VARIETY “Actors on Actors”: Bryan Cranston and Rhea Seehorn Talk THE STUDIO, PLURIBUS, BREAKING BAD, And More

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In a new conversation for VARIETY’s “Actors on Actors” issue, Bryan Cranston and Rhea Seehorn discuss working with Madonna, Cranston’s character arc in THE STUDIO and how he “either propelled my career to a different level or completely destroyed it,” PLURIBUS twists, Cranston’s transition from MALCOM IN THE MIDDLE to BREAKING BAD, and more. 

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Cranston and Seehorn on Cranston working with Madonna while filming “The Studio”:

Cranston: Madonna’s great. I gotta say, her work ethic is really impressive. The paparazzi are everywhere trying to get a picture of her. But I was really impressed with how much she prepared. Because we didn’t know — “What’s she like now?” And it’s been a while since she acted.

Seehorn: Oh, I guess that’s true.

Cranston: But she was terrific. And she’s very funny.

Seehorn: I was going to say, does she have a sense of humor?

Cranston: She’s very funny! And we had Michael Keaton and Donald Glover and Julia Garner. It was really a lot of fun. And that show is just bonkers.

Cranston and Seehorn on Cranston’s “The Studio” character arc this coming season:

Seehorn: OK, are you on drugs again?

Cranston: Oh, yes.

Seehorn: [laughing] Are you?

Cranston: Ohhhhhhh, yessssss. Oh, Rhea. There is a scene in the episode dealing with the Oscars. That’s all I’ll say. People will not believe what happens.

Seehorn: And it’s your fault?

Cranston: I either propelled my career to a different level or completely destroyed it. Completely obliterated it, like, “What was he thinking?” But it will be talked about.

Cranston and Seehorn on not getting an outline for seasons of “Pluribus,” “Breaking Bad,” and “Better Call Saul”:

Seehorn: …we try not to preplan or be result oriented anyway, but people would ask, “But don’t you want to know if you’re lying?” I actually found quite a bit of freedom in it.

Cranston: It’s amazing. I remember shooting an episode of “Breaking Bad” where Aaron Paul’s

character, Jesse, comes at me with a gun because he thinks I poisoned the little boy in the show,

and I’m going, “Why would I do that?” And then the next episode came a few days later and I’m reading it, and I go, “Oh, I did do it.” Oops. My bad!

Cranston on the transition from “Malcolm in the Middle” to “Breaking Bad”:

Cranston: Going from “Malcolm in the Middle” to “Breaking Bad,” there was only one year in between, and Vince [Gilligan, screenwriter] was my champion to get that role. The execs at Sony and at AMC were like, “Ooh, wait, no, the goofy dad from ‘Malcolm’? Not to play Walter White!” He’s going, “Trust me, trust me, trust me.”

Cranston and Seehorn on “Pluribus:

Cranston: What I found interesting watching “Pluribus”was that you take the tropes of every science fiction alien-invasion story you’ve ever heard — and it’s completely the opposite. They’re always ugly. They want to kill you. And he flipped it up- side down. So it’s fascinating watching “Pluribus” and going, “I don’t know where this is going!” Like any fan, I watched it cold. And I go, “I don’t know that I would be kind and soft. I would be freaked out.”

Seehorn: When people are like, “She’s so unlikable,” I’m like, her wife’s dead; they killed her. Career’s done, might not ever be back. You may very well die alone and never speak to anybody again on a couch eating a frozen meal, watching “Golden Girls.” There are no friends anymore, there’s no family and the world is saying, “We’re just waiting around until we can take your brain away.” And she’s not polite about it.

Cranston and Seehorn on Cranston” return to “Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair”:

Seehorn: So I’m curious what it was like returning to “Malcolm in the Middle.” What was the gap between?

Cranston: Twenty years.

Seehorn: I still see these characters I came to know and love. But everybody did a little bit of evolving as well. Hal, not a lot.

Cranston: I think what was great about Hal and Lois is that they didn’t change — they just got older. But he’s still madly in love with her.

[Photo Credit: Mary Ellen Matthews for Variety]

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