How Christopher Cousins' Career Faded After Breaking Bad
As far as villains go, Breaking Bad had its fair share. Given that the show revolves around a high school chemistry teacher who falls into making meth as a way to recoup finances related to his recent cancer diagnosis, most of the villains on the show are drug dealers or related to the drug scene in one way or another. That makes Ted Beneke, played by Christopher Cousins, the odd man out.
Beneke isn't exactly the spitting image of a villain. He's not some murder or drug kingpin. The man is just a skeezy business owner who likes to commit fraud and get involved with married women. Skyler White (Anna Gunn), wife to main character Walt White, worked for Beneke's company when she was younger, until Beneke got drunk and hit on her. She returns to the company some years later as the bookkeeper. Keep in mind, Beneke's been frauding the books and coveting the woman since she left. Well, Beneke finally finds an opening after Skyler finds out her husband is a drug dealer, and they start an affair that threatens to break up the White family. Way to go, dude.
Skyler helps Beneke get the whole fraud thing under control by lying to the IRS and secretly giving Beneke $600,000 to pay off his debt. Beneke, meanwhile, is being a jerk right up until he sustains terrible injuries from tripping over a rug.
Cousins' Ted Beneke was a powerful force, a character that fans loved to hate among the scandalous emotional elements of the show. Beneke was also the last bit of career "good luck" that Cousins seems to have had.
Where did Christopher Cousins' career go?
The former Breaking Bad actor's career seems to have faded since his time on the show. It might be because people still view Christopher Cousins as the skeezy home-wrecking jerk that Ted Beneke was on the crime drama, and it might have nothing to do with his role on Breaking Bad at all. It could just be bad luck. Regardless, Cousins hasn't really landed a stable job since he left Breaking Bad in 2012.
Shows have a habit of getting the ax once Cousins' name is attached to them. The Exorcist TV series ran for two solid seasons, and Cousins took on the role of Peter Osborne in season 2. Fox canceled the production before season 3. He shows up toward the end of Glee in 2015 right before the show came to its end. CBS' Training Day TV series was canceled after one season. Guess who had parts on that as well? You guessed it: Cousins. There are more examples than your patience has time for, so we're not going to list them all.
Beyond the canceled shows, Cousins has had limited appearances playing small roles in a whole bunch of TV shows, but the only solid things in his post-Breaking Bad career are a couple of "made for TV" movies. That's not exactly looking up from the fantastic performance the actor gave us in Breaking Bad, but there's still plenty of time for Cousins to stun us with something else in the future.