Bryan Cranston stars in the critically renowned criminal thriller Breaking Bad, yet Walter White pales in comparison to Hal in Malcolm in the Middle.
The 67-year-old American actor is most known for his role as drug lord Walter White, but before his time in a meth lab, he was the ultimate TV star in the tragically overlooked sitcom.
Malcolm in the Middle premiered in 2000 and featured the domestic escapades of a working-class family attempting to make ends meet, with Frankie Muniz as the title character.
Cranston, who plays a kind but delightfully bumbling father, was frequently asked to perform his own stunts, which ranged from rollerblading to donning a bee costume.
And it appears to have taken its toll on Cranston, who claimed on The Graham Norton Show that after doing things like painting himself blue or ingesting a disgusting raw protein concoction, he began to break down.
‘They started to think, “What can we write that he won’t do?” I was strapped on a moving bus, I had 60,000 stinging bees on me, and I did a thing where my character was covered from head to toe in blue paint.’
He continued, adding that sometimes the stunts were more dangerous than you’d think: ‘[It] wasn’t safe. I started to physically shut down, so they threw me in the shower. It was weird.’
Fans of the sitcom, which ran for seven seasons and generated over 150 episodes, have previously noticed that Cranston’s stunts became increasingly outrageous as the Breaking Bad actor continued to consent to them.
A viewer said: ‘The reason Hal’s antics got more extreme was because the crew tried to find something Cranston wasn’t willing to do himself, but he just accepted whatever they threw at him.’
In 2023, Bryan said that he would be open to a Malcolm in the Middle reunion at some time.
‘I love that show. To me, it was the comedic flip side to Breaking Bad because of the quality of the writing,’ he said.
‘[Malcolm in the Middle creator] Linwood Boomer is really considering it. And he said — just like [Breaking Bad creator] Vince Gilligan would say — if there was a great idea that everybody got excited about, he would really consider doing it.’
‘To be able to slip into Hal again, at this age, all those years ago, [would be] phenomenal…. I’m thrilled at the prospect of it,’ he told Entertainment Weekly.
Cranston will be joined on Graham Norton’s famed red sofa on Friday by Jessica Chastain from The Tree of Life, Daniel Kaluuya from Get Out, and comedian Kevin Bridges.
Graham Norton airs Friday on BBC One at 10.50pm