![]()
Vince Gilligan did an AMA for Reddit today. Here are a few of his answers.
On people rooting for Walter White: "I’m certainly glad viewers did connect with Walter White. In the early days of the series -- when I was at my most foolish -- I deliberately tried to make Walter White so unlikeable that his behavior would shed viewers. In hindsight, I think that was extraordinarily dumb of me, but I have to admit that by the end of the series, I myself did not have a whole lot of sympathy for Walter White. For me, he had gotten too dark to empathize with, which is not to say viewers should all feel the same way I do. I’m glad viewers still rooted for him up till the end and wanted him to live. Hell, even my mom did! And if you knew her, you’d be pretty shocked she would root for a guy like that. I think Walter White was smart, active, willful -- and that’s what we look for in our heroes. The fact that he was engaged in some pretty heinous criminal behavior might have been a bit beside the point. He nonetheless had many other qualities that we deem heroic in fiction. Maybe that’s why people stuck with him. Certainly people stuck with Walter White because he was played by the astoundingly talented Bryan Cranston, who remains constantly watchable no matter what character he is playing."
On Aaron Paul:"Aaron Paul very much fit the bill of my interpretation of Jesse Pinkman from the get-go. Otherwise we wouldn't have hired him. But having said that, a great deal of Aaron's personality and goodness then became a part of the character of Jesse Pinkman as the show progressed. In other words - we the writers were inspired by Aaron's specific qualities as a human being, and we incorporated many of those qualities into the character of Jesse Pinkman. And we did this with all of the other actors as well - from Bryan Cranston on down. It's a wonderful thing about television - that you can do that. You're telling one story for so long that you have the time to adjust the story, over many episodes and many seasons, as you learn more about your actors. No other medium allows for that. For instance, when you're writing a movie, the script has to be completely finished before production starts, and there's no chance to make those changes as the shooting continues."
On throwing pizza on Walter's house: "I never anticipated that the pizza-throwing scene would be one of the “non-submergible" moments of Breaking Bad. None of us did. It seemed like a fun thing to include in the episode at the time, but none of the writers of the series thought it would take on a life of its own. Thank you for asking that question, because it once again gives me the opportunity to say: for any of the folks who wanted to throw pizza on the roof of the White house, it’s very unfair to the sweet lady that lives there. Please, please do NOT do it. If you want the photo of a pizza on the White house roof: Photoshop it!!! That’s the way to do it in this day in age. You can have any size pizza, and it won’t risk this very sweet lady breaking her back getting her ladder out and climbing up to clean pizza off her roof."
On Chuck in 'Better Call Saul':"Believe it or not, the idea of Chuck being the “bad guy” was a late addition to Season 1. We were probably working on episode 7 when the idea dawned on us that Chuck had been the reason Jimmy had never moved forward at HHM. When that idea dawned on Peter Gould and I, along with our writers, we got very excited. But back to an earlier answer, this points out one of the things I love most about writing for TV. There are enough episodes and enough lead time (if you’re lucky) for writers to change the direction of a story midstream. We took advantage of that in Season 1 of Better Call Saul, and in the past for Breaking Bad. It’s a great creative opportunity to have at one’s disposal."
More at the
Source![]()
