Shadowing Practice: Bryan Cranston on "Breaking Bad" - Learn English Speaking with Video
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On a clear day, how it will astound you.
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Mr. White!
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Hey!
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Hold it!
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Hold it steady!
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Now!
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Peace and good brotherhood
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Crystal blue persuasion
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Yeah The methylamine keeps flowing no matter what
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Crystal blue persuasion
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Ah -ah -ah -ah
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Hey, happy birthday!
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Crystal Blue persuasion
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Crystal Blue persuasion
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Crystal Blue persuasion
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Crystal Blue persuasion
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Crystal Blue persuasion
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How do you leave a role like
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Walter White behind?
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Kicking and screaming.
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It's been the role of my career.
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So to see it come to an end is satisfying in one sense that I think Vince Gilligan, the creator of the show,
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didn't have to dilute any of the storylines by going too long.
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You never want to see a show get the reaction like, Breaking Bad, is that still on the air?
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Yeah.
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You want people to say, I missed that show.
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And we did six seasons, 62 episodes all together.
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And I think they're concentrated and tightly woven and brilliantly written.
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When you sit down at that final episode, how'd that feel?
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There's a part of you that doesn't want to read it because there's a finality to it.
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You know, once you read that last one, you realize, oh, there's not going to be any more episodes to be written.
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And there's a bit of sadness to that.
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In 34 years that I've been doing this, coming together as an acting troupe and as a crew,
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working intimately together and passionately on a story,
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and then voluntarily trying to let go of that grip that you've become so fond of,
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and both the execution of the show and also the people
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and you have to just kind of let go and allow yourself to back off and seek other opportunities.
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And as accustomed to that practice as I am, it still affects you emotionally, and it should.
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It should.
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And so there'll be a lot of tears shed.
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Do you have to leave roles like
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Walt behind for a while for fear of somebody saying, oh, he's just reprising
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Walter White from Breaking Bad?
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I try not to be redundant on any of the characters I do.
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It's difficult.
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I did a show called Malcolm in the Middle for seven years.
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And when that was ending, I was offered two television shows that were very similar.
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They said, well, he's a goofy, fun -loving dad.
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And I said, I just did that for seven years.
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And so, no thank you.
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And it wasn't a temptation for me because I've never been in it for fame and recognition or money.
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My juice is the thrill and the empowerment
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that I get out of making people laugh or making people angry or scaring people or whatever the case may be.
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that's where I get my excitement from it.
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So it was easy for me to turn that down,
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and then all of a sudden coming across my plate is this odd show called Breaking Bad.
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And Vince Gilligan had said that it couldn't sound worse if you put it on paper and pitched it to someone,
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but it really came together for him.
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And one of the things that is interesting is
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that he knew you from this episode of The X -Files
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that you did where you played this character with this monster arc in one episode.
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Talk to me a little bit about that experience and how that led presumptively into working with Vince again.
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Well, I think that in order to have a successful career.. in this business, in the entertainment business, whether you're writing,
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directing, acting, or producing, or whatever the case may be.
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There are components that are necessary for that to come about.
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One is talent.
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You really do.
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You have to work hard and get educated and learn your craft and learn your business.
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Aside from that is personal development, patience, and perseverance.
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But there's also a component that is necessary that's kind of the wild card, and that's luck.
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You have to have a healthy dose of luck to become successful.
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That's just the way it is.
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You can't prepare for it, but you can be ready for it if it does come to you.
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I was very lucky to get that role on X -Files, simply because I was physically in the city where it was casting,
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and I was out of the city for three weeks prior, and I very could have easily not been in town
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and they just go on and someone else would have got the role and who knows where I would have been.
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I certainly, odds are very high that I wouldn't have gotten
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Breaking Bad had I not met Vince Gilligan before.
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So it's one of those things where you have to just do your work, do the best you can,
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and hope for the lucky breaks here and there.
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As you worked with Vince to create the character of Walter White over the first couple of seasons, I mean, did you kind of,
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did you know that you had it locked in at some point, or were there those days where you're thinking to yourself,
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I nailed it, and you look over and they're like, no, no, you didn't.
