• • •
When the episode finally aired, I watched with Robin. We normally watched Breaking Bad together—though we mostly watched in daylight. She couldn’t stand to see the show before bed. Nightmares.
I’d told Robin nothing of this dispute. I wanted to see how she would react without leading the witness. I trust her instincts. I respect her opinions. And I had a feeling I knew what was coming but I didn’t know for sure. I still thought: Maybe their way is the stronger choice. But when the scene came up, when I said the line I hated, Robin scoffed derisively, as I worried she would. She turned her gaze from the TV to me, rolled her eyes, and pshawed. “What an asshole.” Not an asshole for killing Mike, no. An asshole for not caring that he’d killed Mike.
It pained me.
But it’s such a subjective business. Tom may have watched that episode and thought the beat was perfect. In the collaborative process, sometimes there are differences. Sometimes there are battles. Sometimes you lose.
• • •
In all the hours making Breaking Bad, I got upset only a handful of times. I think any family would wish for so few arguments. The quality of the writing on the show was so superb, we didn’t have to fight. We knew from day one we were all working together to build something of deep quality. So when we did fight, the arguments were always about the integrity of the show and its characters. It was never about early call times or trailer size. It was: “Is this working? Can we do better?”
Difficult. Sometimes actors get that label if they raise a question. As a producer, when I hear someone is difficult, I ask: Difficult how? I worked with Oscar-winning actor Cloris Leachman on Malcolm in the Middle. She played the not-so-lovable Grandma Ida—and won an Emmy for her performance. Before I worked with her, I heard rumors that she was difficult. In reality, she was like a bumblebee, vibrating with ideas. She was fun and theatrical and talented and I just loved being around her. She brought so much energy to the set, and it was always about the work. She’s also a nut, a certified lunatic in all the lovely ways she can be. One day we were doing a scene and she said, “I gotta pee.” Right now? We were shooting. We were on a tight schedule, and she was going to walk off and go pee. She shrugged and grabbed an empty coffee cup and just squatted down in front of everybody, and tinkle tinkle. Like she was camping. And then she handed the cup to one of our wardrobe people. “Let’s get on with it.”
So, yes, she’s quirky. But difficult? No. She channels her creative energy to serve the character and the story. She works at it and comes in very prepared. I don’t call that kind of actor difficult. As opposed to the actor who comes in and says: “There’s no Goddamned almond milk!” Or: “I’m not doing the scene, it’s too cold outside.” Or: “Don’t ever give me direction.”
That is difficult.
Difficult and creatively engaged are not the same. Having an engaged, invested cast and crew comes through on a molecular level. Even as a casual viewer, you can feel that kind of care. On Breaking Bad, the storytelling complex did not end at the writers and directors and actors. The electricians, the technicians, the gaffers, the production assistants were all part of what made the show work. Everyone was all-in, proud to be a part of the show. Stew Lyons, our producer, got calls every day from crew members all over New Mexico and Arizona, who said: I’m dying to work on the show. Our attrition level was really low. Once people got hired, no one wanted to leave. Even guys who were ready to retire said: Not until the show is over.
I remember shooting the scene in the last episode when Walt says good-bye to his daughter. I leaned down over the crib and touched my baby’s soft sleeping head. This was the last time I’d see her. This was good-bye. Forever.
As I was leaning over the crib, my eyes welling, I saw Andy Voegeli, the camera operator, who was shooting me from below. He was shaking, trying his damnedest to stay unemotional and hold the camera still—but he couldn’t. He was a new father himself. And the moment got to him. He wiped tears away as he was shooting.
We hugged when the scene was over. We all hugged one another often. That was the culture: we showed our love and concern for everyone. It was very sweet. And real. And rare.
Producer
At the beginning of the show, I was told that Jesse Pinkman would not be a series regular. He wasn’t going to live past the second or third episode. He was designed to hook me up with the drug culture and then he’d be killed. But because everyone adored Aaron Paul and loved his work, and because he and Walt were perfect foils to each other, Jesse became much more than a gateway into the drug world for Walt. Their relationship became, in many ways, the emotional core of the show.
