Walter Hartwell White Sr., also known by his alias Heisenberg, is the fictional antihero[a] turned villain protagonist of the American crime drama television series Breaking Bad, portrayed by Bryan Cranston.
White is a skilled chemist who co-founded a technology firm before he accepted a buy-out from his partners. While his partners became wealthy, Walter became a high school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, barely making ends meet with his family: his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) and son Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte). At the start of the series, the day after his 50th birthday, White is diagnosed with Stage III lung cancer. After this discovery, White decides to manufacture and sell methamphetamine with a former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), to ensure his family’s financial security after his death. Due to his expertise, White’s “blue meth” is purer than any other on the market, and he is pulled deeper into the illicit drug trade.
White becomes increasingly ruthless and unsympathetic as the series progresses, as series creator Vince Gilligan wanted him to turn from “Mr. Chips into Scarface”. He adopts the alias “Heisenberg”, which becomes recognizable as a kingpin figure in the Southwestern drug trade. White struggles with managing his family while hiding his involvement in the drug business from his brother-in-law, DEA agent Hank Schrader (Dean Norris). Although AMC officials initially hesitated to cast Cranston due to his previous comedic role on Malcolm in the Middle, Gilligan cast him based on the actor’s past performance in The X-Files episode “Drive”, which Gilligan wrote. Cranston contributed greatly to the creation of his character, including White’s backstory, personality, and physical appearance.
Both the character and Cranston’s performance have received critical acclaim, with Walter White frequently being mentioned as one of the greatest and most iconic television characters of all time. Cranston won four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, three of them being consecutive. He is the first man to win a Critics’ Choice, Golden Globe, Primetime Emmy, and Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance. Cranston reprised the role of Walt in a flashback for Breaking Bad’s sequel film El Camino, and again in the sixth and final season of the prequel series Better Call Saul, making him one of the few characters to appear in all three, alongside Jesse Pinkman, Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), Ed Galbraith (Robert Forster), and Austin Ramey (Todd Terry).
Inspired by Tony Soprano, Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan had wanted his lead character to be a protagonist that turned into an antagonist over the course of the show,[7] or as he described, turning Mr. Chips into Scarface.[8] In the aftermath of the death of James Gandolfini (who portrayed Soprano) in 2013, Gilligan said, “Without Tony Soprano, there would be no Walter White.”[9] Gilligan needed to have this character come into a midlife crisis that would put him into seeking risky options and lead to more criminal activities. As the premise of Breaking Bad was based on a humorous idea that he and his fellow writer from The X-Files, Thomas Schnauz had come up with of driving around in an RV making methamphetamine, Gilligan made White a chemistry teacher, one who, until the start of the show, would have never violated the law.[10]
Gilligan cast Bryan Cranston for the role of Walter White based on having worked with him in “Drive” from The X-Files, on which Gilligan worked as a writer. Cranston played an antisemite with a terminal illness who took Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) hostage. Gilligan said the character had to be simultaneously loathsome and sympathetic, and that “Bryan alone was the only actor who could do that, who could pull off that trick. And it is a trick. I have no idea how he does it.”[6][10] AMC officials were initially reluctant with the casting choice, having known Cranston only as the over-the-top character Hal on the comedy series Malcolm in the Middle and approached actors John Cusack and Matthew Broderick about the role.[11] When both actors declined, the executives were persuaded to cast Cranston after seeing the X-Files episode.[12]
Cranston contributed a great deal to the character’s persona. When Gilligan left much of Walter’s past unexplained during the development of the series, the actor wrote his own backstory for the character. At the start of the show, Cranston gained 10 pounds to presage the character’s gradual physical deterioration. He had the natural red highlights of his hair dyed brown. He collaborated with costume designer Kathleen Detoro on a wardrobe of mostly neutral green and brown colors to make the character bland and unremarkable, and worked with makeup artist Frieda Valenzuela to create a mustache he described as “impotent” and like a “dead caterpillar”.[13][14] Cranston also repeatedly identified elements in scripts where he disagreed with how the character was handled, and would go so far as to call Gilligan directly when he could not work out disagreements with the episode’s screenwriter(s). Cranston has said he was inspired partially by his father for how Walter carries himself physically, which he described as “a little hunched over, never erect, [as if] the weight of the world is on this man’s shoulders”.[10]
Gilligan has said it has been difficult to write for Walter White because the character is so dark and morally questionable.[10] As the series progressed, Gilligan and the writing staff of Breaking Bad made Walter increasingly unsympathetic.[15] Cranston said by the fourth season: “I think Walter’s figured out it’s better to be a pursuer than the pursued. He’s well on his way to badass.”[16] Regarding White’s fate in the series ending, Cranston foresaw it as “ugly [with no] redemption”,[17] although earlier, Gilligan divulged his plans to “end on a high note, in a way that will satisfy everyone”.[18]
