Vince Gilligan On How Walter White's True Character Revealed Itself | Fireside Chat | Breaking Bad
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- Опубликовано: 4 мар 2018
- Was Walter White a good person? Vince Gilligan talks about the evolution of Walt becoming Heisenberg over time.
Breaking Bad Creator Vince Gilligan sits for a signature RUclips Fireside Chat At RUclips Space LA with Comedian, Host, and Nerdist founder/CEO Chris Hardwick to discuss Breaking Bad’s 10th anniversary. Vince revisits pivotal moments in the history of Breaking Bad, both in front of and behind the camera, adding new insight and detail to the experience of making the show while also sharing his perspectives on storytelling gleaned throughout his career.
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The way I always saw it, Walt wasn’t secretly a brutal drug lord the whole time, but from the beginning of the series he had that tiny seed of pride in him. Maybe at one point, during the business with gray matter and his engagement to Gretchen it was grown a bit more, but through whatever events in his life since then, that pride had been beaten down and retreated into the recesses of his character. And then just that tiny seed just slowly grows and grows as the show goes on until it envelopes him. That’s what both BB and BCS are about to me. The protagonist starts off as a completely normal person with a normal set of flaws in their character sheet same as every other imperfect human. But there’s just one flaw, one trait, that they give into a few too many times and it begins to spread throughout who they are and change them like a sickness.
Well said, it just bothers me when people just view a narcissistic psychopath all along. They don't see the complexity of the character.
@@andrew1699 Exactly. They place the principle of "hindsight is 20/20" which is an adage which may often be true in reality, but not in fictional characters. There has to be a compelling plot arc and even sub arcs within the main arc to make it good. Both BB and BCS have these attributes, which is what made them so interesting to watch for me.
I agree, 100% 👏🏻
Bcs and bb are all about character development. That’s why there is that “that is the moment walter white became heisemberg” meme. People kept trying to find a single point of the story where his personality simply changed, but that wouldn’t exist. It was small, but constant decisions and changes that led walter white and jimmy mcgill to the ending they eventually got.
He wasn’t a brutal drug lord lol
As Brian said himself, Walter doesn't know who he is. He wants both to be seen as morally upstanding as Walter White but also feared, respected and valued as Heisenberg.
In his mind he's a good person who is "forced" to do evil things for the reasons he thinks are noble and righteous. He's more of an example of anti-villain than anti-hero.
@@stairwaytoheaven8In season five he kinds of just owns being a villain though
Heisenberg was born when he successfully "negotiated" with Tuco. You could see the thrill and power he feels on his face when he returns to his car. This was where the addiction for power started. He immediately feels pride and feels himself by getting down to business with Skyler soon after. He feeds off creating a one of a kind product, deceiving others, having control, and outplaying his competition or anyone that stands in his way.
I was on Walt’s side from the beginning to the end. It wasn’t until I watched it a second time that I realized that he became a terrible person. That’s how good the writing is. Like a cult member I just needed him to succeed.
I hated him from the beginning and was sided with hank
@@Xavier28200 every person Walt killed was just to spite you as the viewer
same and also watching it for the second time made me realise how bad he actually was from beginning on...
im with walt,but when he start angry at Jesse because jesse not collect enough drug money (season 2 i believe) i start questioning him. Walt rarely take it easy on Jesse. in season 5 when Jesse refused to join walt cooking. walt mocking Jesse. that when im start to hate Walter.
The cult of Walt White. The first requirement is that you shave your head.
Or maybe that's the cult of Vince Gilligan. Because he seems to Love bald characters....
Walter White is most people. Most people have seeds of resentment inside them and with the right environmental factors, they’ll become monsters.
I agree
Oh no, I was also wrong!
I disagree
No, you were actually right. I was the one that was wrong
@@dswani5372 Oh no, it was me. You were right all along. I was the one who was mistaken.
No one's wrong nor right we're just hungry
Excellent point.
I always felt the “I am awake” line made this question pretty clear. Episode 1 is the beginning of the transition into some perceived “untapped potential” of himself, which is also why he takes Jesse on as a ward-which ultimately leads to his pride and ego that he has decided to embrace destroying him and all around him in the end.
Walt's scene in El Camino kind of corroborates this.
He had potential. Unfortunately, he wasted it at school when he was healthy. So, he had to use illegal ways to tap the potential.
The capacity for evil and monstrous behavior is within all of us. Walter White makes a series of decisions that cultivates and magnifies those capabilities. Coupled with his immense intellect and resourcefulness, he finds great success while acting like a monster, which only encourages him further.
