Bryan Cranston is best known for his role as Walter White, a high school science teacher in the AMC series Breaking Bad. Cranston recently shared his feelings regarding his 2017 movie The Upside where Cranston played the role of a quadriplegic billionaire Based on a true story and remake of the 2011 French movie, Intouchables. Why Him? star have received an overwhelmingly negative response from the audience who were not happy to see an abled person play the role of a differently-abled character.
Bryan Cranston Revealed that The Upside was a Business Decision
The Upside revolves around the unlikely friendship between a quadriplegic billionaire and a recently paroled convict, played by Kevin Hart. The movie performed well at the box office with a good profit. Despite the success of the movie on the big screen, The Upside actor revealed that he had to face massive criticism for taking up the role of a differently-abled person. Cranston’s situation is the result of a similar debatable topic in Hollywood, concerning heterosexual stars playing the role of homosexual characters, which devoid the audience of their true representation of the social minorities.
“We live in the world of criticism – if we’re willing to get up and try something, we have to also be willing to take criticism. We’re very aware of the need to expand the opportunities for people with disabilities. I think being cast in this role as a quadriplegic really came down to a business decision.
As actors, we’re asked to be other people, to play other people. If I, as a straight, older person, and I’m wealthy, I’m very fortunate, does that mean I can’t play a person who is not wealthy? Does that mean I can’t play a homosexual? I don’t know, where the restriction apply, and where is the line for that? I think it is worthy of debate to discuss those issues.”
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Bryan Cranston Will Reprise His Differently-Abled Character
In a recent podcast with Bill Mather, the Breaking Bad star revealed that the sequel of the movie is in progress. “We’re doing a sequel to it,” Cranston said as he defended his role and explained the whole point of acting. The Better Call Saul actor presented past examples of legendary actors such as Al Pacino’s role of blind army officer in Scent of a Woman and Daniel Day-Lewis’ character with cerebral palsy in My Left Foot, who brought complete justice to their special-abled character with their marvelous performance. As per Cranston, “we would have missed some great performances” if those actors hadn’t portrayed their characters.
“I got a lot of sh*t for that. I am an able-bodied actor playing a disabled actor.” Maher responded, “I mean, it’s called acting. It’s almost the whole point, that you are doing something that you are not, right?” Cranston continued “I was pretty surprised that I got some blowback to it, and I thought, ‘There’s a good point, that disabled actors are not given an opportunity.’ It’s a kind of a catch-22 that… it’s like, ‘Do you have the cache to be able to carry a film?’ You can only have the perspective of a 66-year-old white male… you can understand but you cannot really know what it feels like to live in that skin.”
The Breaking Bad star didn’t provide any further details of the upcoming sequel of The Upside. Yet it is tough to stay if the actor will continue to receive hate from the audience for taking up the role of a differently-abled character. The very point of the argument that Hollywood should be more inclusive towards social minorities still remains a problem.
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