Q&A - Vince Gilligan (Creator)
After chatting with the fans, Breaking Bad's creator took a few minutes to talk to AMCtv.com about writing in circles, identifying with Walt's misdeeds and the fairy tale ending he envisions for some of his characters.
Q: Last season you admitted you see a lot of yourself in Walt. Is that still true after the changes he's gone through in Season 2?
A: One of our biggest struggles is how to keep it so the audience can continue to sympathize with Walt after doing so many wretched things. And the funny thing is, I still do see a lot of myself in Walt. I think there's a lot about Walt that we can all relate to. I rationalize all kinds of things I do. And that's one of the most human conditions there is. Nobody thinks of themselves as a bad guy -- Walt certainly doesn't. I believe in the fundamental goodness of human beings, but I think that the universal thing we all have in common is that given the right set of circumstances, for a day or an hour or five minutes we could be bad guys; we could be very bad guys. And I think if folks watching can realize that about themselves, then they can always find a way to sympathize with Walt, or at least understand why he's making the choices he makes.
Q: Season 2 was the first time you wrote a circular story arc that ended where it began, with the pink teddy bear. What did you learn from the experience?
A: It was really tough, and the writers and I all got major headaches trying to figure out where to begin this season and how to then build in little bits and pieces throughout that would get us to the ending we wanted from day one. Uh, I'm not real eager to try it again. I don't think Season 3 will take that shape, partly because it was an awful lot of hard work, but also because the best thing this show can do is to continue to surprise viewers when they think they know what's going to come next. But now that the pain has faded, I couldn't be more proud of Season 2 -- it was the highlight of my career.
Q: Do you and your writers ever feel a need to one-up yourselves? I mean, how can you top a severed head exploding on a turtle?
A: Two exploding heads! Two turtles! We're always trying to one-up ourselves. And it's tricky -- you reach a point of diminishing returns. The key to it all is to be as truthful as you can to the characters. And if you do that, the act of trying to one-up yourself is earned because you're telling an emotionally truthful story. Having said that, any story that continues to one-up itself will eventually collapse under its own weight.
Q: Or destroy the universe.
A: Or destroy the universe [Laughs]. Cause a giant black hole that sucks our entire galaxy into its maw. But I hope we have at least a couple more seasons of one-upping ourselves before that happens.
Q: In the meantime, you have to find a way to write Walt out of the corner he's in with Skyler...
A: We've written ourselves into one hell of a big corner now. The writers are in the room debating that as you and I are talking. That's a tough one. But I've been pretty heartened by some of the work we've been doing the last couple of weeks. I think Season 3 is going to start off with a real bang and folks will find it interesting what happens next. Walt... sometimes you're in a corner you can't quite get out of, but you find a way to go on nonetheless. I think I'll leave it at that.
Q: We've seen some fundamentally good people do some awful things in this show. Will there ever be any redemption for them?
A: I think there's gotta be, moreso for some characters than for others -- although I don't want to give away any vague ideas I have about how the whole series should end. But I think certain characters deserve and demand redemption. I love a happy ending as much as anybody -- I actually love the old dark nursery rhymes that are now considered too dark for children, like Grimm's Fairy Tales. They have murder and mayhem and bloodlust, but the best of them carry some sort of moral of redemption and often end with Happily Ever After. I'd like to take a page from Grimm's Fairy Tales and perhaps have that kind of an ending for some, if not all of our characters.
Check back next week for an interview with Breaking Bad's location manager, Scott Clark.
Vince, Great show, the best ever of the modern era of TV! That said, you said "our biggest struggle is how to keep it so the audience can continue to sympathize with Walt after doing so many wretched things." Well that ship has left the dock. After watching Walt watch Jane die without doing anything (for purely selfish reasoning) one can no longer sympathize with him. Jesse is now the one fans will sympathize with now.
RE: Viewer Sympathy--Walt or Jessie?
In my opinion, both Walt and Jessie will garner audience sympathy in Season 3. In my opinion, Walt's reasons for not interceding to save Jane's life may, or may not, have been selfish. Jane would still have died; whether Walt was there or not. Jane was a manipulative Heroin addict who would have destroyed Jesse's life had she remained in the picture.
