Bryan Cranston Broke Character Filming Breaking Bad's 'I Am The Danger' Scene
As we all very well know, "Breaking Bad," created by Vince Gilligan, follows chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston) as he becomes a meth cook in order to take care of his family financially after receiving a cancer diagnosis. Just looking at the one-sentence premise, it's beyond clear that this show is an ultra-serious one. Plus, that logline doesn't even begin to cover all of the violence that ends up playing out throughout the five seasons — after all, the amount of lives that Walt ended in the show is a shocking number.
One of the most intense — and often quoted — lines happens during a mere conversation between husband and wife. In Season 4, Episode 6, "Cornered," Skyler White (Anna Gunn) tries to convince Walt to go to the police because she suspects that Walt is in danger. Skyler pleads, "You are not some hardened criminal, Walt, you are in over your head. That's what we tell them, that's the truth."
Walt, whose ego has been building and building up to this point, responds with anger and tells Skyler that she's wrong. This, of course, leads to Walt intimidatingly standing over Skyler while he states, "I am not in danger, Skyler, I am the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot and you think that of me? No. I am the one who knocks."
As it turns out, despite how good of an actor Cranston is, even he had a hard time getting through such an intense scene — just perhaps not in the way one would expect.
Fans are laughing over Cranston breaking character in the blooper reel
If you're curious about how often the serious actors of "Breaking Bad" broke character while filming the super heavy scenes, look no further than one of the blooper reels on YouTube. In one of them, which shows Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn filming the "I am the danger scene," Cranston takes a long pause in the middle of their confrontation — possibly forgetting his lines — and bursts out laughing right before he is meant to start the big speech. Gunn, of course, starts laughing with her co-star.
Fans in the comments couldn't get enough of this one specific mess up. One user, @johndaley6117, wrote, "the fact that he really broke character laughing before delivering arguably the series' most epic line is absolutely mind blowing to me."
Many fans were in agreement, as this comment received over 19,000 upvotes and has dozens of replies. Many of the replies are fans expressing agreement or quoting the lines from the scene. One fan, @tankmaster1018, poked fun at Cranston's mixup, writing, "The absolutely confused/dumbfounded look he gives her for like a solid 5 seconds after she says the 'you're in danger,' line is just pure gold. His facial expression looked like he just woke up from a coma that lasted 30 years, and has no idea even of his own name or what show he's on!" Another fan, @brad8122, joked, "I am the one who forgets his lines."
Cranston says the line shows Walt teetering between his two lives
As one of the most famous lines of "Breaking Bad" — if not the most quoted line — Bryan Cranston has, of course, been asked about it in interviews. While speaking to People, Cranston revealed that he sees that scene as a depiction of Walt being torn between his two worlds, which speaks to the series as a whole which showcased a slow-burn narrative of Walt moving from protagonist to antagonist.
Cranston said, "It was a transitional period for him, where we saw remnants ... There was never a switch going from Walter White to Heisenberg. There was never a pulling down [of] a lever. It was gradual. It was losing Walt and gaining some of Heisenberg. And then it switches."
Given how much meaning is packed into that one scene, and seeing how much importance Cranston saw with it, it makes complete sense that the actor may have messed up a few times and broken character while trying to get it right.