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Revision as of 05:18, 27 July 2011 by Hunter Kahn (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) Fictional characterWalter White | |
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Breaking Bad character | |
File:Walter white breaking bad.jpg | |
First appearance | "Pilot" |
Created by | Vince Gilligan |
Portrayed by | Bryan Cranston |
In-universe information | |
Alias | Heisenberg |
Occupation | Meth manufacturer High school chemistry teacher |
Children | Walter White, Jr. (son) |
Relatives | Hank Schrader (brother-in-law) Marie Schrader (sister-in-law) |
Walter Hartwell White is a fictional character and the protagonist of the American television drama series Breaking Bad on AMC. He is portrayed by Bryan Cranston and was created by series creator Vince Gilligan. Once a promising chemist, Walter was an unhappy and disillusioned high school chemistry teacher who starts manufacturing methamphetamine after he is diagnosed with lung cancer. Although he starts cooking meth to ensure his family's security when he dies, Walter has gradually grown more violent and dangerous as the series progressed.
Although AMC officials hesitated to cast Cranston based on previous performance on the comedy series Malcolm in the Middle, Gilligan cast him based on the actor's past performance in an episode of The X-Files. Cranston has contributed to much of his character including Walter's back story, physical appearance and personality traits. Gilligan had described his goal with Walter White is to turn Mr. Chips into Scarface, and has deliberately made the character more and more unsympathetic.
Both the Walter White character and Bryan Cranston's performance have received positive reviews. Cranston has won three consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, the first actor to do so since the 1960s.
Character biography
Background and personality
Walter White is an intelligent and talented chemist who, during his time as a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology, contributed to research that helped a team win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Walter previously founded the firm Gray Matter Technologies with Elliott Schwartz (Adam Godley), his close friend and former science partner from college. Walter previously dated his lab assistant Gretchen (Jessica Hecht) until, for reasons still yet unexplained on the show, Walter suddenly left her in the middle of a vacation with her family. Walter walked away from Gray Matter Technologies. Gretchen and Elliott later married and the two made millions with the company, over which Walter secrets harbors animosity. Despite Walter's early promise as a chemist, by the beginning of Breaking Bad he is working as a high school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he provides instruction to disinterested and disrespectful students. The job pays so poorly he is forced to take a second job at a car wash, which proves particularly humiliating, especially when he must clean the cars of his own students. Walter is married to Skyler White (Anna Gunn) and they have a teenage son named Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte), who has cerebral palsy. At the start of Breaking Bad, Skyler is pregnant with their second child. Walter's other family includes Skyler's sister Marie Schrader (Betsy Brandt) and her husband Hank (Dean Norris), who is an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Season one
The pilot episode of Breaking Bad begins on Walter's 50th birthday, when he is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and told he likely has only a few more years to live. He does not initially share this information with his family, but quits his job at the car wash and shows signs of making other major changes in his life. After watching a local news report about a methamphetamine drug bust, Walter is impressed by the amount of money recovered from the dealers and begins to consider secretly cooking meth as a way to ensure his family has money and security after he dies. He accompanies his brother-in-law Hank on another drug bust, where he sees his former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) fleeing from the scene. Later, he confronts Jesse and the two form a partnership in which Walter will produce meth and Jesse will sell it. Although Walter clashes with Jesse's irresponsible and under-achieving personality, the two begin to produce meth in a recreational vehicle Jesse obtains, and the meth Walter cooks proves to be a remarkably pure and superior product.
Walter is nearly killed when Jesse brings meth distributors Krazy-8 Molina (Max Arciniega) and Emilio Koyama (John Koyama) to the RV, and Emilio recognizes Walter from the earlier DEA bust he participated in. He survives only by agreeing to show Krazy-8 and Emilio how he cooks meth, then mixing chemicals to produce a deadly gas, killing Emilio in self-defense. When he hears sirens, Walter falsely believes his arrest to be imminent and attempts to commit suicide, but survives after he forgets to put the safety on his handgun. Krazy-8 survives the encounter and they hold him hostage in Jesse's house. Walter wishes not to kill Krazy-8 and, after getting to know the man, initially plans to release him. However, upon realizing Krazy-8 plans to kill him once he is released, Walter strangles him to death with a bicycle lock. Meanwhile, Walter keeps his activities secret from his family, but when Skyler learns about Jesse and confronts Walter about him, Walter claims Jesse is his marijuana dealer. Walter eventually tells his family about the cancer and, although he initially insists he does not want treatment due to the medical costs and concerns over loss of dignity, he ultimately agrees to seek treatment.