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Well, I don't think they would go, no, no. Yeah, right.
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Even if they felt that, it was like, what do we do?
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That's the joy of well -written material.
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It moves you immediately.
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When I read the pilot script of Breaking Bad,
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it conjures up thoughts and ideas and inspiration within an actor that moves you along involuntarily.
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I wake up from a dream and go, oh, you know, it would be great is if he had this
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and he weighed this much and his hair was kind of, and I'm writing notes the whole time.
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And then I pitch Vince on these ideas and he's going, oh, that's a great idea.
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And so you start keying off each other, and pretty soon you're developing together the look of the character,
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the tone of the character, the pace. And I wanted
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Walter to feel like the weight of the world, so his posture was kind of round -shouldered,
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and his head was kind of bowed for the weight of this tension and depression that he was carrying with him.
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Is he more upright now?
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He is more upright.
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And that's conscious.
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When he took on this persona of Heisenberg where he is this desperate desperado,
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his shoulders are back, his posture is much greater,
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because he felt more comfortable and more in control and powerful.
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And I think I just wanted to have that manifest in his stateliness this.
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Looks like you're about a thousand gallons light here, Mike.
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Where's the juice?
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Methylamine isn't coming.
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Why is that?
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Who the hell are you?
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I'm the man who's keeping it.
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It must be tremendously both challenging and fun for you to be able to play a character with this kind of arc.
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I mean, there were almost slapstick moments in your, in your tighty -whities in the pilot,
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and then, you know, to these really dark episodes at the beginning of this, of this last season.
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It's the role of my career, playing Walter White, and I will forever be grateful to Vince Gilligan for being my champion to get this role.
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There was some interest, concerns,
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I should say, about the goofy dad from Malcolm in the Middle transferring now and becoming
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Walter White, this mastermind chemist who creates this awful drug and puts it out in society.
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And who would want to watch this?
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It's crazy.
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And yet, if you see
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Breaking Bad, you realize that it's not about glorification of drug use or drug manufacturing.
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No one would, in their right mind, would want to trade places with Walter White.
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He is a troubled, troubled, despicable man now, and caught up in his own ego and hubris,
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and that's what happens.
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It's a story, it's a cautionary tale about poor decision -making and what could happen.
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The methylamine keeps flowing no matter what.
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We are not ramping down.
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We're just getting started.
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Nothing stops this train.
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Nothing.
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When you go to those really dark places, and this is a question you've had before,
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I'm sure, but are you just kind of making that up?
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Are you tapping into personal stuff?
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Do you want to keep a line between those two, that it's not just your life is on display?
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No,
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I mean, I think the success of an actor is being willing to go into those dark places and display them publicly.
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We have to have that kind of courage and vulnerability to do that.
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In high school, all the way through school, I remember trying to stay the same as everyone else.
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I didn't want to stand out.
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Oh, we're wearing that, and this is what everybody else is wearing.
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I kind of want to, I don't want to be isolated or ostracized, certainly.
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I don't want to be embarrassed or have someone point the finger at you.
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Look at that guy, you know.
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Oh no. What happens is that we think that if you are vulnerable and sensitive and open,
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that you'll be ridiculed.
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And, but as adults, when we mature, what we realize is that if you have the audacity to display those human,
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honest emotions, that the opposite is what happens.
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People embrace someone who is in trouble, someone who is vulnerable, someone who is frightened.
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They have a tendency to come forward and put their emotional arms around you.
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So once actors learn that,
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it's like, oh, oh, the finger pointing is only by the uneducated and the immature the ones who truly count,
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who ones who enjoy literature and well -crafted storytelling are anything but that.
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They're open and welcoming to that type of personality.
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I've read interviews with Aaron Paul where he just seems mystified at the fact that people still love
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Walt, despite, like, all these unbelievably awful things that he does.
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Is that sort of part of it?
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Well, my job is to be honest when I depict
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Walter White and not to judge him,
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but to justify his actions so that I can honestly play him when I step into his shoes.
