboration of art and music for Hooksexup's video game blog, 61 Frames Per Second.
*everyone's a critic.