>> rose: welcome to the program. tonight, vince gilligan, the creator of "breaking bad" in a conversation at the museum of the moving image. >> the wonderful thing about t.v., one of the many things i love about it is we have seven of us-- myself included-- sitting around in a room, felt like, as i've often said, a sequester jury that would never end. and i didn't say to myself "this is going to be -- i wouldn't be sitting here at the museum of the moving image talking about it with charlie rose. i didn't think of any of those kind of things would come of this. it just seemed like an interesting character to write about and that's the way to approach it. >> rose: vince gilligan for the hour. next.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose.

>> i do believe that there's a hell. i'm not going to lie down until i get there. say my name. >> eisenberg. >> damn right! (applause) >> rose: so how did this come about? you had a boy who grew up in virginia? >> yes. >> rose: went to n.y.u., tisch school, made your way out to annette, chris, and worked on "x-files." >> worked on "x-files." second best job i ever had. this would be the better one. >> rose: and this idea. how did it come about? >> this idea -- the best way i can answer it is that i remember when it occured to me. i'm not sure exactly where it came from but i was talking to a good friend of mine who wound up

being a writer and producer and director on "breaking bad." he is someone i met at n.y.u. film school back in the mid-'80s and he and i just finished up our stint writing for "the x-files" and we were concerned about what was coming next and he -- we were not cut out -- we were not fit out for much other than the specialized world of television writing, i fear. so we were joking about what we should do next. we thought perhaps we could greet people who entered wal-mart. direct them to the -- you know -- but he mentioned a "new york times" article he had read that concerned children who'd gotten sick because their mother or their father or someone like that had put a meth lab into their house and he suggested "why don't we put a meth lab in the back of an r.v. and cook

crystal meth and see the country." and he's got a -- you need to meet him to understand his sense of humor. (laughter) but when he said that to me this character-- and i very seldom had this experience of a idea sort of eureka like kind of -- >> rose: you knew right away there was something there? >> i -- yeah. i was -- because i think in hindsight what it was was we were both he and i despite the crazy stuff we talk about doing, we don't actually do that. we're very boring law-abiding citizens and i think -- >> rose: no, no, no. if you're that you couldn't create this kind of television program. >> (laughs) >> rose: there's something dark there, vince. >> (laughs) it's fun to write about things that you are too scared to do. not to say that even if i did not have the fear of prison and authority figures i would want to cook something as terrible as crystal meth or be a criminal

but it's fun to write about things you wouldn't otherwise do and so that's when the idea hit. >> rose: and the term "breaking bad," which became the title? >> now, this is something i'd like to ask you because you're from the south, you're from north carolina, i'm from virginia. >> rose: we grew up about an hour apart. >> right, right. serve i told when they first asked the question why are you calling this "breaking bad"-- the sony folks who were the first folks to read it and the a.m.c. folks, both wonderful companies responsible putting the show off the air, they said "about the title, what does it refer to?" i said it's aba southernism that means to raise hell. "the other night i broke bad, i was at the end of the bar and i had one too many, i wound up going home in the back of a squad car." >> rose: exactly right. absolutely. >> because i've met so many folks since then -- >> rose: went off the deep end. >> deep end, that would have been a good title. (laughter)

>> rose: (laughs) so you put together a team and people say-- as i've suggested-- that this is a very collaborative place. how does that collaboration work? >> well, i -- and, by the way, i will probably do this all through the night. i tend to speak in the present tense because i'm still getting my brain wrapped around the concept this that this is over but this is all past tense. >> rose: but it was very hard for you. i guess you had to, on your computer, write the words "the end." >> yes, i had to write the words -- i wrote the final episode. i do not write most of the episodes of "breaking bad." i had six excellent writers who wrote -- >> rose: but you wanted to write the final episode in >> i very much did. i took that prerogative for myself. >> rose: and what did you want to do and achieve in the final episode? i'm not going ask you what it is obviously. i'd like to know, though. (laughter) >> for myself, for my writers, for our wonderful cast and crew and for the fans i wanted to --

i wanted us all -- this is very much back to your initial question. this was always from day one to today, to the last day a very collaborative effort and a very collaborative medium that i enjoy working in very much because you surround yourself with excellent people in front of the lens and behind it and -- if you're lucky, if you're extraordinarily lucky like i was everyone wants to pull the rope in the same direction. everyone wants to make the same show. and what i wanted to do with that final episode-- what we all wanted to do, i think we can speak for all of us-- is end it properly. >> rose: but you're conscious of the fact that "the sopranos," there's some controversy about the final episode. >> i thought it was very interesting and -- i thought the final "the sopranos" was great. i loved the ballsyness of that ending.

but it has been done and done well and "breaking bad" was always much more of a finite construct. it was much more of a finite story. most t.v. shows are designed by their nature to be open-ended, to be indefinite, to -- in other words go on forever because it's hard to get a t.v. show going and once you get it going you don't want it to end and i didn't want "breaking bad" to end but i knew creatively when you set out -- when your self-imposed franchise-- as was the case in "breaking bad"-- was to take your protagonist and turn him into your antagonist, that is a continuum you have just described for yourself. you have just set out for yourself. and there's only so bad that bad can be. ending things right, ending things so that people -- again, not a monolist i can audience, there will be people no doubt who say i wanted it to end a different way. but it pleased us in the