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It's difficult because the sensibility of Brian looking at that is abhorrent behavior,
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and And yet, you realize that we as human beings are fully capable of a wide spectrum of emotions.
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I believe that if we chose the sweetest,
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meekest person, that person, given the right set of circumstances, can become dangerous.
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Any human being is potentially a dangerous person if the right buttons are pushed,
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if the conditions of that person's life are in such despair, it is humanly possible.
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Only you never told me that kid would wind up in the hospital.
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You know, take that thing and get the hell out of here.
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You and me, we're done.
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What are you...
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Come on.
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Hey.
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Hey.
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We're done when I say we're done.
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I believe that we are all living in a, in truthful, a gray area.
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It's not black and white like television shows of the past used to show us.
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It's all about the gray, shades of gray.
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I believe it's possible for a man, Walter White, to go out and to kill a rival of his and yet wash his hands,
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go home, and gently and lovingly pick up his baby daughter and caress her and love her as a father.
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We are capable of that, of those wide swings as human beings.
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It's frightening in a way.
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Is there some measure of the show's success in that that we're not asked to judge
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Walt or really any of the characters?
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It doesn't seem like Vince has put that forward and he's dwelt in that gray area that you were talking about.
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Yeah, and all the characters have...
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have touched upon some of that gray area.
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In fact, it's odd.
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When we put the hook in viewers early on in Breaking Bad, where we presented this man who was depressed from missed opportunities in his life,
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I think people can relate to that.
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You know, I missed the boat or I didn't do what I wanted to do
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when I was a kid and now I'm doing some job that I'm not really passionate about.
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But you make the best of it.
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You put your, you know, your best foot forward and you move forward.
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And that's what
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Walter White was doing.
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And even though depressed, he was, he took his responsibilities seriously.
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He has a special needs son who has, needs physical therapy that is not covered by medical insurance.
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So he requires
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Walter White to have a second job at a car wash, for instance.
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It also, you know, it highlights perhaps the need in this country for valued, basic health care.
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It also illustrates the talking points about how everyone respects and reveres the role of a teacher in our lives,
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but yet they're not always paid the same amount of actual money as they are in respect.
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Right.
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So there's social, political issues that have come out from the series, and I think valuable.
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You've directed a few episodes.
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You've directed for Malcolm in the Middle, too, right?
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What do you like about directing for TV, and do you want to move past that or add to that by doing filmmaking?
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I did a film that I wrote back 12 years or so ago, and I had a great time doing it.
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A tremendous amount of work.
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Much more work than my acting jobs have been.
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Because as an actor, and you're trained to do this, you're self -centered, and you should be.
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What does my character want?
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What does my character, who's in my character's way?
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How does my character get these things?
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You know, what does my character feel about something?
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And actors find themselves in trouble if they take that self -centered nature that is good and works well for their craft,
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if they take that out into their personal life.
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What do I want?
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Who's in my way?
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How do I?
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But as a director, you have to take on the mantle of all of the concerns of a production,
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not the least of which is each individual actor's points of view, their temperaments, how they approach a character, what motivates them.
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So I might say to you as an actor, come on, Matt, let's go.
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Let's pick it up.
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You're a little lazy this morning.
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Let's go.
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And you might go, he's right.
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I got to go.
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You know, it might be that rah -rah coach point of view.
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With someone else, I might say, are you OK?
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How are you feeling today?
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You know, I think we can go further with.
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I might be softer.
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I might be more calm.
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I always try to plant an idea that is suggestive so that instead of me telling the actor, I need you to be angrier,
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I want to get to the point of this guy just came on to your wife big time.
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How does that make you feel?
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And let you go.
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That would really upset.
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Well, okay, bring it out.
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Let it go.
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And it's like, whoa, whoa, okay. And it's fun.
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It's fun to do that.
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I also have been known to manipulate people because if I need an actor to show remorse,
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let's say, and they're not, they're fine about things.
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And it's like, oh, I'm just not I'm not I'm not giving the right direction for this actor to get it.
