In season 3, there are at least four huge moments that make you jump up on the couch, mouth agape, disbelieving of what has just played out. They are some of the biggest ‘wow’ moments of any TV series. Are you going to continue down that path in season 4? Or are you going to slow things down a bit?
Bryan Cranston: I can honestly say that there will be plenty of photos of me, with my mouth agape, during season 4…Probably more than season 3. When you think about it, this simple plan that this man thought up so long ago has just spun completely out of control. He was ill equipped to handle it. Walter White’s life is going to get more complicated, not less, as the series goes on. It is going to twist tighter and tighter and tighter. It is well crafted. Vince Gilligandoes a masterful storytelling job. We set the tempo. We slow it down, we speed it up. By having this slower pace, which you won’t see on broadcast TV but only on cable channels, because its left up to the story runner to devise his own way of storytelling…If its left up to the artists, and not the studio or network executive to call the shots, then more often than not, you are going to see a well-crafted, slower paced roll out. So that what happens when you do it slower is…We create this tension, and we create this image of people being oddly attracted to this car accident of a show…And you see people start to lean forward. We can feel them starting to reach, to ask, and they want more. They need more. Just when they start to reach in, we close the trap. Now, we have them in the cage, and we take them on this wild ride that they don’t always want to go on. That was the devised plan. We got to know Walt, and we kind of fell for him in the beginning. His plight was so horrible. He had to work these two jobs, because he is not well paid as a teacher. His health care system is not going to cover what he needs. All of these things were set up for him to make this risky choice and this drastic decision. Without those components, he wouldn’t have been compelled to make those moves.