Breaking Bad Was Initially Offered To Two Hollywood Heavyweights Before Bryan Cranston

Casting can create legends, but only if the people in charge of giving out the role recognize what the actor is capable of. Perhaps this is why studios can sometimes be hesitant to take big, bold swings on this front, especially when it comes to choosing a lead for a prestige drama with a premise that's already controversial. This is why it's so impressive that the "Breaking Bad" universe did it no less than three times. 

Bryan Cranston was best known from the sitcom "Malcolm in the Middle" when he was cast as Walter White. Aaron Paul's excellent work as Jesse Pinkman was a surprise, too, since Paul was simply so good that the character (who was originally supposed to die in Season 1) was expanded into a de facto co-lead. Finally, the prequel spin-off "Better Call Saul" stars Bob Odenkirk, whose pre-"Breaking Bad" work had been more comedy-tinted. 

Still, at least both Paul and Odenkirk got the opportunity to prove their chops on the job before being elevated to main character status. Not so with Cranston, whose comedic résumé meant that neither Sony Pictures Television nor AMC saw him as the nefarious, complex Walt. "We all still had the image of Bryan shaving his body in 'Malcolm in the Middle'," an insider told The Hollywood Reporter in 2012. "We were like, 'Really? Isn't there anybody else?'" 

So the executives found not just one but two 'anybody elses' from the upper echelons of Hollywood: John Cusack and Matthew Broderick. Perhaps fortunately, both men said no to the opportunity to play a cancer patient-slash-meth cook-slash-chemistry teacher who's fond of tighty whiteys, which opened the door for "Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan to convince the powers that be to take a chance on Cranston. 

Gilligan wasn't about to hire Cranston because he was a big "Malcolm in the Middle" fan. Instead, he had seen what Cranston could do in a completely different, more serious setting — namely, the actor's guest-star turn in a Season 6 episode of "The X-Files." Titled "Drive," the Gilligan-penned episode is one of the show's famous standalone episodes, in which a panicked and pained man called Patrick Crump (Cranston) needs to keep moving further west if he wants to keep his head from exploding. (Like many "X-Files" episodes, it makes sense in context.) 

Gilligan was impressed with Cranston's portrayal of Crump, whose arc initially portrays him as menacing but eventually reveals that he's a victim of circumstance who's in a world of hurt and fears that he's about to die. This, the "Breaking Bad" creator decided, was the perfect blend of traits he required from the actor playing Walter White. "That was a tricky part to cast on 'X-Files,'" Gilligan told The Hollywood Reporter. "We needed somebody who could be dramatic and scary yet have an underlying humanity so when he dies, you felt sorry for him. Bryan nailed it." 

After Gilligan screened "Drive" to the executives who had been wary of Cranston's casting, they saw Gilligan's vision of what Cranston could be in the role. Cranston went on to win four Emmys for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and a Golden Globe for his work on "Breaking Bad," proving once and for all that, when it comes to casting, thinking outside the box isn't necessarily a bad thing.