Raymond Cruz talks about the inner workings of Breaking Bad's most volatile character then deconstructs a beat-down in AMC's exclusive interview.

Q: You're on this show called Breaking Bad, and you're definitely the baddest dude on it. How does that feel?

A: Yeah. I have to out-break Bryan Cranston. It's a big bad breaking contest. It's a challenging character, not easy at all. That's the reason I wanted to do it. I'm not going to make a judgment and say Tuco is out of his mind, but his parameters are definitely a lot further out there than other people's. To try to pull this character off, it's such a high energy level. It's not necessarily fun, it hurts, man. You get drained physically, emotionally and mentally. You get exhausted just doing one scene. There is no finesse. And I'm not that kind of person at all. I'm pretty quiet and easy-going.

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Series composer Dave Porter uncovers the geographical influences on his music and his uncanny ability to predict the season's ending through sound.

Q: It feels as though the Southwest is a big influence on the score.

A: Definitely.

Q: Have you spent much time in the desert?

A: I actually haven't, outside of a few solitary journeys to Joshua Tree. But that plays into how I feel about the desert. I'm an East Coast kid, and what I love about the use of the desert in the show is that it seems so beautiful, and yet so inhospitable and alien at the same time. It's similar to how I feel about the ocean. It's an easy conduit to internal self-examination because you're forced to go there by the magnitude of what you're surrounded by.

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Emmy-award nominated cinematographer Reynaldo Villalobos (who also shot Risky Business) talks about shooting bright vistas and dank basements for AMC's exclusive interview.

Q: How did you enjoy shooting Breaking Bad?

A: It's a funny question you say "enjoy" because that's my work. When you're working you don't enjoy you're working. You're just always solving problems and trying to make the lighting fit the story, etc. Enjoyment never comes until maybe months later and you look at the product and go, "Oh yeah, that worked," or "Man, that didn't work."

Q: Was it intimidating to take over for Oscar-winning cinematographer John Toll, who shot the pilot?

A: No. He's a friend of mine. We used to work together so we came from the same place. And I know exactly what he's doing when I look at the show, and I do the same thing. We have the same way of looking at things already. So I just looked at it, great, and then you're off and running. Theoretically you're kind of doing the same things, but then the show is changing, so you've gotta change with it. The harder part is that pilots usually have twice as much time to shoot. So you try to maintain the quality with less time.

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Director Adam Bernstein has worked in comedy (Scrubs and 30 Rock) and drama (HBO's Oz) so he was the perfect choice for the gnarliest (and arguably funniest) episodes of Breaking Bad. He details the experience in AMC's exclusive interview.

Q: How was your experience directing Breaking Bad?

A: I have to say that was probably one of the more interesting experiences I've had working in TV. But I knew it was going to be really interesting going in because I had worked with Vince, and he is such an incredibly original guy. He's so funny and he blends suspense and dark humor and a certain amount of humanity -- it's all kind of mixed in with the same stew. And the other thing I love about his writing is that he's an incredibly visual writer. I feel guilty saying it but as a director it's an amazing advantage to have someone who writes that visually, because there are going to be all these fun moments and fun shots that he's actually crafted into the script. It's not that I'm lazy, but if someone is actually giving me that much to work with and it's all completely appropriate to the material, of course I'm going to use it.

Continue reading "Q&A: Adam Bernstein (Director of Episodes 2 and 3)" »

Anna Gunn talks about wearing a prosthetic pregnancy outfit and shares her secret desires for Skyler to "break bad" in AMC's exclusive interview.

Q: How do you see your character?

A: I think that Skyler is grounded and she's tough and smart and she's driven. She has run the White household, she has devoted herself to Walt and to the raising of Walt, Jr. But I think that she has plans beyond taking care of the household that she would like to pursue, and one of those happens to be the eBay scheme that's introduced early on, and the other thing is that she's a writer. And I think that's her biggest dream -- I think she really deep down yearns to be an artist and to be creative and productive. Everybody in the show has a shadow side and has darker sensibilities, and she certainly does, and we just haven't seen what those are. And I'm really excited to see where her "breaking bad" comes and what happens with that, because she's got complexities and dreams and hidden secrets that would be so rich to explore.

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Breaking Bad's music supervisor Thomas Golubic talks about finding the perfect song and Walt's secret room for listening to R&B.

Q: How did Gnarls Barkley end up premiering a song for the finale?

A: I went to Sundance for a DJ gig and bumped into a friend. He mentioned in passing that he had just finished work on the new Gnarls Barkley record -- I didn't even know there was a new Gnarls Barkley record. So I basically reached out to the Gnarls Barkley management and ended up getting a copy of two tracks way way before the release. One of them was "Who's Gonna Save My Soul." And when I heard it, I thought: My God, the lyrics are absolutely perfect. We needed something that was going to end the series on a big note and really capture that feeling of Walt and Jesse having just got into something really really deep. It was like the heavens dropped the song in my lap.

Q: Do you ever hear a song and think: I have to get it in the show?

