Walter White, the iconic character born from the mind of Vince Gilligan, entered the history of television and made his interpreter win, Bryan Cranston, three consecutive Emmy Awards. We first met him as a shy third-rate chemistry professor, but the desire for redemption and the awareness of having nothing to lose have transformed him into a ruthless criminal.
Bryan Cranston, the actor of Breaking Badexplained how he came up with Walter White’s clothing.
It is said that the secret of a product’s success lies in the details and that’s right: the TV series of Vince Gilligan. Bryan Cranston these days has given us another proof of the great attention and care with which he and the rest of the crew of the series have worked on Breaking Bad. In a video that the actor shot for GQ he analyzed the looks of some of his most famous characters and of course ended up talking about Walter White. Bryan Cranston has highlighted how the protagonist’s transformation from a shy and passive chemistry professor to the fearsome Heisenberg is also reflected in his appearance. This is a detail that some may have noticed, but few perhaps know that this transformation was handled by Cranston himself in agreement with the costume designer. Here’s what he actually said:
“I started drawing that character as a very mild man, very submissive and passive, a pushover, because he didn’t know who it was. Then once I figured it out, I said, oh, he should be a little overweight, have love handles. It should be pasty white. He should have a mustache that looks alike, or we should grow it or trim it, one or the other. And then I called him a helpless mustache. And now I know how to style a helpless mustache if anyone is interested. If the mustache descends under the folds of the lips, no, it becomes tough, it becomes mean. So you have to make sure that they are always above the lip crease. And you thin them out so you can see the skin underneath it. And he doesn’t look so masculine. It just seems, what’s the point? Well, I was always looking for them, what’s the point?“
In short, Bryan Cranston participated in the delineation of Walter White’s appearance, giving various suggestions to the crew and costume designer. His goal was to be able to convey to the public the idea of a man so meek and shy that he disappeared into the room, a totally anonymous person. If he could convey this image, the transformation of that ordinary professor into a drug dealer would surprise viewers even more. Bryan Cranston he added:
“And I chose my clothes, I had a number of conversations with the costume designer about selecting clothes that blended into the wall, whether they were beige, off-white, pastels, soft yellows, things like that. Sand color, whatever made it invisible. It was nobody. I took all the color highlights out of my hair. It was kind of brown with kind of a reddish tinge. It took everything out of me, it just toned it down, it took the color out of my face. All of a sudden you start seeing each other and then you put on those clothes and you’re like, I know you now, let’s go on stage.“
