Breaking Bad reunion: The cast shot and portraits you need to see

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Breaking Bad reunion photos

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Dan Winters for EW

Isn't it time you let a few Bad people back into your life? To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the gripping drug drama's premiere, the cast of Breaking Bad reunited in 2018 for EW. Creator Vince Gilligan and the show's stars revisit the revolutionary series in the story, but right here, you can scroll through this exclusive portrait gallery of the actors from our shoot and read what each of them had to reveal about playing these beloved characters.

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Bryan Cranston (Walter White)

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Dan Winters for EW

"It was the best script I'd ever read, but nowhere in the pilot's script does it say where that journey is going to go or how far it's going to go," says Bryan Cranston. "Is he just going to dabble in it for a little bit and then get out or what? And when [creator Vince Gilligan] told me he wanted to change this character from good to bad, completely, we realize that this has never happened before. So what Vince Gilligan did was change the construct of what was possible in series television. He changed it. It was all about stasis before. Whether you're Thomas Magnum or Archie Bunker or Ross and Rachel, you are those people—or Tony Soprano—you are those people and you are reacting to different stimuli. But this is completely different. And he gave every one of us our own individuality."

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Aaron Paul (Jesse Pinkman)

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Dan Winters for EW

"We were all so fortunate to be able to play characters in the show where it wasn't just a one color, one tone, throughout the entire series," says Aaron Paul. "We all had these beautifully complex arcs that we didn't know where our characters were heading. And Jesse, I really love this kid so much, but when I first read the script, I had no idea where he was going. I mean, he was supposed to die at the end of the first season. Vince didn't know where he was going, the writers didn't know where he was going. But where they took him was just such a brutal struggle—this journey that he went on, that we all went on—it was incredible."

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Anna Gunn (Skyler White)

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Dan Winters for EW

"Vince wanted her always to be such a strong person, somebody who didn't fall apart and who didn't wallow in self-pity but really always took charge," says Anna Gunn. "That was always really fascinating about her. That a mind as brilliant as [Walt's] mind was, her mind was as brilliant in her own way. She was always trying to figure out, 'Okay, this is the situation, this is the challenge. Now what do we do? How do we go into action?'"

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Bob Odenkirk (Saul Goodman)

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Dan Winters for EW

"The story is still going on for me," says Bob Odenkirk, who stars in prequel Better Call Saul. "But there's a pretty big leap there, between the Saul in Breaking Bad and the Jimmy McGill-Saul of Better Call Saul. It was a blast and a challenge to play Saul in Breaking Bad. It was a very energized character.... It was also a challenge to get in a room with these actors, on this level. I was used to being around clowns. Children playing with mud pies. And then I'm suddenly in this top-notch [show], surrounded by these people.... You only saw one dimension of him, pretty much, in Breaking Bad, so this show was a setup. And then this has been a massive journey, where I can relate to the many sides that they brought to this character, in this second show."

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Dean Norris (Hank Schrader)

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Dan Winters for EW

"One of the most interesting things for me was the fact that he went from a comic, kind of buffoonish character—which was really fun to play—to somewhere in the third season, becoming a much more tragic character," says Dean Norris. "It's rare that you get to do that kind of an arc anywhere, to be honest with you. I think I might have asked Vince at some point, 'Do I need to audition again for this?' Because it's a totally different kind of character."

07 of 15

Betsy Brandt (Marie Schrader)

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Dan Winters for EW

"I had never played a character that long before, and that right in itself is a gift, as an actor to be able to take a journey like that," says Betsy Brandt. "We read the pilot and I said to my husband, 'This is the best pilot that I've ever read.' I love Marie—to this day, I love her, and I'm so thankful for the wonderful things about her and I'm so thankful for all her faults too because it was just ridiculously fun to play…. Someone asked me—because it's been 10 years since it premiered—what I miss most. And, hands down, it's the people. To get to make this kind of show with this group of people—I mean, it just doesn't get any better than that."

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Giancarlo Esposito (Gustavo Fring)

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Dan Winters for EW

"Bryan Cranston has been quoted as saying [about] me, 'I don't know how the guy does it, but he scares me because all of a sudden he turns around and he turns back and his eyes are dead,'" says Giancarlo Esposito. "I just used to look right through Bryan and he would just go, 'Where, where does that come from, that cold and cruel look?' It's something that gets developed and I know how to drop to get there, but it's always in that place where we leave ourselves behind as actors and we take on the trappings and the physicality of the character that we've created that's become a part of us."

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Jonathan Banks (Mike Ehrmantraut)

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Dan Winters for EW

"He's a hardass whose real downfall is his softness," says Jonathan Banks. "There's a side of him that's good that eventually destroys him. Whether he acts on it or not, he has a sympathy for the underdog, for the vulnerable. Mike is the guy, even to his physical harm, that would step in and protect somebody being bullied."

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RJ Mitte (Walter White Jr.)

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Dan Winters for EW

"I felt I could really relate to Walt Jr. in many ways with the family situation and what was going on in my life," says RJ Mitte. "It was really nice having a disabled character on television. Since Breaking Bad, I've been able to work with numerous charitable organizations and SAG-AFTRA's Diversity Division. And it really helped open the door for a lot of people in the disability community with equal-opportunity employment, in how Walt Jr. was represented as a character, and not a disabled character. And it was one of those surreal experiences."

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Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad creator)

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Dan Winters for EW

"Being a student of television, I realized that in most television shows, the characters maintained their characteristics throughout the life of the series. They didn't really change," says Gilligan. "I was very desirous of creating a show where the main character changed. I didn't necessarily think of it in terms of being groundbreaking. I mainly worried that because it was a different take on the structure of a television show that that would be a ding against it and that it would make it harder to get made."

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Cranston (Walter White)

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Dan Winters for EW
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Paul (Jesse Pinkman)

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Dan Winters for EW
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Odenkirk (Saul Goodman)

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Dan Winters for EW
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EW's Breaking Bad reunion cover

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Dan Winters for EW

"It was as if no time had passed whatsoever," raves Paul. "I knew I would laugh, and I knew would cry," shares Brandt. For much more on the Breaking Bad reunion that graces the cover of this issue of EW, tread not-so-lightly over here.

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