I'm very wary of falling in love with a song and being convinced it should go in the show. I hear songs where I think "Oh that's completely Walt", or "That's something Jesse would have," but there are many different flavors in this show. A lot of the music doesn't effect Walt or Jesse -- music of the outside world, whether it's the shoe store or the clothing store -- it's very pretty and a little bit numbing. It's very easy, soft, a solipsistic quality to the world outside of them. The world outside is a drugged up world of its own. Everything's a little bit too slick and too pleasant. Then you have this world of Walt and Jesse, which is ragged and bursting with awkward enthusiasm. It's the dichotomy of the two different worlds.

Continue reading "Q&A: Thomas Golubic (Music Supervisor)" »

After the live chat on Sunday, March 9, Bryan Cranston stuck around to answer more of your Breaking Bad questions. SPOILER ALERT: Some questions refer to later parts of the season.

Kathy55: Happy belated birthday!
Bryan: Thank you Kathy55. Yeah I just had a birthday on Friday [March 7]. Wasn't a big birthday, just went with my family up the coast and spent the weekend there. We just got back to Los Angeles, so I'm ready for my next job. No turkey bacon, thank God.

Moviegirl365: I love the fact they treat Walt's son normally even though he has cerebral palsy! Having the disease myself, that is awesome! Thanks to the writers and Bryan!
Bryan: I think that's really important. The actor who plays my son, RJ Mitte, has terrific instincts, great presence, he's a nice kid and he happens to have CP in real life. And we treat him on the set like we would any other actor. We don't give him special treatment, we give him the respect that we would give anybody. And that carries on into how the characters treat him on the show -- not with kid gloves, but with the expectation on him like any other teenage son: chores, homework, etc. And that was Vince Gilligan's idea and it's great.

Continue reading "Bryan Cranston Answers More Reader Questions" »

Oscar-winning producer Mark Johnson talks about discovering Vince Gilligan and the future of Breaking Bad in AMC's exclusive interview.

Q: How did you get involved with Breaking Bad?

A: I take full credit, with no humility at all, of discovering Vince Gilligan. I was at the University of Virginia years ago judging a screenwriting contest, and one of the scripts I read was a script called Home Fries, written by Vince Gilligan. He was probably 22 years old and had just graduated from NYU, and we just struck up a relationship and eventually we made a movie that he wrote called Wilder Napalm, and then we made Home Fries. Vince and I have just been friends and working together for such a long time. And we have a couple of movies that he's also written -- one called Two Face that we are inches away from putting together and making next year. It's a comedy about racism, and we've tried to make it over the years, but it's always scared people. I think now we've finally stumbled across a way to make it.

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Creator Vince Gilligan lectures on the science of Breaking Bad, and discusses sharing sets with an Oscar-winning picture in this special bonus segment of AMC's exclusive interview.

Q: You've said before that you don't see Breaking Bad as a morality tale. If that's the case, then how do you portray the consequences of Walt's and Jesse's actions?

A: Well, yeah, it's a tough balancing act. There's a lot of balancing acts with this show, the balance between humor and drama, and also the balance between keeping the show entertaining and showing the reality of the horrors of crystal meth. It's kind of a tightrope. And how we do it is, we just try to keep it as real as possible. Walt is really a babe in the woods when this series starts. He knows nothing about the drug. He could probably write out on a chalkboard its chemical composition, just off the top of his head, but he doesn't have any relationship to it in any real human regard. He doesn't understand just how terrible it is. And we're not going to shy away from how horrible the drug is. But on the other hand I feel like this is a character study more than anything else. It's not a morality tale. It's a story about a character and ultimately things are probably not going to end so well for him because of this initial, really fundamentally terrible choice he made in the pilot. Our fundamental task at hand is to keep the audience watching, and to keep the audience learning about this character of Walt. But the thing that really helps us, that really saves our bacon at the end of the day is Bryan Cranston's acting. If it were another actor other than Bryan Cranston, we'd be in big trouble. You just like the guy no matter what he does. He just kind of leads you by the hand as you watch the show, and you forgive him just about anything.

Continue reading "Vince Gilligan on Bryan Cranston's Chemistry and Breaking Bad's Science" »

Breaking Bad's RJ Mitte discusses the similarities between him and his character, playing Wii with Aaron Paul and stealing the spotlight from his little sister.

Q: You and your Breaking Bad character both have Cerebral Palsy, though Walter Jr.'s symptoms are more pronounced than your own. Did you have to regress from your therapy to portray him?

A: Yeah. It was very hard to regress. I had to stay up real late so I could learn to blur my speech more. I had to learn how to use crutches so it didn't look like I'm faking walking. I didn't want to look like just another faker because I really have it. If you're going to do it, you have to do it the full way. No matter if you're regressing or if you're trying to make it look bad, you need to still try to do it right. It was hard at first, but after a while everybody would help me out. For example, I used to walk on my toes a lot when I was a kid because I could barely move my feet, so when I was learning to portray Walter Jr., my mom would remind me about that. It was a big help.

Q: Do you think it was important that Vince cast someone with CP for the role?

A: I think it was very important. I think now I look like a role model to some CP actors, which is an honor. Everybody if they have CP on their resume, it looks like, oh this kid is wheelchair-bound or he's slow or something like that, which is not true. It is important for someone who is playing this role to really do the role.

Continue reading "Q&A: RJ Mitte (Walter Jr.)" »