Bryan Cranston
Bryan Cranston | |
---|---|
![]() Cranston at the 2014 Peabody Awards. | |
Born | |
Other names | Lee Stone |
Occupation(s) | Actor, voice actor, director, screenwriter, producer |
Years active | 1980–present |
Spouse(s) |
Mickey Middleton
(m. 1977–1982)Robin Dearden (m. 1989) |
Children | 1 |
Bryan Lee Cranston (born March 7, 1956)[1] is an American actor, voice actor, screenwriter, director and producer.
Cranston is best known for portraying Walter White in the AMC crime drama series Breaking Bad, Hal in the Fox comedy series Malcolm in the Middle and Dr. Tim Whatley in the NBC comedy series Seinfeld. For Breaking Bad, he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series four times (2008—2010, 2014), including three consecutive wins (the second time in television history after Bill Cosby in I Spy during the 1960s).[2] After becoming one of the producers of Breaking Bad in 2011, he also won the award for Outstanding Drama Series twice.[3]
Cranston was also nominated three times for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his role in Malcolm in the Middle. His role in Breaking Bad also earned him five Golden Globe nominations and one win in 2014, nine Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations with four wins and five Saturn Award nominations with two wins. In June 2014, he won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his portrayal of Lyndon B. Johnson in the play All the Way on Broadway.
Cranston has directed episodes of various television series, including seven episodes of Malcolm in the Middle, three episodes of Breaking Bad, two episodes of Modern Family and one episode of The Office. He also appeared in supporting roles in several acclaimed films, such as Saving Private Ryan (1998), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), Drive (2011), Argo (2012) and Godzilla (2014).
Early life
Cranston was born and raised in the Canoga Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California,[3][4] the son of Audrey Peggy Sell, a radio actress, and Joseph Louis "Joe" Cranston, an actor and former amateur boxer.[5][6][7] He is the second of their three children. He is of Austrian, German, and Irish ancestry on his father's side, while his maternal grandparents were immigrants from Germany.[8][9] He has stated that his parents were "broken people" and that they were "incapacitated as far as parenting", causing the family to lose their house in a foreclosure.[10]
Cranston's father held many jobs before deciding to become an actor, but did not secure enough roles to provide for his family.[5] He eventually walked out on the family when Cranston was 11 years old, and they did not see each other again until 11 years later when Cranston and his brother decided to track their father down when Cranston was 22.[5] Cranston and his father maintained a relationship until his fathers death in 2014.[11] Cranston has claimed that he based his portrayal of Walter White on his own father, who had a slumped posture "like the weight of the world was on his shoulders".[5] Cranston was raised partly by his grandparents,[10] living on their farm and working with poultry.[12] He graduated from Canoga Park High School, where he was a member of the school's chemistry club.[13] He earned an associate degree in police science from Los Angeles Valley College in 1976.[14]
Career
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Bryan_Cranston_by_Gage_Skidmore_2.jpg/200px-Bryan_Cranston_by_Gage_Skidmore_2.jpg)
After college, Cranston began his acting career in local and regional theaters, getting his start at the Granada Theater in the San Fernando Valley. He had previously performed as a youth, but his show business parents had mixed feelings about their son being involved in the profession, so he did not continue until years later.[7] Cranston was ordained as a minister by the Universal Life Church, and performed weddings for $150 a service to help with his income.[15][16] He started working regularly in the late 1980s, mostly doing minor roles and advertisements. His voice acting includes English dubbing of Japanese anime (under the pseudonym Lee Stone), including Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, Macross Plus, and Armitage III: Poly-Matrix. He was an original cast member of the ABC soap opera Loving, where he played Douglas Donovan from 1983 to 1985.[7] Cranston also starred in the short-lived series Raising Miranda in 1988. He portrayed astronauts Buzz Aldrin in the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon and Gus Grissom in the film That Thing You Do!. In 1998, he appeared in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, as the colonel who insists that Private Ryan be saved.
