By means of 5 seasons of Breaking Dangerous, Bryan Cranston utterly shifted from being a beloved comedic actor to one among peak TV’s most celebrated thespians, all because of his more and more extra intimidating efficiency as Walter White. The previous chemistry trainer turned fairly proficient with legal acts, from cooking up practically excellent meth to planting explosives to rigging up the present’s notorious “machine gun within the trunk of the Cadillac” contraption.
So yeah, Walter White definitely is aware of a factor or two about machine weapons — even when sequence creator Vince Gilligan has publicly regretted its inclusion — however not everybody is likely to be conscious that Bryan Cranston himself is seemingly identified to get right into a Nerf gun battle now and again. No less than each time he’s invited to, because it went on the set of Trendy Household each time the Emmy-winning actor popped by the ABC sitcom to supply up his directing abilities.
When Trendy Household vet Nolan Gould appeared on former co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s podcast Dinner’s On Me, the youthful actor talked about how he, Ariel Winter and Rico Rodriguez was once “maniacs” behind the scenes and would get into all form of shenanigans. This is how he boasted about getting the celebrity actor to hitch their horseplay:
Do you keep in mind the Nerf gun wars that we would have on units once we had been performed taking pictures on them? [My] crowning achievement was getting Bryan Cranston to do it on the peak of Breaking Dangerous.
Host Jesse Tyler Ferguson did certainly keep in mind that expertise, and advised Gould to share a bit of extra about it, to which the To Do Record actor mentioned:
Bryan has directed a couple of episodes. And at some point, I do not understand how we did this, we invited him to come back play Nerf weapons with us. And so we have now images of us armed to the tooth with this stuff, subsequent to Walter White himself.
Ferguson then addressed the truth that he’d really hosted Bryan Cranston himself on the podcast beforehand, and that he’d talked in regards to the Nerf gun expertise on the time. Because the Mitchell Pritchett actor put it:
He was a visitor of the podcast. He advised us that story, too. [He said] principally the identical factor. I feel that was just like the true mark of being embraced by the forged is that the children wished to hang around with him.
Versus Trendy Household and Malcolm within the Center, Breaking Dangerous did not precisely have a ton of kid actors hanging across the set. There was Walter and Skylar’s child, in fact, however not till later, and it is most likely not tremendous secure (or enjoyable) to play Nerf wars with an toddler.
Cranston directed two episodes of Trendy Household, one in Season 3 and one in Season 5, however that wasn’t his solely stint behind the digicam. He helmed three episodes of Breaking Dangerous, eps of Sneaky Pete and his Showtime thriller Your Honor, in addition to that episode of The Workplace the place a automotive stunt practically went awry, with seven installments of Malcolm additionally underneath his directorial belt.
Simply because he is proficient in directing doesn’t suggest he’ll be quitting his day job anytime quickly. To that finish, Cranston’s feedback about stepping away from performing went viral final yr in methods he presumably didn’t intend for, since he got here out afterward to make clear that he wasn’t absolutely retiring from the artform, however that he can be taking a while off when he turns 70 in 2026.
Earlier than that occurs, although, followers will get to see the actor return to his TV sitcom roots for Malcolm within the Center’s formally confirmed revival, which can hopefully land on the 2025 premiere schedule.
Within the meantime, followers can all the time rewatch Breaking Dangerous in full with a Netflix subscription, whereas Trendy Household is on the market to stream in its entirety with a Hulu subscription.