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I will then resort to manipulation.
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I'll go up to the actor and I go, Matt, the way you showed tremendous remorse was just fantastic.
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Keep that.
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That's working really well.
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And go off.
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And then I'd plant the seed in you like, oh, yeah, oh, good.
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I was glad.
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Yeah, I kind of felt that too.
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And then you may not know it, but in that next take, you will have some remorse just in there.
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Are there stories that you like to tell when you're directing?
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Are you attracted to a particular, you know, real strong characters or, or, um, I, I think, you know, again, I just,
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I rely heavily on the writing.
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It's all about that.
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I know for a fact that if something is well -written, whether it's a play or a television series or a movie,
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if something is well -written, it has the potential to being and becoming a good production.
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If something is not well written, it has no chance to be a good production.
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No chance.
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You might have explosions and things and pretty girls and all these things going on, but, you know, buzzes and whistles going off,
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but it's not going to be good.
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So, and what's good, as we spoke of before?
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It just has to please my sensibilities.
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It has to be in that high water mark.
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And for instance, Argo or Breaking Bad, the writing is so good that it hits that level.
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It's hard to find consistent writing at
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that level where the characters are well developed and the story is just terrific and compelling.
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But if you find it, it's a joy.
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So I don't want and I don't need any more work in my life.
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I don't need to work for a living.
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I've been very fortunate in this business.
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So I don't make financial considerations when I'm deciding on what to do.
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and that has guided me well.
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So I directed a Modern Family episode, and I'm going to go back and do another one because it's so well -written, and it's fun.
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It's fun to do, and they're good actors, and it's just a nice place to be.
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It's a nice environment.
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I did an episode of The Office last year, their final year in production, and just terrific people and good cast,
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And I want to be around that.
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I want to be around people in the arts who appreciate the gift that they've been given.
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I don't have, the older I get, the less tolerance I have for moaning and complaining.
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And I realize, you realize that you could actually be working for a living?
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Right.
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Be thankful that we are in this position.
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That high standard, do you think that that's why we see, you know, so many shows like
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Breaking Bad or something like
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The Wire that have this five,
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six season run, and that's really as far as the people who are running the show feel like they can push it.
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Personally, I felt that
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Breaking Bad could probably go another season of 13 episodes and see where it takes Walt.
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But Vince Gilligan didn't think so, and that's far more important than my opinion on it.
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And I didn't want, and I'm glad that Vince is ending it where he wants to end it,
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because now I don't feel that it's been watered down.
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It hasn't been diluted.
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We haven't been redundant in the stories.
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And we're ending it at the right time, and I think that's a good thing um it's
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and the great thing about a film should be as long as it needs to be to tell
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that story thoroughly and so too is a television series
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or a play or a book you know
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and that's the the writer's constant worry and we agonize
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and i'm i'm a writer as well is how much is too much and how much is not enough.
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We agonize not only over the whole telling of the story, but also each individual paragraph or moment.
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How much description am I, because you don't want to bore the reader and go, I got it, I got it, move on.
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And you don't want to confuse them either.
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Like, wait a minute, what?
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I don't, I don't, I have to go back and I didn't catch something.
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It's always walking that edge, which is the challenge.
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So you move on from Walter, you move on from Albuquerque, at least for the time being.
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But you stayed and you got involved and you bought a house.
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What happens to all that stuff?
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Oh, I'll keep my house.
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I enjoy this area.
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I enjoy the culture of New Mexico.
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I enjoy the food.
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When I leave here, I start jonesing for the chiles.
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I'm like, oh.
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And you go around and you have some Mexican food or something and it's like, do you have any green or red chiles?
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You know what I mean?
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Hot sauce?
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No, not, not.
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Well, okay, you bring me the hot sauce, but it's like, hmm, it's missing something.
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What is it missing?
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I know exactly what it's missing.
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You know, the pozole, the sopapillas at the end of the meal with a little honey on it.
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I love that.
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And I love the wide open spaces.
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I was born and raised in Los Angeles.
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I'm grown up in this business.
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I lived in New York City for five years.