Elliott and Gretchen Schwartz offer to pay for all of Walter's treatment, but he refuses to accept, apparently due to pride and animosity over their past. Instead, he resumes cooking meth with Jesse, despite his initial plans to abandon the partnership following the incidents with Krazy-8 and Emilio. Walter insists he wants no part in the drug dealing end of the business and that he wants no more bloodshed, but also expresses impatience at the rate at which Jesse is selling and demands that he find a distributor so they can sell more. This leads to Jesse making contact with Tuco Salamanca (Raymond Cruz), a sociopathic drug kingpin who breaks Jesse so badly that he becomes hospitalized. Walter confronts Tuco – using the alias "Heisenberg", after Werner Heisenberg, the author of the Uncertainty principle – and demands $50,000 for the drugs and Jesse's pain and suffering; After Walter uses an explosive crystal of fulminated mercury to nearly blow up Tuco's building, Tuco agrees to Walter's proposal and they form a lucrative, if not unstable partnership. Walter starts producing meth more quickly and, to circumvent sales restrictions on the organic pseudoephedrine compound, Walter opts uses phenylacetone created from methylamine, which produces the same meth except in a blue color that becomes a signature for Walter's product. The first season ends with Walter and Jesse delivering a fresh batch of meth to Tuco, who viciously beats one of his henchmen, No Doze (Cesar Garcia), for making a single comment as a shocked Walter and Jesse watch on.
Season two
When No Doze dies as a result of Tuco's beating, Tuco becomes increasingly paranoid and kidnaps Walter and Jesse out of fear they will turn him in. They are kept hostage for several days in a trailer in the middle of the desert, but after a struggle, Jesse shoots Tuco and escapes with Walter. Shortly afterward, Tuco is shot to death in a gunfight with Hank, who tracked Jesse's car to Tuco while searching for Walter. To explain his absence, Walter wanders naked into a grocery store, feigning confusion, and later claims he has no recollection of the past several days. Although Hank knows nothing about Walter's role in the drug trade, he starts investigating the recent upsurge in blue meth and the mysterious manufacturer known as "Heisenberg", unaware it is his own brother-in-law. Walter's constant lies starts straining his marriage, as Skyler seems to sense his dishonesty and grows weary of his coldness. Meanwhile, Walter grows more and more aggressive in his role as a drug manufacturer; when Jesse tells him they are short money because one of their dealers was robbed, Walter demands that he "handle it" by whatever means necessary.
When Walter's medical bills start mounting, he promises Skyler he will seek assistance from Elliott and Gretchen after all, but continues to pay with his drug money. When Skyler calls Gretchen to thank her for their help, Gretchen confronts Walter and asks how he is paying the bills. Walter becomes angry, insisting it is none of her business and condemning her and Elliott for making millions of dollars on his research. Meanwhile, one of their dealers, Badger Mayhew (Matt L. Jones), gets arrested and, fearful it could lead the police back to them, Walter and Jesse seek advice from the sleazy and unscrupulous criminal attorney Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk). Saul arranges for a career criminal who willingly goes to prison for crimes he does not commit to pose as Heisenberg and get arrested. Although Hank remains suspicious that the real Heisenberg is still loose, the arrest takes some heat off of Walter, and Saul uses the experience to become Walter's consigliere-like adviser.
Walter soon learns his cancer is in remission and the tumor has shrunk by 80 percent. In light of this news, Walter insists to Jesse that he will be getting out of the drug trade after unloading the last of the meth. However, there are signs he is enjoying the criminal activity, such as when he threateningly warns a prospective competitor to "stay out of my territory". When another of Walter's dealers, Combo Ortega (Rodney Rush), is shot to death during a deal, Saul arranges for Walter to meet Gustavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), a powerful drug kingpin who also runs a chain of fast food restaurants as a front. Walter seeks to sell his entire supply in bulk to Gustavo, but the extremely cautious and low-profile man expresses concerns about working with Walter, particularly due to the unpredictability of Jesse, whose addiction to meth has grown increasingly worse. Nevertheless, Gustavo agrees to buy his entire stock of meth from Walter for $1.2 million. The deal is nearly blown by Jesse's drug problems, but Walter makes the transaction, even though it makes him miss the birth of his daughter Holly.
