Breaking Bad‘s pilot stands toe to toe with the rest of the show’s greatness as it perfectly laid the groundwork for Walter White’s eventual descent into the dark side. Thanks to Vince Gilligan’s thorough vision and Bryan Cranston’s impeccable performance in the role, which would go on to earn him several Emmy wins, BB was off to the best start they could’ve wished for.
And among the many things that make The Pilot great, surprisingly the iconic scene involving Walter White standing in his Tighty-whities in the middle of a desert almost didn’t make it into the episode.
Bryan Cranston Initially Refused to Do the Part Following Its Similarity to His Hit Sitcom
Before taking the gig of Walter White under his wings, Bryan Cranston was famously known for playing the lead in the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle. While the two shows couldn’t be more different than each other, which stands as a testament to Cranston’s range, they do share one element in common, Cranston’s white underpants. Reasonably upon reading the script for the BB pilot, the Drive Star was startled by the tight-whities scene in the gritty drama, and furthermore, Gilligan had no idea that it was a signature piece of Hal in the sitcom.
Considering Vince Gilligan later explained that he only added the scene because it was funny, Cranston almost decided to not film the part. Per Yahoo! Entertainment, he explained,
“He just thought the image was funny. And it is. Tighty-whities on a grown man is funny, and that’s primarily why I wasn’t going to do that again, because I had done that for seven years.”
Despite being initially convinced to skip the part, as he kept on working on the character, the scene eventually clicked with him as it added another layer to Walter White.
The Scene Adds a Depressing Layer to Walter White per Bryan Cranston
While in the context of Hal in Malcolm in the Middle, it was funny, in White’s depressing story, the underpants scene aligned with the character’s growth in the episode, who doesn’t seem to care anymore. Cranston explained,
“I went back to the underwear situation and I went, “Well, you know what? I think this kind of tells our story, that he doesn’t care.” His growth as an adult, as a human being, stunted at a certain point. When I looked at Hal, it was funny in that context that he was just the biggest boy of the family. Whereas in this context, it was even more depressing.”
As the story goes, Walter White standing in his tighty-whities became iconic, perfectly kickstarting the story of one of the greatest protagonists to emerge from the medium.
Breaking Bad is available to stream on Netflix.
