Bryan Cranston interview: Actor on Last Flag Flying, Breaking Bad and Network

Last week, Bryan Cranston tweeted, in a typically mischievous way, that 20 January, the day of the recent US government shutdown, was also the 10th anniversary of the premiere of Breaking Bad. “Coincidence? Or could Heisenberg have something to do with it?” he teased, referencing the alias taken by his drug-dealing character Walter White. Amusing, perhaps, but it’s somewhat shocking to think that the show that won him an Emmy, a Golden Globe and worldwide stardom is now a decade old.

While some actors would’ve been left unable to ever escape the shadow of a career-defining show like that, Cranston – now 61 – is thriving. An Oscar nomination for his blacklisted writer in Trumbo. A Tony nomination for playing Lyndon B Johnson on Broadway in All The Way. A production company that’s behind shows like Channel 4’s Philip K Dick-inspired Electric Dreams and the Amazon-produced Sneaky Pete. And now a juicy role in Boyhood director Richard Linklater’s latest, Last Flag Flying.

Sitting in London’s Soho Hotel, Cranston never had worries escaping Walter White. “It’s up to you to move away from those things, and not accept roles that are similar to what you just did or what you’re well known for,” he says. He cites his time on sitcom Malcolm In The Middle, pre-Breaking Bad, when he was offered other sweet-natured father roles. He refused. “It’s like being derivative or yourself,” he says. “It was easy for me to say no to that and to focus on something new that challenges me.”

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In the case of Last Flag Flying, it was the chance to work with Linklater. The script comes from the 2004 novel by Darryl Ponicsan, the long-awaited sequel to his 1970 book The Last Detail – which, three years on, was made into a movie by Hal Ashby starring Jack Nicholson as a rambunctious navy signalman. Linklater’s film picks up with the three main characters 30-odd years on (although names have been changed, perhaps to distance it from Ashby’s movie). Cranston is the hard-drinking Sal Nealon, who reunites with his two Vietnam veteran buddies (Steve Carell and Laurence Fishburne).

First off, it’s an engaging character study of male friendship. “They remember those times 30 years ago when they were all so young, and how much fun that was,” explains Cranston. “It’s very romantic to look back. At the time, there was s*** to deal with. And real serious things and people dying. But you look back and go, ‘Those were the days!’ You have a hard body, a stomach that was tight, you were bedding down with pretty girls, you had it! You were doing it! And that’s Sal – Sal is an all-consuming man. He says yes to everything.”

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Cranston, who is almost as mischievous in the film as he is on Twitter, didn’t revisit The Last Detail to see Nicholson’s Oscar-nominated performance. “You don’t want to be influenced by some actor’s work when you’re going in and playing a character that’s similar to that character. Certainly not Jack Nicholson – that’s death! Then you’re doing a bad impersonation of Jack Nicholson! He’s iconic. I want to stay as far away from him as possible.” Linklater’s film is more melancholic anyway, a potent study of loss.

Intriguingly, Cranston says he was close to joining the military when he was younger, growing up in California. “I was thinking about it,” he says. “In fact, I was going to possibly enlist in the service out of high school and join the military police.” Why? “Just something to do to learn more, to travel, to see some lands. I thought, ‘That’s an option.’ The idea of going to war was never a real reality to me, even though I was in high school. In my first year of high school, they still had the draft.”

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His plan at the time was to join the military police for four years before applying to the Los Angeles Police Department. So what happened? “Acting class,” he grins. “I was saved by the bell. The acting class in college I took turned me around because... girls! Womankind has saved me.” Regional theatre was followed by guest spots on TV. He was 40 when his career finally took off in Malcolm in the Middle; if he’d have joined the police, “I’d be long retired by now”, he says.

Beyond Last Flag Flying, Cranston can currently be found tearing up the London stage at the National in a lauded adaptation of Network, the Oscar-winning 1976 newsroom satire penned by Paddy Chayefsky. “The story was a great story – talking about fake news, talking about the power of television, which we can equate now to the power of smart phones,” he says, picking up his to demonstrate that we’re now all glued to our mobiles in the way we were to TV screens.

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Adapted by Billy Elliot’s Lee Hall and directed by Ivo van Hove, Cranston’s turn as TV anchor Howard Beale has enchanted the critics (“majestically played,” noted the industry paper Variety). Despite inviting comparisons to Peter Finch, who played the role on films, Cranston couldn’t turn it down. “It’s a great character, Howard Beale. The madman of the airwaves. He’s the prophet of television, telling people to turn off their TVs: ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore’ – iconic!”

Cranston has also lent his voice to Wes Anderson’s upcoming stop-motion animation Isle of Dogs, which opens the Berlin Film Festival in mid-February. Anderson’s first film since mega-hit The Grand Budapest Hotel, it’s a typically idiosyncratic piece set in Japan about a pack of dogs relegated to an island for fear they’re carrying a deadly disease. “I think it’s an examination of immigration and operating out of fear, creating policy out of fear,” he says. “But it’s a beautiful story – very heartfelt and very unique.”

He speaks fondly of Anderson, and the weekend they spent together last summer at the director’s house on the English south coast with Anderson’s Lebanese wife Juman and their child Freya. “I went to his house and he apologised and said, ‘I’m sorry, our Internet is shoddy!’ Worry not, I turned off my phone and for 24 hours it stayed off! I loved it! I slept really soundly. We had a lovely chat. We drank some wine. We all helped prepare the meal together. It was one of my favourite weekends in a long time.”

Married for almost 30 years to actress Robin Dearden, whom he met on 1980s TV show Airwolf, Cranston is a family man himself – with his daughter Taylor, 24, now entering showbiz (as did Cranston’s parents). “It’s the family business,” he smiles. “My daughter is an actor now too. She’s a fourth-generation actor.” She’s already made some TV and film appearances, including last year’s The Last Champion. Whether she will ever eclipse her father’s success remains to be seen. But she has a fine example to follow.

‘Last Flag Flying’ opens on 26 January; ‘Isle of Dogs’ opens the Berlin Film Festival on 15 February and is released in the UK on 30 March. ‘Network’ is at the National Theatre until 24 March