How Vince Gilligan wrote the premise of ‘Breaking Bad’
There aren’t many dramas from the modern age that cut to the bone as hard as Breaking Bad. Although the idea of a chemistry teacher slowly working his way into the underground world of the crystal meth industry sounds like a ridiculous idea on paper, Vince Gilligan’s masterful direction turned Walter White into one of the most intimidating characters in history: from a lovable father into Heisenberg with a few changes of his features. While Gilligan may have created an iconic TV show, the germs of the idea came from desperation more than anything.
Before he began work on his show, Gilligan was known for working as a writer for various episodes of the science fiction series The X-Files around the turn of the millennium. Once the show wrapped, Gilligan’s career started to slowly wane as well. Though he would have minor success in the film industry, helping write the story for the Will Smith superhero film Hancock, one phone call led to him developing the idea for Breaking Bad.
Passing the time amid bouts of unemployment, Gilligan remembered chatting with a writer friend about what else they would do for work. When one of them jokingly brought up the idea of going into the drug business, Gilligan recalled, “Suddenly, I was intrigued about the idea of a guy who would do such a thing. A guy that would do a reprehensible deed in order to save his family.”
Even when shooting the first handful of episodes, Gilligan did not want to glamourise Walter White as a sinister figure. Throughout the first season, White is still the same mild-mannered middle-aged man that one would expect to teach chemistry, only really showing his dark side during the final episodes of the season when he seeks revenge on drug kingpin Tuco Salamanca for beating his partner, Jesse Pinkman.
While Gilligan had the urge to hook the audience in immediately, he ultimately decided that the best way to keep them invested was to watch White’s downfall slowly unravel, explaining, “If I start him at the beginning of the story and take the time to set this character up for the audience, he’s going to be kind of a bland character for the first act or two at least.”
For all of the setup that went into the first season of the show, seeing the slow evolution of White into a ruthless criminal is a spectacle to behold. As White and Pinkman face different dangerous scenarios working in the drug world, it’s easy to see White starting to enjoy himself, taking pleasure in creating his product and growing even more addicted to the power that it gives him.
The slow burn ended up paying off as well, with the show receiving a massive surge in viewers at the end of the series. By the time of the final few episodes, though, White had turned from an empathetic character to one of the most formidable presences on television, resorting to working with the scum of the Earth to ensure that he keeps his money. While times may have been desperate for Gilligan in the early 2000s, the evolution from White from a Mr Chips character into Scarface is one of the most enthralling stories in the history of television.