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So I'm used to city life.
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And coming out here, it's very rural to me.
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And I welcome that.
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I welcome the open spaces, being able to ride my bike down the Basque, the Rio Grande.
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And it's been fun.
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And then when visitors come, I tell you, come and see if you can spend seven days.
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Seven days and they're going.
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seven days what i go please you'll need more
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but just come for seven days and i'll give them a route
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if i'm working i'll say okay go through rio doso go down to roswell see the fun stuff of roswell
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then go down to carlsbad you got to see the caverns
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there zip on up to alamogordo go to the white sands you got to see
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that and then come on up there's a lot of wetlands all the way up see
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that if it's the right year you can see all the birds migrating um and that's just the southern loop.
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Right?
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And then I said, you know, of course you want to go up the Taos Pueblo is a really cool place.
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Get some authentic Indian flatbread and it's just great.
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The art in New Mexico and, you know, even modern art in Canyon and Santa Fe.
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It's fun for us.
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There are a lot of actors who don't have that experience, you know, who come here for Transformers, something like that.
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And it's a lot studio stuff, and then they're out and they're like, oh, what a dustbin that place was.
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But it takes some time to explore it.
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Did it take you a couple years to get into it?
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I think the benefit for me to discover
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New Mexico, and Albuquerque in particular, was the fact that we were going to be here for a while.
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We were able to set down and calm ourselves and grow some roots.
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When you're doing a movie, you come in for two months, and you're still working 14 hours.
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And there are many, many, many, in fact, most days for me, I work 14 hours.
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I come home and I have a piece of chicken
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and I get my script out and I read the lines or I take a bath and it's very exciting.
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And I get to bed by 9 .30 and then I'm up at 5 .30.
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So it's, you know, that's for the most part, that's my life.
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But when I have a day off, I can go for a bike ride,
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do some exploring, go for a drive up to Madrid or further or go the other way, you know, to Harris or whatever, any place.
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And I like to discover new places.
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And I do now because I try to put on my hood and kind of keep a low profile.
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It affects your personality somewhat, I'm sure.
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So you said the house stays, but you've also, you've gotten involved.
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You've done charity events out at Isotopes Park, working with YDI.
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What catches your interest and why?
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I think when I was a little boy, I remembered hearing a phrase whenever we went camping.
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And my family went camping often, primarily because we didn't have a lot of money.
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So that was our outing, that was our vacation a lot.
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And the phrase was, you know, leave your campsite better than you found it.
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And I thought that that makes a lot of sense. So we did.
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And so I take that and, you know, translate that to a little larger picture.
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And it's like, try to leave someplace better than you found it.
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If everyone can do that, can you imagine what can be accomplished? as opposed to coming to a place
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and raping it for what it has to offer me, I want to be able to say, what can I offer you?
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So we come here and Albuquerque has been a terrific character on Breaking Bad.
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New Mexico has created a sensibility and a look
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and a feel to it that has not been overused at all in television series.
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And now, internationally, they will see Albuquerque and New Mexico.
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Instead of just playing some other...
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Instead of another city, another
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Los Angeles suburb or something.
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Right.
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They get to see something that's very specific.
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And we use the specific names in the street names and the car washes and the things like that.
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And people have started coming from all over the world to Albuquerque to see some of the places that
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Breaking Bad has created.
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And that's a good thing.
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On top of that, I try to reach out.
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I've been so fortunate.
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I've gotten more great luck than I ever thought I deserved.
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And I think, you know, in retrospect, the irony is that since I didn't have any money when I was a kid,
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there was no way of developing a sense of entitlement that I deserve anything.
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No, you have to work for it.
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You have to work for it.
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And the idea of becoming a working actor, making a living as an actor, a director, writer, even as I say it,
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I go, are you kidding me?
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I get to go play for a living.
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I get to go and create characters and goof around and use my imagination.
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I mean that's just
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That's just amazing.
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So I need to help out.
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So the last couple of years at Isotope Stadium, John Traub, who's the general manager of the Isotopes, is a friend and had this idea.