They had nothing in common: age, values, education, style of dress. As Jesse might put it: Mr. White is this big homo in tighty-whities, yo. And Walt thought Jesse was a ridiculous imbecile. Their friction created comedy and a kinetic strange-bedfellows, opposites-attract, father-son dynamic.
When they first became partners, they shared nothing except mutual dependency. But ultimately they came to love each other in their way.
Aaron Paul was a shiny-eyed kid in his midtwenties when I first met him. He was a puppy. He was attentive and playful and honest and present and vulnerable and richly talented. Right from the pilot, it was clear that we had the makings of great on-screen chemistry. And off camera, Aaron and I got along very well. He looked up to me, and I saw something of myself in him: a youthful energy. Hopefulness. As our dynamic within the story line varied and evolved, we became even tighter outside of work. That Breaking Bad ride bonded us deeply. He’s a friend for life.
Every year, Aaron and I would rent out the Silva Lanes bowling alley in Albuquerque and host the cast and crew and their families. Food, open bar, karaoke, and of course, bowling. In 2011, amid the revelry and silliness, someone whispered into my ear: Osama bin Laden was just killed.
Navy SEALs had crept into his lair in Pakistan and taken him out—more than a decade after 9/11. The day we thought might never happen had finally come.
I was behind the counter, on the public address system, in the process of issuing the next bowling challenge. So I incorporated this news into my remarks. “Okay, there are three announcements to make: First, any kid under twelve who gets a strike wins a plush toy. Second, the Navy SEALs have killed Osama bin Laden. And third, the next adult to get three strikes in a row wins a Breaking Bad DVD box set. Good luck!”
A stunned silence. I let the news sink in and I then said: “I’m not joking . . . anyone who gets three strikes in a row wins the Breaking Bad DVDs!”
I went for the joke, my default. When the laughter faded, I went back to the PA: “And that thing about Osama bin Laden is also true. They got him.”
I’ll never forget the energy in the room at that moment. Pride, shock, vengeance, relief. People were cheering, hugging, a few cried. I’ll never forget where I was that night. It always comes back to me viscerally: the smell of beer and bowling-alley wax and the disinfectant they spray in the rented shoes, the easy feel of camaraderie among the cast and crew, the looks of raw surprise and elation on the faces in the crowd.
It should have been a happy night. But then there was Steve.
Steve had been trying to get on our crew for a while, and finally in our fourth season he was hired as a production assistant. Steve was effective and professional. He clearly knew his way around a film set, and he caught onto protocol quickly.
Until Bowling Night.
Steve got so wasted that his face went slack. He lurked around the bowling alley, approaching women and commenting on their bodies. His targets included Betsy Brandt and Lauren Parsekian, who would soon become Aaron Paul’s wife.
Aaron and I organized those nights to show appreciation for everyone’s hard work. We were a celebrated show by that point, and a few names, like Aaron and Vince and I, got the lion’s share of the accolades. But the truth was that every single person who worked on the show played a part in making Breaking Bad what it was, and that night
was meant for us to say thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, to our community, our family. Steve’s crude behavior would have been reprehensible on any night. But on this night especially it was a disrespectful affront. It also went against everything we cared about and stood for.
I didn’t find out about Steve’s behavior until the next day. Betsy told me. “Steve will have to be fired,” I said.
“Oh,” Betsy said in her compassionate way, “is it possible to just have him work in some other area of the show and not be around me?”
“No, that is not possible,” I said. “We can’t have someone working on our show whom you have to worry about running into. He’s got to go.”
I remembered the shame I felt when I got fired from the Canoga Park Chronicle. All those newspapers I’d thrown in the Dumpster. I hadn’t even known I was stealing, and I felt humiliated by my ignorance, my failure.
And when Joe Stuart called me into his office on Loving to say, Story-wise, we’re going in a different direction. All the times people had said: We’re going another way . . . away from you. I remembered feeling crushed. I remembered the self-doubt, and how it lingered.
