Who Bryan Cranston Almost Became A Real-Life Murder Suspect Years Before Playing Walter White in Breaking Bad
Summary
- Bryan Cranston reveals shocking real-life incident where he and his brother were murder suspects, mirroring his iconic role on
Breaking Bad
. - Cranston narrowly avoids arrest as evidence clears him and his brother in the robbery of a cantankerous chef who mistreated them.
- After portraying the infamous Walter White, Cranston is ready to retire the character and believes everything should have a natural end.
Bryan Cranston has often found himself on the wrong side of the law through his roles in hit shows including Breaking Bad and Your Honor, but he was once a murder suspect in real life many years before he took on the guise of Walter White.
Cranston appeared on the Dinner’s on Me podcast with Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and was encouraged to talk about the incident that he originally revealed to the world as part of his 2016 memoir. Telling the story as it happened, Cranston began by explaining that during the ‘70s, he and his brother used to travel around the country on motorcycles, and when they ran out of money while in Daytona, Florida, the pair started working for “a cantankerous chef named Peter Wong, who just hated everyone.”
After spending time with other staff members chatting about how they would potentially get rid of their obnoxious boss, Cranston said:
“Some would say, ‘I think I would use his own wok on him,’ ‘I’d put him in the meat grinder’ — we’d laugh about all of these.”
However, as the Cranstons moved on from Daytona, it just happened that Wong actually did find himself in the trunk of a car after being struck over the head and robbed. This led to the brothers almost becoming wanted men. Cranston continued:
“Little did we know they put out an APB on us to find us. We were somewhere in the Carolinas, I think, at that point. We were just tooling along, I can just imagine, if someone really pulled us over and down on the ground with guns blazing! But before that came to happen, they put together the pieces and realized that they had witnesses and cameras at the dog track, saw what was going on, and made an arrest. But we were this close!”
As he noted, the truth of the matter was that the chef had been flashing cash at a local dog track and attracted the attention of the wrong person. While it all worked out well for Cranston – if not so much for Wong – it also strangely could have been a moment from his most iconic TV role.
Bryan Cranston is Done Playing Walter White
Although he has returned to his role of teacher-turned-drug lord Walter White a few times in the Breaking Bad universe, Cranston recently suggested that the time is now right for him to put the character to rest for good. When addressing the chance of more Breaking Bad spin-offs, the actor told Entertainment Tonight:
Everything should come to an end. Everything’s cyclical. Our lives are cyclical. The seasons, trees, everything. And, so, it’s okay to have a beginning, middle, and end, and then let it go. I’m proud of what we did.
Breaking Bad’s Vince Gilligan Reveals the ‘Dumbest’ Decision He Made When Crafting the Finale
The Breaking Bad creator recalls the ingredient that left him freaking out during the final season.
While the end of Better Call Saul seemed to bring an end to the expanded universe of Breaking Bad,Vince Gilligan has spoken of the possibility of other prequel shows coming along in the future. For now, though, he seems content to leave things where they are, and let the franchise rest for a while before considering any further ventures into that world.
Currently, Bryan Cranston appears as part of the ensemble cast of
Argylle
, playing in theaters now.
