The cast of Breaking Bad was one of the most impressive ensembles on television who delivered captivating performances each and every season. While the core story involved high school chemistry teacher Walter White’s transformation into the meth kingpin Heisenberg and his association with his former students Jesse Pinkman, Breaking Bad was about so much more than the incredible performances of Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul. Each in their own way, every cast member added something unique to the series and contributed to its reputation as among the greatest television shows ever produced.
Breaking Bad was filled with astounding acting talent and as each subsequent season aired, it felt like the cast was pushing each other to improve as the characters became increasingly layered and nuanced in their characterization. With just five seasons, the last of which was split into two parts, it’s impossible to shine a light on everybody’s great work. With countless iconic scenes, dialogue imbued into popular culture, and an enduring appeal that has shown no signs of diminishing, Breaking Bad included some of the greatest performances ever seen on television.
6Anna Gunn As Skyler White
Breaking Bad: Season 1
Breaking Bad was still finding its footing during its first season, and during its earliest episodes, the show often had a more comedic tone than what categorized much of the later run of the series. However, one thing that was apparent from the very beginning was that its ensemble cast was among the best on television at the time, and everybody was at the top of their game. While actors like Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul stood out, Anna Gunn’s fantastic portrayal of Skyler White was a masterclass in performance.
The subtleties of Gunn’s work on the earliest episodes of Breaking Bad may not have been readily apparent on first viewing of the show, as audiences were preoccupied with Walter’s taking his first steps into the criminal underworld and becoming Heisenberg. But with the power of hindsight, Gunn perfectly captured the essence of a struggling pregnant wife dealing with her husband’s newfound terminal cancer diagnosis. With incredible nuance, Gunn, as Skyler, effectively reacted to Walt’s unusual behavior, and it didn’t take long for audiences to realize that she would not let him get away with lying so easily.
Skyler got a lot of unfair hate from viewers, and Breaking Bad creator Vince Gillian agreed that the show was rigged against Skyler, as in the first season, audiences’ sympathies lay with Walter. It’s a testament to Gunn’s skill as an actress that she brought out such an emotional reaction from viewers who vehemently criticized her online. However, rewatching the first season of Breaking Bad with the knowledge of how dark Walter’s character would become, it was impossible to feel compassion for Skyler and admiration for Gunn’s incredible performance.
5Aaron Paul As Jesse Pinkman
Breaking Bad: Season 2
Jesse Pinkman never had it easy, and, at times, it felt like the writers of Breaking Bad took sadistic glee out of continually putting him through horrendous experiences. This made for difficult viewing. as Jesse’s sensitive predisposition meant he was often unable to cope with the untold murder and violence that his methamphetamine-producing partnership with Walter White caused. While incidents like the death of Jesse’s girlfriend Jane and his imprisonment at the hands of a Nazi gang stood out, it was in Season 2 that actor Aaron Paul really captured the core tenants of Jesse’s character.
Paul played Jesse best when he was going through hardships, and the second season of Breaking Bad was a tough time for the low-level criminal who called himself Cap’n Cook. This was the season when Jesse’s parents kicked him out of his aunt’s house, and he was forced to break into the repair yard where his and Walt’s RV was stored just to find a place to sleep. Paul perfectly captured the heartbreaking nature of Jesse’s circumstances when he collapsed into a portable toilet and was forced to sleep with a gas mask covered in human excrement.
While incidents like this made audiences feel for Jesse, the endless empathy that Paul imbued in his character made him such an enduring character. The perfect example of this came in the episode “Peekaboo,” when Jesse was confronted with the neglected child of meth addicts who lived in abject squalor in a filthy, unkempt house. Paul’s performance captured Jesse’s fondness for the innocence of children, which laid the groundwork for his highly emotional reaction to the death of Drew Sharp at the hands of Todd Alquist several seasons later.
4Bob Odenkirk As Saul Goodman
Breaking Bad: Season 3
Bob Odenkirk first joined the cast of Breaking Bad during the second season episode “Better Call Saul,” but it was not until Season 3 that the true potential of his character began to be realized. With Walter and Jesse at the beginning of their working relationship with Gus Fring, Saul acted as an important middleman between the protagonists and the criminal underworld. As a comedian of great talent, Odenkirk’s incredible charisma helped turn the sleazy criminal lawyer Saul Goodman into one of the most interesting characters in the entire Breaking Bad universe.
The power of Odenkirk’s performance through the third season of Breaking Bad was so subtle it could almost go unnoticed just how instrumental he was in turning Walter White from a haphazard teacher-turned-meth-cook into a central figure of the Albuquerque criminal world. It was Saul who convinced Walter to keep cooking; it was Saul who helped him launder money; and it was Saul who orchestrated Hank being drawn away from RV when he almost caught Walt and Jesse. Although Breaking Bad was Walt’s series, Saul constantly pulled strings behind the scenes.