I had never thought much about what it would be like to be on the other side. I hadn’t needed to. Now I did. And I didn’t like it. But I told myself: This isn’t akin to Joe’s hatchet jobs on the set of Loving. This isn’t the Canoga Park Chronicle canning a kid taking shortcuts. This is serious and necessary and just. No question.
I called Aaron. Lauren had told him about Steve’s behavior, and he was livid. Of course he was livid. Still, I was taken aback. In the six years of shooting the show, I couldn’t recall seeing Aaron Paul angry one other time. He was capable of gut-wrenching menace and emotion and danger as an actor, but his true nature was gentle and kind.
I’d had no question about how to proceed before I heard Aaron’s voice, but now I felt a new urgency. We had to fire Steve immediately.
I called Stew Lyons, our experienced, pragmatic line producer. A line producer handles the business end of the production, the operations, working out the cost of trucks, confirming permits for locations, making sure the caterers are there, and so much more. Stew was ahead of me. He had already dismissed Steve earlier in the day. News travels fast. Harassment, especially sexual harassment, is not tolerated.
Stew told me that he’d urged Steve to seek professional help, not just for his future job prospects but also for himself personally. Later, we learned that Steve was an alcoholic. He’d been spinning out of control, and that night at the bowling alley had been one in a series of nights. I felt for him. I hoped he would get help. But there was no way we could let him be part of what we were trying to do. We couldn’t let anyone put at risk this thing we’d worked so hard to create.
Crime Victim
Albuquerque was as central to the show as any person or character. Shooting there, I got to know the place well; its friendly people, stark beauty, and quirky charms will always have a place in my heart.
Even though it’s New Mexico’s largest city, Albuquerque is a small town, really, set in a wide valley in the high desert, flanked on the east side by the Sandia Mountains. Sandia means watermelon in Spanish, and it’s true that the mountains take on a gorgeous watermelon hue when they catch the glow of the setting sun. Sandia Crest is the highest point in Albuquerque, about 10,500 feet above sea level. During the spring and summer, whenever I had a day off from work, I would hike the area. Crisp air, pine trees, strenuous trails. Not what you expect when you think of the desert, but at this elevation the topography changes completely. During winter, there is snow.
I drove up to the top one winter day. An observation platform allows for a 360-degree panoramic view of Albuquerque to the west, Santa Fe to the north, and vast deserts to the east and south. It’s a beautiful thing to stand up high and see the great seam where nature and civilization meet. But it’s cold at 10,500 feet, so I couldn’t stand it for more than a few minutes before it was back to the car. Only when I got inside my warm car—it wasn’t so warm.
I noticed bits of glass on the dashboard. I looked over and saw a gaping hole in the passenger-side window. My shoulder bag was gone. I jumped out of the car and looked around. The only people nearby were a family I’d seen earlier taking pictures. Could it have been them? They shrugged and said they hadn’t seen anyone near my car. I’d been gone maybe five minutes, and the parking lot was visible from the observation deck, only about forty yards away. I’d been looking in the very direction of my car when it happened.
My shoulder bag was gone. Shit. The contents included my iPad, plus a hard copy of the second episode of our last season.
I contacted Sony to tell them about the script, and the two other electronic scripts on my iPad, and then I drove to the sheriff’s station in Tijeras. It was closed. Small town! Taped to the door was a note: “This station is closed during off hours. If this is an emergency, call 911. If this is not an emergency, call [a local number] and leave a detailed message of the incident. Include your name—spelled out—and your contact information, and a sheriff’s deputy will return your call soon. Thank you.”
As I drove to the dealership to get the window repaired, I called the nonemergency sheriff’s line and left my detailed message as instructed. Blah blah blah, my name is C-R-A-N-S-T-O-N. I left my number and hung up.
Then in January 2013 we were shooting a scene in the episode titled “To’hajiilee.” Walt pays a visit to Andrea (beautifully played by Emily Rios) to convince her to lure Jesse over to the house so that neo-Nazis can kill him for his treachery. (He’d broken the one rule criminals hold dear: You don’t rat.)
