Bryan Cranston Quotes

What's great about comedy, obviously, is that you set up a situation that people assume one thing and then you break the assumption. That's basically the backbone to comedy. You set up a situation, let people make an assumption, and then you break the assumption.

I intend to do more directing TV.

This self-congratulatory notion Americans have that their country is Number One is borne of ignorance and bad manners.

I'm telling you, until I shaved my head, I never realized how much heat is lost through the top of the head. I walk out in winter and it feels like I have an ice pack on my head. Unbelievable.

I think if you believe in past lives, I must have been an extremely deprived being. I must have been mistreated, beaten, and forced into indentured servitude because this life has just been phenomenal.

The hardest work that actors have done, including myself, is on poorly written scripts. And when you first start out you do anything. I did a lot of crap. I did more crap than I can tell you. But you did it because you needed the money. You have to pay for your pictures and resumes, and classes and insurance and food like everybody else. In those days if it was crap you just didn't put it on your resume.

It's a familiar story now: a meek and depressed high school chemistry teacher with terminal cancer cooks up a scheme to make and market a superior grade of methamphetamine to provide a nest egg for his family after he's gone. But over the course of five seasons Walter White goes from milquetoast to murderous in order to survive.

I want to be done, and actually, go "I had a good run. No regrets. I'm ready to step aside."

I realized, "Oh my god, this is an enormous play. And it's almost all me. Big. big chunks of speeches, speeches, speeches." And I started to panic.

Part of an actor's job is to draw up a back story.

I'm not crazy about being out of control, and I get emotional when things are unclean. When things are out of order. When things are messy. Because I lived in a mess as a child.

If you have a screaming angry director, everyone else will be panicked as well.

That's the reason you want to become a star as an actor, to be able to have more control of your destiny.

Had "Malcolm in the Middle" been picked up I would not have been available for the pilot of "Breaking Bad." And right now someone else would be sitting in this chair talking to you. Not me.

Let me demonstrate. When you greet a friend this is the duration of the kiss that's acceptable. "Hi, good to see you - yeah." When you make a mistake and stay too long at the lips, this is how long it is. "Hi, how are you? Good to see you." And that's what happened. It was like, "Uh-oh, what was that? Oh."

It's mind-altering when you slip into someone else's shoes. That's psychedelic, man.

Gay and lesbian couples should have the right to experience the joys of marriage and family.

I have a lovely family who supports me and it's great.

Ever since I stopped worrying about finances, I've made more money than I ever thought I'd make in my life.

There is a peak and valley to careers and that includes fame. If you are lucky to ride this wave of fame to a plateau - it won't last there. I guess it is just a blue-collar work ethic that I was raised with.

In order to be an actor you really have to be one of those types of people who are risk-takers and have what is considered an actor's arrogance, which is not to say an arrogance in your personal life. But you have to be the type of person who wants the ball with seconds left in the game.

I do force myself to sleep with myself to get the job. But that's always a disappointment.

I think, and I mean this sincerely, I was raised humbly. We were a lower middle income family and a household that was scrimping by at times. We were watching the dollar, stretching the dollar, and coupons. It was all those things.

When actors first come up, you're auditioning for everything - you're trying to sniff it out like a pig with a truffle and you would do anything!

I want to make sure that what I do has specific purpose and is not just throwing a dart at something to keep busy.

I have often walked down this street before but the pavement never held my star before... all at once I'm three stories high, knowing I'm on the street where it lives.

What used to frustrate me going into an audition was that some inexperienced, lesser casting people would think that actors are acting only when they're speaking.

When everyone has high expectation for you, it can attack your insecurities.

I can tell you for sure: people who are at their peak right now will not sustain that. You can't. It's against the law of nature.

I have a bad habit of inserting my ideas into shots and things. I don't know, I don't hold back on suggesting things, but I don't have any connection to what actually happens, so I'll make a suggestion on something and then just let it go.

When I was a kid there were a very select few channels - programmes had to have more of a large appeal and they just didn't offer very much. Now you have a situation where the television world has expanded and there's hundreds of channels.

I don't have spare time.

I've done more crap than I care to remember. I really have. 'Airwolf.' 'Murder, She Wrote.' 'Amazon Women on the Moon.' But you learn from all these bad shows. What you don't want to do and what you don't want to be involved with.

I've got a whole mantel just waiting for those awards to come, a whole big mantel. There's just so much available space. I've got the light fixtures hanging from the ceiling, all ready to shine on them. I dust it off every day.

When you're directing an ongoing series, the tone has already been set. So a director will come in and fulfill that tone - reinforce the characters and their behavior. The challenge is to find unique ways that you can visually tell the story while keeping the established tone and the pace and the characters.

The turmoil that my dad went through, and then by extension, the kids went though, was profound and disastrous for the marriage, for the family.

I was just infused with ideas and I would dream about it and wake up and go, "Oh, I have another idea about Walter White." It was so well written. And it just got into my soul.

If you like vanilla, you're not going to like 'Breaking Bad' - you need to like a specific flavor that is unusual, that is different, that takes risks.

Any performer would love to have the opportunity to be able to express themselves in many different areas. If you feel confident in those areas, you would hope to have the opportunity to do them, whether it's drama, comedy, musical, or whatever your interests are.

It's like a dance, to choreograph a fight is like a dance. It's very specific. You have to carefully plan it out. Because if someone gets hurt, then we didn't do our job, someone screwed up. The fight choreographers and the actors involved, we messed up somewhere.

Pot always just made me sleepy.

When you're an actor in grade school, high school, college, whatever, you start to realize what you're really good at, what you're kinda good at, what you're okay at, and you start to compartmentalize. But if you know yourself and what you're capable of, it's just a matter of opportunity.

My personal feeling, if I can interject a political note, is that I don't think it is right that basic health care is a privilege. It shouldn't be. It should be a right of all human beings. And certainly in the richest country in the world.

As a director you come in and tell the actors how good they are.

The TV business is like the produce section of the market. Today everything is fresh and glistening and firm. And tomorrow, when they find a bruise on you, they toss you out.

At my age, I don't think anyone is untouched by cancer.

I think it's not a question of why, more a question of why not.

If you work hard, you have a better chance of producing something that you're proud of. If you don't, you won't. It's really simple.