While his portrayal of Walter White from Breaking Bad still ranks as his best performance, Bryan Cranston feels he hasn’t played another character whom he resembled himself more with. This was particularly restricted to his ‘most harrowing’ scene in the entire television series where he believed he was dangerous despite breaking down in tears at the same time.
What further made the scene even more realistic and emotionally torturous for him was Cranston’s comparing the characters in the scene with his own real-life family members, which made him realize he was never more himself while playing White on the big screen.
Bryan Cranston Best Resembled Himself With Walter White In His Most Harrowing Scene In Breaking Bad
This happened in the last second episode of season 2 of Breaking Bad, where Jesse (Aaron Paul)’s girlfriend Jane choked on her own vomit and died of a drug overdose. Though Walter White initially wanted to save her, he didn’t do it and simply stood frozen at her bedside watching her die before breaking down in tears.
In his autobiography, A Life in Parts, Bryan Cranston shared the gripping anecdote of how he saw his own daughter Taylor Dearden’s face instead of Jane’s in that particular scene. Claiming “I went to a place I had never been,” the White player said (via The Guardian):
“I’d put everything, everything into that scene – all the things I was and all the things I might have been, all the side-roads and missteps, all the stuttering successes and losses I thought might sink me. I was murderous, and I was capable of great love. I was a victim lured by my circumstances, and I was the danger. I was Walter White – but I was never more myself.”
Bryan Cranston Talked Details About How He Prepares Himself For Such Harrowing Scenes
Calling it “the most harrowing [scene] I did on Breaking Bad,” Bryan Cranston further detailed how he prepared himself to shoot the scene. He said,
“When I do the homework for such a delicate scene, I don’t make a plan. My goal when I prepare isn’t to plot out each action and reaction, but to think, what are the possible emotional levels my character could experience. I break the scene down into moments, or beats; by doing that work ahead of time, I leave a number of possibilities available to me. I stay open to the moment, susceptible to whatever comes. The homework doesn’t guarantee anything; with luck, it gives you a shot at something real.”
Irrespective of whatever he might call it, luck or no luck, Bryan Cranston’s performance as Walter White in Breaking Bad is way beyond widely commendable, and even more so after his stunning revelations.
Source: The Guardian
