The TV show Bryan Cranston wants nothing to do with: “He turns us down”
Breaking Bad feels like a TV show from the end of an era; the adventures of Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul’s meth-cooking New Mexicans came about just before streaming really took over the world.
You had to actually watch the show at the same time every week or, if you were so inclined, catch up via an ancient technology known as a box set. Alongside other juggernauts like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad was one of the final vestiges of must-see communal television, which has only added to its legend in the years since.
In the years since Walter White’s story came to an end, Cranston has branched out into other areas of TV, with a guest role in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which earned him yet another Emmy nomination in 2018.
He played a judge whose son gets into trouble with the law in Your Honor, which looked for a while like it could have been his next big hit, and he even found time to return to his greatest ever character, Hal Wilkerson from Malcolm in the Middle (I’m only semi-joking when I say that).
There’s one series that we probably won’t ever see him in, though. In an interview with Discussing Film, comic book legend Robert Kirkman was asked about Invincible, an animated superhero show based on his works. The show features a stacked cast of regulars with Steven Yeun, Sandra Oh, and JK Simmons playing the main family. Then there’s the absolutely insane array of guest stars.
It would take way too long to go over every single celebrity to have lent their voice to an Invincible character, but my personal favourites include Jon Hamm as a White House security guard and Bruce Campbell as the literal devil. This is all well and good, but for Kirkman, there is one name that has still eluded him.
“Sometimes an actor is brought up for a role, and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, never in a million years would have I thought of that’. That’s when it’s really exciting,” he explained, “As far as dream casting goes, I think we offer Bryan Cranston a role every season. That has become our tradition, and his tradition is that he turns us down… Literally, Bryan Cranston is the only actor that has turned us down.”
It’s not like Cranston is averse to voice acting, he’s done quite a bit of it in recent years, notably in the Kung Fu Panda film series, but he has somehow managed to avoid the superhero genre entirely. As one of the few actors on the planet not to have appeared in either a Marvel or a DC movie, maybe that’s what’s prevented him from joining his old pal Paul in guesting on the series.
He might have had his heart broken many times, but Kirkman still isn’t giving up. “We’re coming for you again, Bryan,” he said, semi-threateningly, “We’ll see what happens next time. Fingers crossed!”