From 1994 to 1997, Cranston made a handful of appearances as Dr. Tim Whatley, Jerry's dentist, on Seinfeld. 1999 marked Cranston's second appearance for a recurring role on the CBS sitcom The King of Queens; he played Doug Heffernan's neighbor, Tim Sacksky. In 1997, Cranston had a small role in Babylon 5 as Ericsson. In 1998, Cranston appeared in an episode of X-Files written by Vince Gilligan (later of Breaking Bad fame). In 1999, Cranston wrote and directed the film Last Chance.[17]
His theatrical credits include starring roles in The God of Hell, Chapter Two, The Taming of the Shrew, A Doll's House, Barefoot in the Park, Eastern Standard, Wrestlers and The Steven Weed Show, for which he won a Drama-Logue Award.[18]
In 2000, Cranston landed a leading role as Hal on the comedy series Malcolm in the Middle. He would eventually direct several episodes of the show and received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his performance.[19] Cranston reprised his role in a cutaway gag during the Family Guy episode "I Take Thee Quagmire", killing Lois (his wife on Malcolm in the Middle) with a refrigerator door, and in a leaked alternate ending of Breaking Bad with Jane Kaczmarek reprising her role as Lois.[20]
He has had guest roles in many television series, including a white-collar criminal searching for his estranged wife and daughter in The Flash, a lawyer attempting to free the title character from a contract in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and a bigoted man being driven insane by extremely low frequency sonar waves in The X-Files episode "Drive". He also had a guest role in late 2006 on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, playing Ted Mosby's obnoxious co-worker and former boss Hammond Druthers. He played Lucifer in the ABC Family miniseries Fallen and appeared as Nick Wrigley, an irresponsible uncle who accidentally brings Christmas close to destruction when he steals Santa's sleigh to have a crazy ride, in the 2001 Disney Channel Original Movie 'Twas the Night. He appeared as the more successful business colleague of Greg Kinnear's character in the 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine. In September 2008, Cranston narrated a pre-teen adventure/fantasy audiobook called Adventures with Kazmir the Flying Camel.[21]
From 2008 to 2013, Cranston starred in the AMC series Breaking Bad, in which he played Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Walter teams up with former student Jesse Pinkman (played by Aaron Paul), to manufacture and sell methamphetamine to ensure the well-being of Walter's family after he dies. Cranston's work on the series was met with widespread critical acclaim, winning him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in each of the show's first three seasons and being nominated in 2012 and 2013 for seasons four and five (winning again in 2014 for the second half of season 5). Cranston and Bill Cosby are the only actors to have won the award three consecutive times.[3] Cranston was also a producer for the fourth and fifth seasons of the series.
In 2011, Cranston had supporting roles in three successful films, the drama The Lincoln Lawyer, as well as the thrillers Drive and Contagion. He voiced James Gordon in the 2011 animated film Batman: Year One.[22] In 2012, he had supporting roles in John Carter, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, and Rock of Ages, and a major role in the hostage drama Argo. He also lent his voice to several episodes of the animated series Robot Chicken.[23] In 2012, he starred in the remake of the 1990 film Total Recall, as Chancellor Vilos Cohaagen, the corrupted president of a fictional war-ravaged United Federation of Britain. In the same year, he made a guest appearance as Kenneth Parcell's step-father, Ron, on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, and was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[24]
Since September 2013, Cranston has been playing U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson in the American Repertory Theater and Broadway productions of All the Way, in a performance that has received widespread acclaim.[25][26][27] [28] He also played scientist Joe Brody in the 2014 reboot of Godzilla.[29]