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And I said, what about this?
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Yeah, let's raise some money.
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So we've raised, over the last two years, we've raised $60 ,000, $70 ,000 for local charities.
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And that was the stipulation.
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I wanted to keep it local.
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I didn't want to raise some money and then have it leave the state.
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Great.
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So we're doing a lot with returning veterans, which is great.
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Our show is leaving, and I want this to be able to continue on.
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So I'm going to talk to Lou Diamond Phillips.
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Lou, if you're watching, I'm coming after you.
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I want you to continue with the charity game at Isotope Stadium while you're shooting Longmire here in New Mexico.
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And then you turn it over to the next guy who steps in.
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Come on, buddy.
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Do that for me.
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The gauntlet has been thrown down.
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Handing off the baton.
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And speaking of the isotopes, you're a Dodgers fan?
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Big Dodgers fan.
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I knew you were good people.
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I love the Dodgers.
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I remember going, when I was five, six years old, going to the L .A.
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Coliseum before Dodger Stadium was opened in 1962 and seeing baseball.
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The Brooklyn Dodgers are now the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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Wow, that's fantastic and seeing these major league baseball players, my eyes just lit up
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and I wanted to be a baseball player for most of my life until I realized
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I was missing one major component, talent.
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And that made me realize, okay, I have to choose a different career.
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Excellent.
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Well, you've been really generous with your time.
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We appreciate it.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Bryan Cranston on "Breaking Bad"”. This video has 150 sentences and 4571 words to shadow. The speech runs for 31:40. The speaker talks at a steady 144 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start. 36 of its 150 sentences are questions, so it is good practice for question intonation and short answers.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| gray adjective | /ɡɹeɪ/ | Of a color between black and white, having neutral hue and intermediate brightness. |
| charity noun | /ˈtʃæɹɪti/ | An organization, the objective of which is to carry out a charitable purpose. |
| component noun | /kəmˈpoʊ.nənt/ | A smaller, self-contained part of a larger entity. Often refers to a manufactured object that is part of a larger device. |
| craft noun | /ˈkɹæft/ | Ability, skillfulness, especially skill in making plans and carrying them into execution; dexterity in managing affairs, adroitness, practical cunning… |
| terrific adjective | Very strong or intense; excessive, tremendous. | |
| finger noun | /ˈfɪŋɡɚ/ | A slender jointed extremity of the human hand, (often) exclusive of the thumb, and the corresponding part, irrespective of including a thumb, in many other… |
| awful adjective | /ˈɔːfʊl/ | Very bad. |
| pitch noun | /pɪt͡ʃ/ | A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand. |
| discover verb | /dɪˈskʌvə/ | To find or learn something for the first time. |
| juice noun | /d͡ʒuːs/ | A liquid made from plant, especially fruit. |
| script noun | /skɹɪpt/ | A writing; a written document. |
| explore verb | /ɪkˈsploɹ/ | To examine or investigate something systematically. |
| phrase noun | /ˈfɹeɪ̯z/ | A short written or spoken expression. |
| vulnerable adjective | /ˈvʌln(ə)ɹəbl̩/ | More or most likely to be exposed to the chance of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally. |
| emotion noun | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. | |
| go off verb | To explode. | |
| back off verb | To move backwards away from something. | |
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. | |
| come forward verb | To offer help or information, especially about a crime. | |
| come in for verb | To be subjected to. | |
| come on to verb | To start to. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | It's been · you've become · I've never been |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be written · was offered · be isolated |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | someone who is · ones who truly · ones who enjoy |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 108 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, you're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: bath /bɑːθ/, thoroughly /ˈθʌɹ.ə.li/, authentic /ɔˈθɛn.tɪk/, thankful /ˈθæŋkfəl/, thrill /θɹɪl/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, recognition /ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/, inspiration /ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, vacation /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/
- Long words — get the stress right: primarily /ˈpɹaɪ.mə.ɹə.li/, recognition /ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/, inspiration /ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/, execution /ˌɛk.sɪˈkjuː.ʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like gray, charity, component.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.