What makes is tough for me is that at least for now, Walt isn't dying anymore. Last season, that would have made me happy, but I think he became a little less sympathetic as his health improved. Since he was dying, there was a reason for him to be doing bad things, but now it just makes him seem evil.
And even though I don't necessarily like the characters and the things they do, I have absolute respect and admiration for the actors who pull it off and make them seem real.
Thank you, Vince, for giving us a little glimmer of hope - that someone will experience some redemption (maybe a few of the characters). I don't think I could take it if you sent everybody to hell in this series, since the main characters aren't psychopaths (though sometimes Walt seems like he's going to turn into one).
T>Swift: Let's be clear: Walt killed Jane. She was spooned up next to Jesse in the recovery position (Airway down and open in case of vomiting) and Walt moved her into the dangerous supine position when he shook Jesse. That was an act of comission. When he stood there and watched her die without intervening, that was an act of omission.
I can still be sympathetic for Walt though. He does care for Jesse and does have his back. Even killing Jane was, in the long term, to Jesse's benefit.
Vince...
I have observed throughout the series your control over each character in Breaking Bad. The characters are contantly tested as to their own virtue, morals and conscious, but you have also pitted characters against each other many times, in the most stressful circumstances, vile confrontations that would ruin any relationship totally, but down the road, you graciously bring them back together as loyal family or friends. Good example is Walt and Jessie...always confronting each other, example, in the RV fighting after making lbs of meth, down on the ground choking each other vs. other scenes as in the drug house, Jessie beaks down and hugs Walt as a son would hug his own father. Are you teasing the audience with this internal conflict with character vs character and then reuniting them again....repeating this scenario many times throughout the series? You are like the "Greek Gods" that control the mortals on earth like pawns on a chessboard.....
i picture the scene in trading places where he hands the bum a huge bag full of money. lol ;)
Walt's darker side is unwilling to return to the bleak acceptance he has adopted after being cheated by his former entrepreneurial partners. Power and money are his to wield.
Stop making Skylar such a self-righteous bitch. She is strong, hot and a force to be reckoned with. There is something lurking in her past that will write you out of this corner. Not the lame-asshat affair either >:P
Maybe she is projecting a la mode Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Maybe she is on a path of revenge a la mode Kill Bill.
Maybe the child is a product of rape and the secret is driving her insane a la mode Chinatown.
Killer Show! The totally best thing in TV viewing at this time. About time someone shows what the drug life is really like. Beats the hell out of these stupid reality bla-bla shows on TV constantly. Good job Gilligan and writers.
Amen to Grimm's Fairy Tales. My favorite was "Blue Beard" and I read it when I was little, I loved it. (The magical key that opened the closet to all of his dead wives, and when his current wife tried to wipe the blood off the key, it would disappear only to reappear on the other side) You can't even find that story in Grimm's anymore. Too gory for the kids. But Grimm's wasn't meant for children.
Vince, I agree with you. Given the right set of circumstances people will do things they could never have imagined...good people can do pretty wrotten things when pushed. I love the psychology of the show, the insight to human struggles and the consequences for our actions. The reason I liked the ending so much (which I never saw coming) was that it showed how one choice can have such disproportionate, dire consequences seemingly unrelated to the event that caused it all. And there is truth to that. If Walt had done the right thing (just the small, little act of turning Jane on her side), hundreds of lives would have been saved.
It gives me a lot to think about.
BB has the opportunity to dispel some misconceptions about Abq, NM, women, Latinos, age-ism, etc. Jesse gets religion in recovery and has a middle aged Latina single parent not gorgeous with a past as a counselor. Hey, she's not Catholic alright?
She's got her own problems. He wants Walt to turn to religion too but the whole thing is big and complicated. Walt gets attached to her as the Skyler thing is painful and ugly. Wow - you can hit all the bases.
LMAO! I was always more, the "Aesops' Fables" type...such as, the fox & the sour grapes! Ha ha ha!
We've all become so attached, to the characters that you've created!! So, it sure does make me feel good, to know there might be hope of a "Some-what Happy Ending", for our favorite show!