The Creative Life of Bryan Cranston
Ten lessons to learn from the star of Breaking Bad
I interviewed Bryan Cranston in 2014, not long after the final series of Breaking Bad had aired.
He was starring in New York as US president Lyndon B Johnston in Robert Schenkkan’s epic play All The Way, a demanding role in which he was on-stage for a full two hours 20 minutes, altering his voice and physiology quite radically to embody the rotund, earthy politician. It was an extraordinary portrayal that was later to win him a well-deserved Tony award, and creatively, he said it was exactly the challenge he’d been looking for after an intense five years of TV drama.
I’d been told to knock on the stage door of the Broadway theatre mid-afternoon. I’d assumed that a PR or his people would meet me, that I’d then be asked to wait around (I’d bought a book to read). Instead, a stagehand simply led me to Cranston’s empty, surprisingly shabby dressing room and left me there, with the actor wandering in without any ceremony a few minutes later. No entourage, no ‘people’, no PR hustling me out after my allotted time was up: just a thoughtful, interesting man who seemed to enjoy sharing what he’d learned in life as well as art.
So, without further ado, here are some lessons from the life of Bryan.