He's not a monster at the beginning, but he could be, and as he continues to "get away with it," he slowly transforms (or realizes his potential to be) something horrendous. Lots of people go down that path, but few manage to make it as far as Walter does.
I read a book once that explored the premise that evil is caused by someone's individual self-image being too far out of line with who they appear to be to everyone else. They are constantly confronted by reactions and evidence that the person can't reconcile with who they think they are and that frustration leads to evil behaviours. Whilst the whole idea that something as complex as evil can be boiled down to a single explanation is almost certainly nonsense, I suspect this is one pathway to evil, and it's certainly consistent with how Walt got there.
And it happens in the real world, too - with apologies for getting political I'd say it's pretty easy to put a case together that this applies to Donald Trump and Boris Johnson (if you want balance, I'd say it's probably also possible to build a similar case that would apply to Bill Clinton and Tony Blair).
@@chrispalmer7893 what’s the name of the book, please?
Inside of you are 2 wolves.
I agree!
I hate the idea that Walt was always bad and that his family was never part of his motivation. It removed any and all complexity from the character. Him genuinely starting out with good intentions to provide for his family (whilst also doing kinda doing it for his ego to prove that he could provide for them in his way) and slowly transforming into a ruthless drug lord desperately clinging on to/believing the family excuse makes it a far better watch
I had the same thought.
He can be both. He thinks of it as wanting to provide for his family, but his ego prevents him from seeing or acting on more mature and responsible solutions to his (often self-inflicted) problems.
I don't think Gilligan is saying that Walt was always bad, so much as he always had badness in him. When he wrote the pilot, he envisioned it as a "good guy gone bad", but as the series went on he realised the character he was writing was darker than that, even if it took circumstances to really bring that dark side of him out to the fore.
To be fair he said it was his opinion and if you notice he kind of says it in a way more so like walt was always just egotistical
But it's up to interpretation
If that was the case he would have accepted Elliot’s offer but he did not
bro asked a question then just became the center of attention
Positivity and support to all involved!
Excellent point a AGREE 👍💯🙂
Oh no, I was wrong!
For me, I think everyone has the capacity to become monsters. You just need to put them in the right circumstances.
Same
One bad day is all it takes lol
Ordinary Men
He was a person with great intellectual potential who didn’t achieve a lot and others used his research making fame and fortune and that drove him become what he later became
in addition to that people often underestimated (professionally and later in the underworld) and underappreciated him (family life with wife)..cancer played a factor in that too and propelled things much faster
He wasn't used. He was way too prideful. He willingly sold his share and ghosted Gretchen just because she came from a rich background. He wanted to earn his money, not marry into it. In the end Walt just wanted to call something his and his alone
There is no evidence of his great intellectual potential.
@@redrick8900sure, Walt is dumb
Walter always had enormous ego. He had to be the smartest person in the room. When he realized he wasn’t the smartest at Gray Matter, he left. He took a job as high school chemistry teacher, something he was way too qualified for, because he knew he’d always be the smartest person in the classroom. He got along with Gale, lots of the same interests, pure love of the science of the cook, but Gale was just as intelligent as Walt, if not smarter. So Gale had to go.
If Gale was smarter than Walt, he wouldn't have died.
@@redrick8900 Better way to put it is that Gale was more intelligent but Walt had cunning.
He left Grey matter actually because grechen was rich and he felt imasculated by that and it made him seen like he was just the chemist under her shadow
According to vince
@@somedorkydude6483exactly the original comment is clearly of lower iq because he came up with a statement that couldn’t be more wrong
@@somedorkydude6483 it's hinted at, when they had that sit down at that fancy dinner. The fact that they broke up after "Newport" and how he went straight to the rich girl insult.
‘Reverse purge’
Can you only imagine… Maybe one day tho
That was hilarious. XD
excellent point
basically what people think Canada is like
That's called "Christmas".
All of this... Under our noses! ❤️
This is great !
He was resentful that he almost had something incredible and let it go. He was dying for the opportunity to put that right, even while he was too depressed to act on it. That's my take anyway.
Well said. Love you all and hope life treats you, and those you care about, well.
I was wrong
Excellent point, I agree!
excellent point
Viewing Walter White as a psychopath all along just removes completixity of the character. Sadly, so many people especially the reddit users see that way, which downgrades the show by a lot. How i view it is that It's a show about a decent (not saint) middle age man breaks bad under environment inputs and his flaws in personality.
couldn't have said it better myself
I don't think a lot of people say he was a psychopath. He was an insecure, prideful, frustrated, regretful, envious narcissist, that is kind and considerate as a member of society. The cancer unshackles him from the societal moral impediments, while he justifies himself with a good cause that ends up being just an afterthought.
