Bryan Cranston on 'Breaking Bad' Finale: 'It’ll Be an Ugly, Horrific Mess'
The actor also discusses on-set pranks, the fallacy of "blue meth," and sexually charged fan mail.
The end is nigh for Walter White.
With Breaking Bad's fifth and final season halfway over, Bryan Cranston reveals his thoughts on the future of everyone's favorite terminally ill methamphetamine dealer.
"I think it’s going to end badly," the three-time Primetime Emmy Award winner says to UK magazine ShortList. "It’ll be an ugly, horrific mess and I think the audience knows that."
Of course, he adds the disclaimer, "I don’t know how it ends and I never ask."
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The interview also delved into Cranston's preparation for White's character, specifically on the actual production of crystal meth. Cranston says that Drug Enforcement Agency chemists taught him the production process to make the narcotic (minus a few stages so as not to be construed as instructional) to "the level of purity that the character White insists on."
Cranston also notes how the fictional world of the show has crossed over into reality. "There was a report about the tinted blue crystal meth, which is a fabrication of our desire," he says. "I saw a news article of a meth lab being busted where the reporter said, 'This meth is tinted blue, which is universally known as a much higher quality of meth.' We made it up."
The actor also discloses his proclivity towards on-set pranks. "In one episode I go over to Jesse’s house and I tell him to 'handle it', then I hand him a gun," he explains. "One time, I took out a dildo-shaped squirt gun [laughs]. And I just go, 'I want you to handle it.' Then I squirted him [laughs]. Any chance I can get I make [co-star Aaron Paul] laugh."
The interview then shifted to strange fan mail, with Cranston divulging details of one fan letter that even he had trouble wrapping his head around. "I got sent a letter from a very educated woman," he says. "She said, 'I’ve never been diagnosed with any mental disorder and have a masters in psychology. But I’ve watched Breaking Bad and right now I’m having a fantasy of having sex… with Aaron Paul.' [Laughs] So I was thinking: What is she telling me this for? I read on: 'I want you there. I don’t know what you’re doing exactly but I want you there watching.' Oh, great. I pull in the octogenarians. If they’re 75 and older they send their giant underwear to me."
Breaking Bad will finish its six-year run at the end of the second half of its fifth season, which begins airing summer 2013.
Cranston can currently be seen in the Ben Affleck-directed drama, Argo.
The entire ShortList interview can be found here.
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