Breaking Bad/Trivia

• Dyeing for Your Art: Bryan Cranston lost weight and shaved his head to play Walter.
• Life Imitates Art: Meth being smuggled by way of hiding it in food shipments. It's not exactly fry batter, but nacho cheese is close.
  • There's a picture going around the internet of a pair of real-life meth cooks who were arrested... an older guy with a shaved head and goatee, and a younger, skinny, scruffy guy. Of course, the cooks probably chose their looks on purpose because they liked the show.
• Role Association:
  • Walt starts off as Hal, before proceeding to take several levels in Badass.
  • Jane's dad is Q.
  • Skyler is Mrs Bullock.
  • The leader in Jesse's addition recovery group is an Expy of Tobias Beecher. They both suffered from debilitating addictions that ended with an innocent girl run over by a car.
    • Also, he's Justified's resident nutjob, Mr. Wynn Duffy!
    • Another Justified regular is Tucker's friend - who is also resident idiot Dewey Cox on that show.
  • Tortuga is Danny Trejo.
  • Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio are played by Alberto and Manny, respectively.
• Tom Hanks Syndrome:
  • While Bryan Cranston was not an exclusively comedic actor before the series, by far his most famous role was as the Bumbling Dad on Malcolm in the Middle. To put it mildly, Walter will be quite a departure for his fans from that show.
  • Given that Hal was a similarly put-upon mid-life-crisis type character, see it as Hey, That Guy Took a Level in Badass!
  • Apparently Cranston had specifically taken the role because it was so different from both Hal and every other bumbling dad role he'd been offered around the time. Read that how you will.