Cranston has produced an instructional DVD called KidSmartz, which is designed to teach families how to stay safe from child abductors and Internet predators. KidSmartz raises money for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children by donating half the proceeds from sales. Also, following the success of Breaking Bad, the year 2014 saw reports of Cranston developing new TV projects in collaboration with Sony Pictures Television.[30]
On July 16, 2014, it was announced that Cranston would star in an HBO adaptation of his hit play All The Way. Steven Spielberg is set to be an executive producer on the film.[31]
Personal life
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/94/Bryan_Cranston_%281%29.jpg/170px-Bryan_Cranston_%281%29.jpg)
From 1977 to 1982, Cranston was married to writer Mickey Middleton.[32] At 33, he married Robin Dearden,[33] whom he had met on the set of the show Airwolf in 1984. He was playing the villain of the week, and she played the hostage he held at gunpoint. Their daughter, Taylor Dearden Cranston (born 1993), is a theatre studies student at the University of Southern California and played an extra in the Breaking Bad episode "No Mas", directed by her father.[34]
Cranston played baseball when he was a student[7] and remains a collector of baseball memorabilia and an avid fan of the Philadelphia Phillies and the Los Angeles Dodgers.[35] When he accepted his third Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, Cranston thanked his wife and daughter, and told them he loves them "more than baseball". The family has a beach house in Ventura County, California, which Cranston designed.[2][36] Cranston lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico when filming Breaking Bad.[37] He is a co-owner of the independent theater Cinemas Palme d'Or in Palm Desert, California.[38] He appeared with his family in a 2012 public service announcement, urging other Americans to support same-sex marriage.[39]
In April 2014, Cranston presented at Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Easter Bonnet Competition with Idina Menzel, Fran Drescher and Denzel Washington, after raising donations at his Broadway show All the Way.[40]
Filmography
Awards and nominations
References
- ^ "Monitor". Entertainment Weekly. No. 1249. March 8, 2013. p. 20.
- ^ a b Higginbotham, Adam. "Bryan Cranston, Breaking Badass". Men's Journal. Retrieved August 2011
- ^ a b c "Bryan Cranston". Primetime Emmy Award. Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Retrieved February 10, 2014.
- ^ Clark, Charles (September 22, 2013). "10 Things About... Bryan Cranston". Digital Spy. Retrieved February 10, 2014.
- ^ a b c d "Bryan Cranston interview". GQ Magazine. May 2014.
- ^ "Bryan Cranston Biography (1956-)". Film Reference. Advameg, Inc. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
- ^ a b c d Reichardt, Nancy M. (October 5, 1983). "Soap star loves his craft". The Prescott Daily Courier. p. 3. Retrieved February 8, 2014.
- ^ Brady, Tara (September 26, 2011). "The many lives of Bryan". The Irish Times. Retrieved May 12, 2012. (subscription required)
- ^ "Joseph Louis Cranston, "California, County Marriages, 1850–1952"". familysearch.org. Retrieved October 26, 2013.
- ^ a b Hiatt, Brian (September 13, 2013). "'Breaking Bad' Q&A: Bryan Cranston on Walter White's Morality". Rolling Stone. Retrieved September 23, 2013.
- ^ http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2015/06/10/bryan-cranston-panda-father-li-kung-fu-panda/28748811/
- ^ "Tough Love - Bryan Cranston The Mortified Sessions". The Sundance Channel. February 3, 2012.
- ^ Eby, Margaret (August 20, 2013). "'Breaking Bad' star Bryan Cranston's high school yearbook reveals chemistry club past: Long before he played meth kingpin Walter White on 'Breaking Bad,' the actor was part of his high school science club". New York Daily News. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
- ^ "Breaking Bad - Bryan Cranston Interview". UGO. IGN Entertainment, Inc. March 2, 2009. Retrieved February 8, 2014.
- ^ "Hollywood's Hall of Famous ULC Ministers: Bryan Cranston", Universallifechurchministers.org
- ^ Halle, Howard (March 4, 2009) "The Hot Seat: Bryan Cranston", Time Out.
- ^ P., Ken (June 2, 2012). "An Interview with Bryan Cranston". IGN. Retrieved December 29, 2011.
- ^ "Bryan Cranston as Walter White". AMC Network Entertainment. Retrieved July 9, 2014.
