If you’re a fan of “Breaking Bad,” chances are you probably couldn’t imagine anyone other than Bryan Cranston in the role of Walter White. But it should come as no surprise that back in 2008 he wasn’t AMC’s first choice to lead their new series. After all, would the Dad from “Malcolm in the Middle” be the first person you’d have in mind when trying to cast a terminally ill school teacher who turns to producing and selling meth? Casting Cranston was ultimately a very brave and very wise choice…but it almost wasn’t to be.
"Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan has been chatting about the show in the build-up to the season five premiere, and he’s revealed to The Hollywood Reporter (via Uproxx) that two well-known actors were offered the role of Walter White first. Those men were John Cusack and Matthew Broderick. Gilligan had reportedly been impressed by Cranston after his guest role on “The X-Files” a decade earlier, but the suits at AMC weren’t so sure. “We all still had the image of Bryan shaving his body in Malcolm in the Middle. We were like, ‘Really? Isn’t there anybody else?’ ” said one of the former execs. Cusack and Broderick (who we actually think both sound like pretty solid choices) both eventually passed on the role and Gilligan was finally able to successfully sell Cranston to the AMC suits.
And with just over 3 weeks left to go until "Breaking Bad" returns to screens in the UK, fans of the show in that part of the world may need a few things to keep them busy and placate them in the meantime. How about this – some clever person at Slacktory has imagined what "Breaking Bad" would look like as a Kickstarter project and has only gone and created it in infographic form. It’s pretty funny and well worth a look. A $100 pledge gets you the “Full-On Junkie” package which includes a coupon for a free car wash, a free meal at Los Pollos Hermanos, a ride-along with Hank Schrader, and, of course, “a shit ton of meth.” Finally, up in Canada, a reader has alerted BoingBoing to some street art dedicated to the show that has been popping up. Heisenberg reigns.