The fact that Odenkirk’s effective portrayal of Saul led to the development of his own prequel TV series that fleshed out his story before and after Breaking Bad was a testament to his acting skill. In a less talented actor’s hands, the character of Saul could have come across as a cheap parody of sleazy TV lawyers, but Odenkirk’s role instead opened the door for the creators to tell the story of Jimmy McGill in Better Call Saul. That may never have happened without Odenkirk’s incredible performance throughout Season 3 and beyond.
3Giancarlo Esposito As Gus Fring
Breaking Bad: Season 4
With his portrayal of Gus Fring, Giancarlo Esposito provided television with one of the greatest villains of the 21st century, as his calm and calculated nature perfectly juxtaposed with his ruthless callousness. From his first appearance in Season 2, Fring was always a fascinating character, but it was during Season 4 that the true nature of his persona was revealed, and he became the single largest threat that Walter and Jesse had yet encountered. Season 4 of Breaking Bad was Gus’s season, and it would not have been nearly as effective without Esposito’s incredible performance.
In the Season 4 premiere “Box Cutter,” Gus immediately showcased his ruthless nature when he slit his loyal henchman Victor’s throat like it was nothing and ordered Walter and Jesse to get back to work. This scene was the perfect example of Esposito’s skill for portraying menace, as the way Gus stayed perfectly calm when committing heinous acts made him all the more frightening. It was cold-hearted actions like this meant Walt and Jesse realized that, when it came to Gus Fring, it was either kill or be killed.
With an exceptionally powerful performance throughout the entire season, another prime example of Esposito’s talent came in the finale, “Face Off.” This was the episode where Fring met his end at the hands of Hector Salamanca through a bomb installed by Walter. Even as Fring breathed his dying breath with half his face blown apart, he still maintained his calculated nature as he fixed his tie before dropping to the floor. This final moment summed up Esposito’s performance perfectly, as Fring remained terrifyingly sophisticated until the end.
2Jonathan Banks As Mike Ehrmantraut
Breaking Bad: Season 5A
By the time Breaking Bad entered the first part of its final season, very few characters were unafraid to stand up to Walter White, with Mike Ehrmantraut being one notable exception. Mike was expertly portrayed by Jonathan Banks as far back as Season 2 and became an increasingly important character throughout each season of Breaking Bad. At the beginning of the fifth season, Mike initially wanted to kill Walter for his role in Gus Fring’s death, but he soon realized they had to work together to destroy evidence that implicated them both in Fring’s superlab and meth operation.
This season was the season that Banks delivered his best work, as he warned Jesse that Walt was “a time bomb” and gave his “half measures” speech when discussing how to deal with the meth supplier Lydia Rodarte-Quayle. In Season 5, Mike reluctantly became the distributor of the new meth operation and had plenty of intense encounters with Walt as they butted heads about the hazard pay to keep Mike’s men quiet. These incidents highlighted Banks’ incredible talent at capturing Mike’s stoic and extremely competent personality.
Banks perfectly captured Mike’s character right up until the bitter end as he confronted Walt about letting his pride and ego get in the way of their deal with Fring before Walt, in a fit of anger, unceremoniously murdered him. As Mike accepted his fate, he still took the time to tell Walt to “shut up” and “let me die in peace.” With a consistency of character seen in every scene and circumstance he was subjected to, Banks pulled off an incredible feat with his portrayal of Mike Ehrmantraut in the first part of Season 5.
1Bryan Cranston As Walter White
Breaking Bad: Season 5B
Throughout the entire run of Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston delivered a career-best performance with his unmatched portrayal of the slow descent of Walter White into Heisenberg. With countless iconic moments from the “I am the one who knocks” speech to the powerful “Say My Name” scene, Cranston truly embodied one of the most iconic anti-heroes television had ever seen. However, the second half of the final season felt like the culmination of all that came before it for Walt’s character and represented Cranston at his absolute peak.
Breaking Bad was always a series about change, and in the final episodes, as Walter’s hair had grown back and he’d given up on treatment, he wandered through every scene like a ghost haunting the rest of the cast. As Walter re-emerged from his hideout in a New Hamshire cabin, every interaction he had was packed with meaning and resonance as Cranston pushed the story toward its grand conclusion. From admitting to Sklyer that he “did it for me” to threatening Gretchen and Elliott in their own home, Cranston’s portrayal of Walt in these episodes was truly thrilling.
Almost any Walter scene from Season 5B could exemplify why Cranston’s performance was the greatest, but appropriately, Breaking Bad saved the best for last during its final minutes. After Walt jumped in front of Jesse to save his life from machine gun fire, Cranston captured the depth of those two characters’ relationship and the father-son type bond they had forged and broken. In the final seconds, as Walt bled out while examining the meth lab equipment, Cranston emitted a world of emotion in a single look as Walter left the world in the same place where he felt most alive.
