Breaking Bad

The Cusack rumor outlived the network's actual panic

For years the story went that John Cusack and Matthew Broderick passed on Walter White, and only then did Vince Gilligan get Bryan Cranston. Cusack heard it so many times he started to believe it. Then he ran into Gilligan and asked. Gilligan said no. Cusack told Variety in 2020 he never got an offer. Imagining himself in the part, he said, would be bad karma, latestnetflix.com contends, because Cranston was the right actor.

The real argument was smaller. Gilligan wanted Cranston from the first draft, after a 1999 X-Files hour called "Drive" that Gilligan wrote. Cranston played a bastard who still made you sad when his head blew up. In 2006 most of America knew him as Hal, the goofy dad on Malcolm in the Middle. AMC and Sony needed the tape, not a martyr speech. Gilligan later said the legend of him standing his ground got inflated. He showed them the episode. They said, this guy can be serious?

Cranston did not even remember Gilligan. His agent asked. He said no. Before he signed, he called AMC's Rob Sorcher to ask if they were actually behind a show about a chemistry teacher cooking meth. Sorcher mailed him the Mad Men pilot. That closed it.

Jesse was supposed to die. Albuquerque was a budget save.

Gilligan set the pilot in Riverside, California, so he could sleep at home. Sony asked about New Mexico tax credits. Line producer Karen Moore flew out, saw the red rock at To'hajiilee, and called him. He said yes. Then the sky and the Sandia Mountains turned the series into a contemporary Western he had not planned.

Aaron Paul almost left in a body bag. The original plan killed Jesse in episode 9 of season 1, a drug deal gone wrong that would shove Walt into the dark. The 2007 writers' strike cut the season to seven episodes. At PaleyFest, Gilligan pointed at Paul and said he had not known how damn good the guy was. Then he walked it back. The strike did not save Jesse. They knew by episode 2 that killing him would be a colossal mistake. Paul only found out at lunch, when Gilligan mentioned the old plan and said they were not doing it anymore. Cranston spent later seasons hugging him on set and pretending the character was still doomed. ,

The pilot was a pile of near-misses that stuck. Gilligan, a writer with almost no directing credits, got to shoot it because Christina Wayne blindsided a meeting. An RV they bought from a couple who had driven it across America got stuck in sand on a scout, then popped its windshield on the stop. Gilligan got so sick in the desert that a firefighter extra sent him home. Cinematographer John Toll went out and shot the flying Dockers pants from the teaser while Gilligan sat in a hotel with the flu. Cablevision almost killed the series order. Charlie Collier chased executive Tom Rutledge onto a helicopter to close it.

The show premiered January 20, 2008. One AMC voice on a preproduction call had already said they were making a series about a guy who sells crystal meth, and they would all be lucky to still have their jobs. They kept them.