Jesse demands his cut of the money, but Walter refuses to turn it over until Jesse gets clean. Later, however, Jesse's drug addict girlfriend Jane Margolis (Krysten Ritter) blackmails Walter, threatening to make his drug activities public unless he gives Jesse his money. Walter agrees to the demand and, later that same night, goes to a bar and meets Donald Margolis (John de Lancie), who he does not realize is Jane's father. When Donald tells Walter one must never give up on family, Walter realizes he has paternal feelings toward Jesse and decides to help him. He breaks into Jesse's house, where Jesse and Jane lie passed out after a drug fix and Jane starts choking on her own vomit. Believing Jesse to be better off without her, Walter chooses not help Jane and allows her to die. Later, Jesse is distraught over Jane's death, unaware of Walter's role in it, and Walter checks him in to an expensive rehabilitation clinic. Meanwhile, Walter undergoes an aggressive, risky surgery to treat his lung cancer, which appears to be a success. However, incriminating statements Walter unwittingly made while under anesthesia leads Skyler to discover the extent of many of Walter's lies, and she leaves him. The second season ends with Donald, an air traffic controller, making a mistake at his job due to his despair over Jane's death. From his home, Walter watches two commercial airplanes crash into each other, unaware he is indirectly responsible for it.
Season three
Walter has moved out of the house and, during a discussion about a possible divorce, Skyler accuses Walter of dealing marijuana with Jesse, believing it the only way he could have paid his medical bills. Walter admits to manufacturing methamphetamine, and a stunned Skyler says she will not tell anybody if he grants her a divorce, but he refuses. Meanwhile, Gus offers Walter $3 million to cook meth for three months, but Walter declines, still despairing over the loss of his family. Walter breaks in to his house and stays there despite Skyler's insistence he stay away. Shortly afterward, while Walter is showering, the Mexican drug cartel hitmen Leonel and Marco Salamanca (Daniel and Luis Moncada) break into the house and wait with an axe to kill Walter out of revenge for their cousin Tuco's death. He is only saved by the last minute assistance of Gus, who insists he needs Walter's help producing meth. Skyler threatens to turn Walter in to the police when she realizes he is home, but she fails to go through with it. Later, Skyler reveals to Walter she has had sex with her boss, Ted Beneke (Christopher Cousins).
Walter becomes an emotional mess and, at one point, tries to kiss his own boss, assistant principal Carmen Molina (Carmen Serano), who places him on indefinite suspension as a result. Gus offers Walter a state-of-the-art meth lab concealed beneath an industrial laundry facility. Although Walter initially continues to resist, he eventually accepts Gus' offer, then reluctantly signs Skyler's divorce papers. By this point, Walter and Jesse have had a falling out, and Walter is working with a new lab assistant, Gale Boetticher (David Costabile). When Hank asks Walter if he remembers whether his former student Jesse used a recreational vehicle, Walter realizes Hank is closing in on Jesse and tries to have the RV destroyed. Hank follows Jesse to the repair yard where the RV is kept, which results in Hank finding the RV and pounding on the door while Walter and Jesse are inside. They escape the situation only after Walter arranges for Hank to receive a phone call that his wife, Marie, has been hurt in an accident, prompting Hank to rush off to see her. Walter and Jesse subsequently have the RV destroyed.
Later, a furious Hank beats Jesse to the point that he is hospitalized. Walter convinces Jesse not to press charges and the two make amends after Walter makes Jesse his full partner, resulting in Jesse replacing Gale as his lab assistant. When Hank is shot by Leonel and Marco Salamanca, Skyler insists that she and Walter will pay for Hank's medical bills, and she claims to Marie that Walter made his money by gambling. Skyler gradually starts to become more involved in the dark side of Walter's life and proposes they buy the car wash where he previously worked for a front business to launder his drug money. She also reveals she never filed the divorce papers Walter had signed. Eventually, Jesse learns the drug dealers who killed his friend Combo work for Gus, and that the dealers forced Tomas (Angelo Martinez), the 11-year-old brother of Jesse's girlfriend Andrea (Emily Rios), to commit the murder. Jesse starts making plans to kill them, and Walter seeks to stop this by informing Gus of Jesse's plans. This leads to a meeting between Walter, Gus, Jesse and the drug dealers, during which Gus warns Jesse not to harm the dealers and tells them to stop using children during their deals.