- ^ "Anytime with Bob Kushell feat. Bryan Cranston". Anytime with Bob Kushell. Season 2. Episode 3. March 31, 2009.
- ^ M., Maglio (November 17, 2013). "'Breaking Bad' Gets 'Malcolm in the Middle' Alternative Ending, Blooper Reel (Video)". WRAP. Retrieved May 7, 2014.
- ^ "Adventures with Kazmir the Flying Camel Audiobook". Camel Back Publishing. 2008. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
- ^ Kit, Borys (April 20, 2011). "'Batman: Year One' Lines Up Voice Cast, Sets Comic-Con Premiere (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter.
- ^ Hoevel, Ann (January 7, 2011). "Seth Green talks 'Robot Chicken,' Lucas and 'Buffy'". CNN. Retrieved December 29, 2011.
- ^ "Academy Invites 176 to Membership". Oscars.org. June 29, 2012. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
- ^ Stasio, Marilyn (March 7, 2014). "Bryan Cranston owns the role of LBJ in this beautifully built dramatic piece". Variety. Retrieved March 14, 2014.
- ^ Jones, Chris (March 10, 2014). "'Breaking Bad' star Bryan Cranston gets his hooks into LBJ". The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved March 14, 2014.
- ^ Isherwood, Charles (September 25, 2013). "An Arm-Twister in the Oval Office: 'All the Way' Stars Bryan Cranston as Lyndon B. Johnson". The New York Times. Retrieved March 15, 2014.
- ^ "All The Way Broadway". American Repertory Theater. 2014. Retrieved February 18, 2014.
- ^ Thomas, Sarah (February 26, 2014). "Can Bryan Cranston resurrect Godzilla?". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved March 7, 2014.
- ^ Jeffery, Morgan. "'Breaking Bad' star Bryan Cranston 'developing new TV projects'". Digital Spy.
- ^ Bacle, Ariana (January 17, 2015) "Bryan Cranston to star in HBO adaptation of Broadway's 'All the Way' ", Ew.com.
- ^ "Bryan Cranston". hollywoodlife.com. Retrieved October 26, 2013.
- ^ "Bryan Cransten wife Robin Dearden". wagcelebrity.com. August 29, 2013. Retrieved September 19, 2013.
- ^ "Taylor Dearden". IMDb. 2012. Retrieved December 18, 2012.
- ^ "PHOTO: Breaking Bad's Walter White In A Phillies Jersey". Philadelphia.cbslocal.com. October 10, 2013. Retrieved December 4, 2013.
- ^ Amanda Dameron (June 13, 2013). "Actor Bryan Cranston's Green Beach House Renovation". Dwell. Retrieved March 25, 2014.
- ^ Adams, Sam. "Bryan Cranston on seeing red, going black and being a chameleon". Weekly Alibi. Retrieved August 2011
- ^ Fessier, Bruce. "Bryan Cranston dishes about playing the villain on AMC's 'Breaking Bad'". The Desert Sun. Retrieved July 2012
- ^ "Bryan Cranston and his family made an awesome gay marriage PSA". Hyper Vocal. Retrieved June 30, 2012.
- ^ "PHOTOS: James Franco, Idina Menzel, and Fran Drescher Get Into the Easter Bonnet Competition", Queerty.com.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- 1956 births
- American people of Austrian descent
- American people of German descent
- American people of Irish descent
- 20th-century American male actors
- 21st-century American male actors
- American male film actors
- American film directors
- American male television actors
- American male voice actors
- American television directors
- Film directors from California
- LGBT rights activists from the United States
- Male actors from Los Angeles, California
- Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor in a Drama Series Primetime Emmy Award winners
- Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners
- Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (television) winners
- People from Canoga Park, Los Angeles
- Primetime Emmy Award winners
- Tony Award winners
- Golden Globe Award winners
- Drama Desk Award winners
- Living people