Putting the blame on the enviroment actually makes him ten times less complex, as "decent guy turned bad by the conditions around him" just takes all the blame away from him. As far as i can see, the only external trigger is the cancer that makes him a dead man walking and puts the focus on those feelings he no longer has any reason to bottle up.
Gus Fring was a sociopath, Walter was a narcissist, and Todd was just insane.
I don't think "psycopath" and "complex" are mutually exclusive concepts though. You can identify traits he had early on as indicative of a psychopath and still view him as a multi-layered character.
@@Gabo2oo He is not psychopath at the beginning that's my point. But he has the seeds of Heisenberg. He has flaws like all human beings do, which is far from a psychopath. This show is about breaking bad. A average middle age man turns evil.
We did it boys.
Oh no, I’m the asshole!
Imo I think years of not feeling like he had control of his life and feeling so much pain of regret and especially with the Cancer diagnosis just made him implode and changed him forever. And whatever darkness there was in him took over. It just seemed like life kept on hurting him more and more then he went nuts.
Bravo Vince
To be fair, we ALL are capable of becoming a monster.
The key point here is whether we are also capable of taming our dark side.
I think the core of who Walter White is not so much his story but his anchor as an outline is fascinating the fact that Vince conceived this character personified as ‘starting the series as Mr Chips and ending it as Scarface’ to me is brilliant and a true testament to Gillian as both a writer and creator
Reverse purge would be Pay It Forward.
Walter was a good guy who embraced his bad side, Jesse was a bad guy who realized he wasn’t such a bad person after all
It all goes to show, unassuming people can make abhorrent decisions when cornered
They don’t even have to be cornered, just enabled
Is this a recent clip/interview?
I believe so. It's officially been 10 years since the show originally aired in 2008, so there's a bit of fuss over it again.
not anymore
My interpretation of breaking bad is that its a story about walt learning to accept who he is.
Walt always kept lying to everybody including himself he needed to prove to himself he could of done it all himself or that it was actuslly selfless. The reason he changed so much is because he couldnt accept his need for greatness. Walt felt disgusted when he killed krazy 8 somebody who was despicable and manipulated walt. But his last kill lydia he was cold. It shows he did change but the pride and ego kind of showed he always had it in him to change for the worst. Walt only did it for the family when he accepted that he did it for himself.
Ur telling me this is truly the moment Walter white became Heisenberg?
I like it, this is good!
'He could lie better than anyone else'. What? Walter was the most obvious and pathetic liar ever.
Sometimes yeah but he was convincing in making watchers (can’t speak for them all) think it was Gus who poisoned Brock.
So... There were both things! His own personality/trauma, and the enviroment!!
Like in psychology!!!
Ofc this fly over the fanboys head, ofc cheating a criminal husband it's worse than making everyones life arround you a living hell
Walter is clearly a bad person, but he is also the character we relate to as the audience. Skylar is not a bad person per se but she isn't as relatable and, maybe because of the writing, she is perceived in a bad light. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, she just isn't the protagonist. In Desperate Housewives, on of the ladies starts of the show being unfaithful to her husband but she doesn't find herself being hated by the audience because the show is written from her point of view. That's just the nature of the medium.
@@thomasfevre9515 What kind of psycho relates with Walt?
@@redrick8900 most people who watch the show apparently, to the point some think Walt is actually pretty cool.
@@thomasfevre9515 This show draws a lot of ignorant psychopaths. The same idiots think Gus is good at being a crime boss.
I have a question if someone can answer me because i don’t find any answers on internet, what happened between Walt and Gretchen/Elliot when they founded Grey Matter, why did Walt leave ? In the show he said for personal reason but it’s never clear about why he did that
walt and gretchen talk in season one or two, and she reveals they were engaged and walt left her
@@m4zzystar yeah we understand that he was with her, but still that’s not the real reason why he left grey matter, he could just left her and still working
he felt insecure because Gretchen was from a rich family
Right, Walt had some complex over Gretchen's family's money. We see throughout the show that Walt always wants to be the one bringing money into the house, he never wants it to be Skyler--that would have extended to Gretchen, too. So Walt leaves Gretchen for a stupid reason, which implies that they weren't going to be able to continue running a start-up together. That part is just implicit, but I think it's pretty reasonable to say that would be the reason--creating a brand new business with your ex, who you dumped for no good reason is just gonna be pain. So Walter took the money and went off on his own.
@@EncryptedLibertyif only he didnt have such ego, before et after breaking bad events, his life would be so different 😣
This is what makes Walt so compelling. Had the circumstances been different, it’s unlikely that Heisenberg would have ever fully revealed himself. He would have gone on being a chemistry teacher. A bit pompous and still somewhat self loathing, but mostly functional.
they litterally spent a quarter of the vid talking about toxic comments and theres non to be seen lmao
I once commented that Walt rarely cared about Jessie if at all and got hundreds of hate comments disagreeing which just goes to show how well the show wrote the downfall of WW
When you look at Walter White, I see a man who strangles himself and those around him. Most intellectually gifted people destroy the benefits of their own gift. Walter created a whole world where the existence of himself became less important. Even in the drug trade, Mike said it best 'You and your ego...." . The benefits of intelligence is to help others. Walter is the person who should get, ask and want help. I've watched the show a million and sometimes foolishly think 'why doesn't this guy try something else?'
interesting
Walt had a pretty huge ego problem, but Mike’s speech was bs.
And people still argue and look up to Walter White as a character.
Yes. Simply because Vince.Was.Wrong. Simple as that.
Dude, it’s all subjective. Why are y’all so fascinatied with hating the MC? 🤡
@@KartovOndulevitch Lol. I guess Walter being Okay to work with Neo Nazis wasn’t obvious enough for you guys.
@@christhefiend No? You thinking Walter is a person to look up to, is a literal misreading of Breaking Bad. Dude literally worked with Neo Nazis and killed Mike because he was a greedy fuck.
@@PiratesRock No one looks up to him dude, we just don’t hate him & appreciate his character. 🤣🤡
Here is the way i see it.
We dont really know what walter’s life between the age of ____ to his rather awkward 50th birthday but there are certainly a few clues ….. we know that they move into the house when he is about 34ish and that’s roughly when he started teaching at the high school. But we also know he wasnt teaching when he met skyler but working in some lab…… So we can track a downward spiral where he has been tracked OUT of the scientific community and is peering in from the outside. We see the reaction when he has to tell people at his former friend’s birthday that he is not a college professor but a high school teacher.
This leads me to conclude that his Heisenberg personality existed BEFORE but had been suppressed under a blanket of responsibility
Breaking bad did CREATE Heisenberg , its released it from the lamp
Totally disagree Vince!
So, why did Walter let Jesse live when Jesse could be threat to Walt´s family?
The White familiar was being watched 24/7. If Jesse got anywhere near them, he’d be caught within a few minutes.. just a theory
I was pretty much fully on his side until he run over the drug dealers. I didn’t hate him but at that point i realized he wasn’t as calculating as I thought he was. (as gus put it, not a cautious man at all) Walt lost me completely when he poisoned Brock. I don’t care how you try to spin it, in no way was that okay.
Right, but could this not be said about any human being? There are very few people who wouldn’t become “evil” give the right chain of events and the right circumstances. That untapped evil is there somewhere within all of us, but most people are doing their best. I don’t understand the moral preening of modern society. Why is it so difficult to have compassion? Would that undermine your own sense of moral superiority?
I don think the guy on the right knows what he’s talking about
I disagree with everything in this video.
Genesis 4:7
7 If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
I thought Walt was a good person but a writer made him bad
thumbs down -- the interviewer thinks this stage is his own stand-up special, overshadowing Gillian
Walter White did nothing wrong
I still believe that Walt was a good person that became bad. His problem was that he had issues with feeling like he was allowed to be ambitious when he was young and into adulthood. I feel like his family life was not good growing up and his parents were not good role models (from what we learn of them through his POV reflections in the show).
On the other hand he was extremely talented intellectually. When he was given a death sentence he found a way to allow himself to be ambitious, to give money to his family on the way out. But once his meth product became recognized as superior; first from Jesse in the beginning, he became addicted to that feeling of validation. That he was talented, deserved recognition, and all within a situation that presented opportunities to be more and more ambitious (climb the status hierarchy of the drug world).
When people see Walt becoming more and more monstrous throughout the show, people like Chris Hardwick wonder if that monster had always been there. I don't think it was a monster that was in Walter naturally, like someone who is a psychopath and has a screwed up brain. I think he became a monster and escalated his crimes; in order to maintain the drug like euphoria of being high status in the drug world. That if "Walter White" would never be recognized as a force to be reckoned with, at least "Heisenberg" would
People still think Walt is heisenburg… over,time I believe he developed personality disorder and his Walt personality is revealed again at near the end where he talks to Walter jr but heisenburg won even when he lsot
His pride got the best of him and ruined everyone’s life especially the ppl that love him his pride and who destroyed everything
@@praesidium4278 that’s not how personality disorder works
@@Michael-McCollum It definitely can work like that under circumstances
I was wrong