Bryan Cranston won an Emmy for his role as Walter White, a high-school chemistry teacher-turned-meth dealer, in the critically acclaimed AMC series, Breaking Bad. Diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and desperate for fast cash to provide for his special-needs son and pregnant wife, White begins cooking crystal meth for the seedy underbelly of Albuquerque. Cranston's portrayal of a man wholly unprepared for a life of crime is heart-breaking, brutal, and at times darkly hilarious. The second-season premiere, directed by Cranston himself, airs this Sunday at 10 p.m. Our favorite exhibitionist took time out of his busy production schedule to speak with Nerve about chemistry, working both sides of the camera, and of course, public nudity. — Derrick Sanskrit
Did you ever feel the urge to go home and try some experiments with an easy-bake oven?
Well, I have no desire to do that. However, as consultants on the set, we've had DEA chemists show us how to do it; I have a thriving sideline going now. When we show the making of the product on the air, we don't show it step-by-step, we do it in a montage. We don't want it to become a how-to video. In the first episode of the second season, I directed, and you have my character making a poison out of a bean. I didn't want to show that, so we have a policy that we put it into a montage format. It's much more effective that way, and also you don't show the world.
You don't want kids actually handling ricin.
Exactly.
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