Bryan Cranston pranked his "Breaking Bad" costar Aaron Paul into thinking his character was being killed off the show — more than once.
Cranston and Paul starred as Walter White and Jesse Pinkman on the Emmy-winning AMC series that aired from 2008 to 2013. A writers' strike in 2007 and 2008 caused its showrunner Vince Gilligan to consider killing off Paul's character during the show's first season.
"I was sad," Paul said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter this week. "I was honestly, utterly devastated."
He added: "I thought I was signing onto, like, a full series."
Jesse ended up surviving the show's entire run, but "through the next season, season and a half," Paul said, Cranston would mess with Paul and lead him to think that Jesse was getting axed.
Paul said that anytime he picked up a script, he thought, "This is the time." And Cranston "didn't help the situation, that b------!"
"He would say, 'Hey, did you read the next script?'" Paul said. "And I'd go, 'Nah, did you get it?' And he's like, 'Oh.' And he just would give me this big hug."
Read more: THEN AND NOW: The cast of 'Breaking Bad' 11 years later
Paul said Cranston would continue lying by saying, "'Hey man, you know, it had to end sometime, but at least you go out, like, guns blazing,' or something like that."
Cranston would also tell his costar, "Just read it and, you know, call me if you want to talk."
"And then he would walk off, and I would turn and go straight into the production office like, 'Give me that d--- script!'" Paul recalled.
Paul added that the writers would tell him the scripts weren't ready, which led him to think they were "holding it because they know this is where I die."
Gilligan has previously talked about how the writers' strike caused him to consider killing off Jesse during episode nine of season one.
"I didn't know how d--- good this guy was when I hired him," Gilligan said of Paul during a panel for PaleyFest LA in 2010 that they were both on.
He added: "The writers' strike, in a sense, didn't save him, because I knew by episode two — we all did, all of us, our wonderful directors and our wonderful producers — everybody knew just how good you are, and a pleasure to work with, and it became pretty clear early on that that would be a huge, colossal mistake to kill off Jesse."
The writer and director also said that while they "never actually nailed it down," the idea was for Jesse to be a casualty "in some drug deal gone terribly awry."
"It was just going to be a way to make Walt feel really, really bad," Gilligan said.
Paul went on to win two Emmys for his role and will reprise the part for a "Breaking Bad" film sequel called "El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie" available to stream on Netflix on October 11.
Watch the video below (Paul talks about Cranston pranking him at 1:50).
- Read more:
- 'Breaking Bad' is getting a film sequel six years after the series ended. Here's everything we know so far.
- 13 reasons why fans love "Breaking Bad" so much
- Aaron Paul celebrated his 40th birthday with a lavish 10-day celebration that included his 'Breaking Bad' costar Bryan Cranston
- 17 surprising things you never knew about 'Breaking Bad'
