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It is common knowledge at this point that Vince Gilligan’sBreaking Badis one of the greatest shows of all time. The series is perfect in every way; every plot device, regardless of how insignificant, has someplace in the puzzle. While some could get lost in the details, it even manages to take a step back and look at the bigger picture, mastering everything from action sequences to characters, cinematography, and dialogue.
Considering how excellent the series is, one cannot help but wonder what made Gilligan create the series. During an interview, the director spoke on this very subject, revealing what inspired him to make a series about a part-time high school teacher and a full-time drug lord.
Life Imitates Art
The entirety ofBreaking Badcan be narrowed down to one single moment. While the rest of the series has multiple driving factors, the main focal point of its story is a moment of desperation. A high school teacher comes face to face with his mortality and realizes how he has wasted his life. Resorting to outlandish means to deal with this fact, he lost all that he cared for as well as his family.
It would seem that Walter White’s creator was in a similar headspace when he was creating the series. During an interview withTV Guide, Vince Gilligan talked about what made him want to create the series and the similarities are uncanny. The director revealed that he had been unemployed for many years before he wrote the pilot.
What inspired the pilot was a certain amount of desperation on my part. I had been without work for a couple of years when the idea for the pilot hit me,
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The only difference was that where White lost it all due to his moment of desperation, Gilligan built his career on it.
Vince Gilligan’s Mid-Life Crises Changed His Life
Vince Gilliganfurther elaborated on what exactly motivated him to writeBreaking Bad.It would seem that a few years of unemployment wasn’t the only reason why the director and screenwriter were pushed to write a masterpiece. He revealed that he has also had a mid-life crisis.
With this in mind, Gilligan began to shape the character of Walter White, who was having a mid-life crisis of his own. The similarities between their stories are also quite interesting, with both reaching a significant milestone when it comes to their ages. Gilligan revealed that he was approaching his 40th birthday when he began to write the series, and White turned 50 years old in the first season.
I was about to turn 40 years old, and I was thinking a lot about midlife crises, and was about to embark upon one myself. … Of course, Walter White is having the world’s worst midlife crisis, which in fact turns out to be an end-of-life crisis.
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With the director mentioning that he was going to embark on a mid-life crisis himself, it is interesting to think that he lived vicariously through White’s character. Rather than getting his own hands dirty and uprooting his life in a more realistic manner, he decided to pick up a pen and shape White into existence.
The similarities between the creator and the creation, specifically keeping in mind that Gilligan is very vocal about hating Walter White, only add to the intrigue of the series.
Breaking Badis available for streaming on Netflix.
Ananya Godboley
Senior Writer
Articles Published :2219
Ananya Godboley is a Senior Entertainment Writer at FandomWire, majorly focusing on TV shows, with over 2,000 articles published. She has been an entertainment journalist for the past two years. Currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in psychology from K.R. Mangalam University, Ananya also likes to fangirl as a full-time job. She covers news and analyses on anything from Rick and Morty to Hannibal and even Arcane. In between these lines, she also enjoys superheroes and Taylor Swift.A philosophy enthusiast, Ananya enjoys digging deeper into the media she consumes, trying to understand the root of her favorite characters' behavior.
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Breaking BadVince Gilligan
