Credit: Towpilot
Mon 20 July 2026 2:30, UK
Nowadays, people see Bryan Cranston for the national treasure he is.
One of the finest actors of his generation (and probably of all time too), he has proven himself highly capable at drama, comedy, and everything in between. With more awards than anyone could know what to do with, his career is nothing short of legendary.
However, had a few key dominoes not fallen into place, the role for which he is best known might have gone to Matthew Broderick.
Vince Gilligan had first come across Cranston on an episode of The X-Files, in which the actor played a man suffering from a mysterious infection. When he was developing the idea that would eventually become Breaking Bad, Gilligan remembered how much he’d enjoyed working with Cranston. He wanted him to play the lead role in his upcoming show, but AMC had other ideas.
The network that would eventually reap all the benefits of Breaking Bad was initially hesitant to give Cranston the green light. Up to that point, he was best known for playing Hal, the bumbling dad on family sitcom Malcolm in the Middle. The executives couldn’t picture the lovable suburban parent playing a drug dealer and told Gilligan to look elsewhere.
Cranston confirmed this in an interview with James Corden. “We shot the pilot of Breaking Bad in February and March of 2007,” he recalled. “Had Malcolm In The Middle gone an eighth season, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now. Or you’d be sitting here, but you’d be talking to Matthew Broderick or someone else who played Walter White instead of me.”
Malcolm in the Middle, which starred Frankie Muniz as the titular second child of three, had been on the air since 2000. It had been incredibly popular, with viewing figures above ten million for each of its first four seasons. However, as time went by, people started to lose interest. The seventh season, which wrapped up in May 2006, was pulling in an average of 3.8m viewers, which sounds like a lot these days, but was poor by the standards of the time. With this in mind, Fox decided to pull the plug.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
Matthew Broderick is a fine actor, don’t get me wrong. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a classic, and his turn as Leo Bloom in The Producers is a personal favourite of mine. It’s hard to see him being able to balance the humanity and ruthlessness needed to bring Walter White to life, though. It doesn’t help that Cranston did such an amazing job with the character that it’s impossible to see anyone else playing him. He wasn’t the only big name offered the chance to play Walter White, as John Cusack had also been approached, but he also turned it down.
Ultimately, Gilligan put his foot down and demanded that Cranston get the part. “It came to me because of the fact Vince Gilligan said, ‘No, he’s the guy,’” the actor said. “I needed a champion in my corner.”
ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE 