Written Interview: Vince Gilligan
Today’s interview is with screenwriter and TV writer Vince Gilligan. His feature film credits include Wilder Napalm (1993), Home Fries (1998), and Hancock (2008), and his TV credits include “The Lone Gunmen” (13 episodes, 2001) , “The X Files” (30 episodes, 1995–2002) , and “Breaking Bad” (33 episodes, 2008–2010) , the AMC series which Gilligan created.
The interview is located at WGA. org. Here are some excerpts:
The Emmy-winning AMC drama Breaking Bad is the kind of show pitch that, if you thought about it too long, or really at all, you might just decide to abandon even trying. A nice-guy-schlub chemistry teacher becomes a meth cooking drug dealer after a terminal diagnosis doesn’t scream hit show…
But creator Vince Gilligan, a veteran of the X-Files, didn’t give himself a chance to think about that. He just followed his own fascination with his lead character, Walter White, played with tighty-whitey-ed bravura by Bryan Cranston. And even after getting rejected by nearly every network in town, he couldn’t let it go.
Eventually, as with a much more saleable Hollywood plot, his creative courage paid off. The show not only sold but has become a hit, one critically lauded as exactly the kind of programming that reproves the power of original television.
Did you know when you had the idea for this show that it was a big one, or was it like others?
I’ll give you a little lead up to it. About five or six years ago I was talking to a buddy of mine, Tom Schnauz, who I attended NYU film school with. He and I and been on the X-Files as writers up until 2002. So this was probably three years after that show had ended. Pickings were slim. Both of us had tried to pitch various movie ideas around town without much success. Both of us had been unemployed for a while, and we were wondering what to do next. Either he or I joked about putting a crystal meth lab in the back of an RV and driving around the country cooking meth and making money. As we were talking, the idea for this character just kind of popped into my head. It was that proverbial lightning strike. It felt unusual because that doesn’t happen for me. My ideas tend to come in much smaller pieces, and it’s more work pulling it out and turning it into something usable.
I had this full-fledged character, this good, law-abiding man who suddenly decides to become a criminal. I was so intrigued by the character that I didn’t really give much thought to how well it would sell, which is good because Breaking Bad is such an odd, dark story, it’s not easily sold. If I’d spent too much time thinking about how tough it was going to be to sell, I might have psyched myself out of even trying.
It’s ironic that this show came out of a bitch session about the TV business because what came out of it is the kind of fresh, unique storytelling TV can do at its best. Is that like the power of negative thinking or the Secret in reverse?
I’d love to say I have a secret, but I don’t. The only secret is to just keep swinging and not give up. It’s ironic and amusing to me that Breaking Bad came out of a bitch session, as you say. That magic idea can come at anytime. Sometimes you know it right away and other times you don’t know it until later. It happened to come for me in the middle of a gripe-fest about my lack of employment.
It could have come at a high point or a low point. The secret is to just remain open to new ideas and not give up when they get turned down. Breaking Bad was turned down all over town before AMC finally bought it. That is not, as we all know, a remotely unusual story.
The entire interview may be found here.
Dan Halsted emailed me some dialogue from “Breaking Bad,” very definitely worth posting:
What does a man do, Walt?
A man provides for his family
And a man, a man provides
even when he is not appreciated
or respected
or even loved.
He simply bears up
and he does it
because he is a man.
Good stuff. Any “Breaking Bad” fans out there?
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