It was a bright day in Albuquerque when Ollie, one of the great grips on the show, said to me, “Hey, did you talk to that guy who’s working as an extra with us today?”
“No,” I said, “why?”
“Because he spoke to the dude who broke into your car and stole your stuff.”
I walked over to the guy, who was sitting in his car. That day it was actually his car that was the extra, driving up and back on the street during takes. Movies and TV shows always use this technique for filming. Without background people and cars (controlled by the production) the frame would look empty and unreal.
I introduced myself and asked him about what Ollie had told me. He hesitated at first, but after a few minutes he broke down and said: “We were hangin’ at a strip club Wednesday morning . . .”
“Hanging at a strip club on Wednesday morning?”
“Yeah. And the dude comes up and says, ‘Hey, I got some Breaking Bad stuff—you interested in buying?’ ”
He told me that he mentioned to the dude that he occasionally works with the show. “And the dude just took off.” I asked if he knew the dude’s name. After some hesitation he said, “Yes, his name is Xavier.”
I said, “Do you know where we can find Xavier?”
He said that Xavier was currently being held at the downtown MDC (Municipal Detention Center) on another charge, and that he thought that “Xavier comes from a whole B&E family. That’s what they do.”
A family. I thought back to the family I’d seen on the mountain. Was that family Xavier’s?
I relayed this information to the sheriff’s office immediately. They moved quickly to question Xavier, and charged him, and then the case moved through the system with glacial speed. I don’t know that the extra was right about his family, but eventually I heard that Xavier got a year of home confinement for this crime and two others. The punishment seemed light to me, but maybe a brutal stretch of wearing an electronic ankle bracelet would teach him a lesson.
Later, in March 2013, as we were shooting the very last episode of Breaking Bad, the break-in story erupted from what seemed like every possible news outlet. Networks, local stations, websites, blogs, everywhere. “FINAL EPISODE SCRIPT OF BREAKING BAD WAS STOLEN!”
Wait, what?
On Good Morning America, the hosts sat on the couch discussing this heinou
s crime, all hoping that the missing script wouldn’t be revealed and spoil the ending.
In other news: “The dramatic audiotape of Bryan Cranston’s 911 call for help!”
What?! It wasn’t a 911 call. I calmly followed instructions from the Mayberry-like sheriff’s station to the letter. But the world was told I’d hit the panic button. I even caught flack on social media for tying up the 911 system for a nonemergency. Untrue. Innocent. But guilty, in the court of pop-culture opinion.
Walt
The robbery at Sandia Crest didn’t mar its beauty. And early on I said to Vince that it might be cool to shoot something up there. The landscape was so different in look and feel from our other locations around Albuquerque. An image of someone dragging a dead body through the snow came to me. I thought the juxtaposition of the red blood against the white snow would look striking on the screen.
I don’t know if Vince remembered me bringing it up, but we did indeed end up shooting there in the last season. When Walt is holed up in a cabin in New Hampshire, we used Sandia Crest as the stand-in for the Granite State.
Walt is taken into the deep woods and told that he’ll be apprehended if he leaves the property. Left alone, he’s imprisoned in the snowy wilderness with only a barrel of money for company. A fitting end.
Ed “The Disappearer” shows up with supplies. I ask after my family, desperate to know how they are. Ed says that Skyler is working as a part-time taxi dispatcher for money and still has custody of the kids “for the moment.” She’s using her maiden name, presumably trying to expunge any trace of the name White from her memory and résumé.
Robert Forster played Ed. Of course I remembered Bob from 1979 when I was a production assistant in the special-effects department on Alligator. I remembered stuffing plastic bags of fake blood into the cavity of a pretend reptile, and I remembered how excited I was to do it. I remembered sitting in the van with him, shoulder to shoulder, how starstruck I felt. He was a famous actor. I was just a kid. But he’d been so kind to me. I’d never forgotten that. I’d run into him a few times over the years and reminded him of our encounter. He didn’t remember—didn’t even pretend to, that’s not Bob. And I didn’t expect him to.
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