Shortly afterward, however, Tomas is murdered by unknown gunmen, prompting an angry Jesse to seek revenge. Upon local news broadcasts about Tomas' death, Walter realizes how Jesse will respond and seeks to find him. Just before Jesse is about to shoot the dealers, Walter arrives and runs both down with his car. One is killed instantly, then Walter shoots the other to death. Walter places Jesse into hiding, then later tells Gus that he has fled the state. Although Walter insists he wishes to continue cooking meth for Gus, he quickly realizes Gus is grooming his former lab assistant, Gale, to eventually replace Walter. He correctly predicts Gus will try to kill Walter once Gale is ready, so Walter tells Jesse they must kill Gale to prevent this. Jesse does not want to do it and suggests Walter turn himself in to the DEA, but Walter refuses and says he will kill Gale himself. However, before he can do so, Walter is abducted by Gus' henchmen, Mike (Jonathan Banks) and Victor (Jeremiah Bitsui), who plan to kill him. Walter claims he will arrange to turn Jesse over to them, but when they allow him to call Jesse, Walter quickly informs Jesse he must now kill Gale himself, or else Mike and Victor will kill him. The third season ends with Jesse shooting Gale to death.
Development
– Vince Gilligan, about Bryan CranstonYou're going to see that underlying humanity, even when he's making the most devious, terrible decisions, and you need someone who has that humanity – deep down, bedrock humanity – so you say, watching this show, 'All right, I'll go for this ride. I don't like what he's doing, but I understand, and I'll go with it for as far as it goes.' If you don't have a guy who gives you that, despite the greatest acting chops in the world, the show is not going to succeed.
Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan cast Bryan Cranston for the role of Walter White based on having worked with him in a sixth season episode of the science fiction television series The X-Files, where Gilligan worked as a writer. Cranston played a racist with a terminal illness who took series protagonist Fox Mulder hostage. Gilligan said the character had to be simultaneously loathsome and sympathetic, and that "Bryan alone was the only actor who could do that, who could pull off that trick. And it is a trick. I have no idea how he does it." AMC officials were initially reluctant with the casting choice, having known Cranston only as the over-the-top character Hal on the comedy series Malcolm in the Middle, but they were persuaded after Gilligan screened the X-Files episode for them.
Cranston contributed a great deal to the character. When Gilligan left much of Walter's past unexplained during the development of the series, the actor wrote his own back story for the character. At the start of the show, Cranston gained 10 pounds to reflect the character's personal decline. He had the natural red highlights in his hair dyed a regular brown. He collaborated with costume designer Kathleen Detoro on a wardrobe of mostly neutral green and brown colors to make the character bland and unremarkable, and worked with makeup artist Frieda Valenzuela to describe a mustache he described as "impotent" and like a "dead caterpillar". Cranston has also repeatedly identified elements in scripts where he disagreed with how the character was handled, and has gone so far as to call Gilligan directly when he could not work out disagreements with the episode screenwriters. Cranston has said he was inspired partially by his elderly father for how Walter carries himself physically, which he described as "a little hunched over, never erect the weight of the world is on this man's shoulders". In contrast to his character, Cranston has been described as extremely playful on set, with Aaron Paul describing him as "a kid trapped in a man's body".
Gilligan has said his goal with Walter White is to turn Mr. Chips into Scarface. Gilligan has said it is difficult to write for Walter White because the character is so dark and morally questionable: "I'm going to miss the show when it's over, but on some level, it'll be a relief to not have Walt in my head anymore." As the series has progressed, Gilligan and the writing staff of Breaking Bad have made Walter more and more unsympathetic. Gilligan said: "He's going from being a protagonist to an antagonist. We want to make people question who they're pulling for, and why." Cranston said by the fourth season: "I think Walt's figured out it's better to be a pursuer than the pursued. He's well on his way to badass."
Reception
Reviews
New York magazine writer Emma Rosenblum said Bryan Cranston "pulls off the unassuming White with flawless subtlety: a waxy pallor, a slump of the shoulders, and a sense of doom that is palpable". The Hollywood Reporter writer Tim Goodman praised as courageous Vince Gilligan's decision to transform Walter White into an unsympathic character: "You don't take your main character and make him unlikable. You just don't. Nobody does that. Nobody has ever really done that to this extent."
Awards
Bryan Cranston won three consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, the first actor to do so since Bill Cosby for the 1960s secret-agent adventure series I Spy.
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