writers' room. we said to ourselves, how do we satisfy ourselves? what do we want to see being the first fans of the show? and it was a long hard-fought series of questions we ask ourselves for the better part of a year and i think that we came -- i will just say it, i'm very happy with the ending. >> rose: that's all that matters to me. if the writer is happy, the creator is happy it's got to be good. let's talk about casting quickly. bryan. when he said he saw the script, he called his agent and said "get me in there and get me in there early." >> well -- and he is a wonderful guy. i -- yeah. it was a mutual -- you know, one of those you think shus hollywood love fests there because this is a guy i had worked with, had cast him on an episode of "the x-files" in 1999. and he's such a chameleon as an actor that when he walked into that room on "the x-files" i do

not realize i'd seen him many times before. i didn't realize i'd seen him on "seinfeld" or "saving private ryan." this gentleman came, in i was casting an episode where it was a very dark, disturbing, scary character, he was just a real creep and you didn't -- you had to be scared of him for the whole hour of the episode yet at the end of it-- spoiler alert-- when the character dies you had to feel bad as a viewer otherwise it wouldn't work. and that was a hard thing to cast. bryan cranston, first time i met him, 1999, he had the ability to do all those things and it was -- it just -- you either have it or you don't. and i don't know where he gets it from. i don't know how he was able to pull it off but a year and a half later after that episode, in my opinion, went along very well because he was so good in it, a year and a half later i'm watching t.v. and i see a commercial for a new show called "malcolm in the middle." >> rose: yes.

>> and i'm like -- who the? that guy is familiar. oh, my god, that's the guy! i didn't know he could be funny! and i literally had to say that outloud to no one. i was alone in the room. (laughter) >> rose: (laughs) did no one agree with you? >> and it was all of that long way of saying that when -- i sat down to write the pilot for "breaking bad," you know, i'm so glad, obviously, goes without saying, i'm so glad bryan was so interested and wanting to get in the room but i was thinking of him before he ever read the script. >> rose: you were thinking of him? >> i was, indeed. because i knew that i wanted to work with that actor again. i held that off for seven years. >> rose: he could go from "mr. chips" to "scar face." >> this was a man who could do that and that's not an easy task to pull off because you need to one that whole continuum. you need to be kind november that first episode as you saw

the clips a little bit, smart and yet dopey -- not dopey, but you need to be an effective -- what's the word? you need to be someone that no one would -- you have to -- in other words from someone who know one would notice if they walked by on a sidewalk to being someone who you would cross the street to avoid. having that kind of a range from start to finish is not easy. >> rose: quickly about the other cast memberers. aaron as jesse. >> aaron paul, a wonderful young actor who i only realized later in my meeting with him in the audition had been in an episode of "the x-files" that my friend tom had written. he played a bad guy in an episode of "the x-files." i didn't recognize him. i had wonderful casting directors, sherry and they brought -- i always knew i

wanted to work with brian again but sharon and sherry brought us all these other wonderful actors and made my life very easily because there were good people to pick from but the people we picked were the best. >> rose: a couple interesting stories. first of all, aaron, you thought you were going to kill him off at the end of the first year and you decided maybe not? >> well, i decided it very quickly and we were on the set of probably the first episode after the pilot and there was time to kill because our director of photography we changing lights and i said "hey, aaron, sit down man." i want to tell you a story, i was going to kill you off. and he got these big bug eyes and he was very upset and i was not toying with him. i was telling him what i thought was a flattering story. my point being there's no way i would do that now. but he got very nervous. but, yes, the initial intention was that the character of jesse pinkman would be walter white's

entree into the world of illegality and having served that purpose would come to some really, really awful end as a plot engine to further walt's -- to full his -- to fuel a certain level of guilt and a certain need for revenge. but very quickly it was like i'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face. this al qaeda kidd is fantastic. there's no way i'm getting rid of him. >> rose: and skyler. >> is anna gunn in the audience he? >> rose: i think so. where is she? >> there she is! (applause) >> rose: speaking of "breaking bad" -- >> the gorgeous, gorgeous anna gunn who's gracing with us her presence. so glad to see you. and sharon and sherry are casting folks and said "you need to see anna gunn." and i say "she was great in bedwood, let's see her." anna had been sick the week we were casting and sharon and

sherry called her and said "please come in for this." so i owe them everything because there could be no better skyler white than anna gunn. >> rose: you bet. (applause) that's so much good acting but i want you guys to understand the casting. then you have to cast hak who's going to be your -- provide the yin and yaing. >> we wanted michael chiklis very badly and so we had to find someone who looked a lot like him. (laughs) dean norris is a wonderful actor. i use a lot of superlative bus i feel them very deeply. a wonderful actor whose work i was really -- mupl like bryan cranston, before i cast him i only realized in hindsight that for instance i'd seen dean in -- what's that good movie with steve carell and -- yeah, "little miss sunshine." he plays a police officer who pulls them over in their van at one point and he came in and he

nailed it. he was fantastic. i have to stress, we saw a lot of good actors and actresses for all these parts. really good folks. it was a wealth of great choices but the folks we went with was just perfect. just stood way, way out. >> rose: so here you've got a great story, great idea, great actors, good writing. (laughter) so you go to these networks. they must have all wanted it at one time, didn't they? everybody knew how good it was going to me. they all said "me, me, me, me." >> (laughs) it was a feeding frenzy, charlie. (laughter) >> rose: so what did they say? those that turned it down, what did they say? and who were these bad boys? >> (laughs) there were -- there were -- we had -- we had quite a range when we speak of continuums, we had quite a continuum of reactions from very poker faced --

>> rose: like "what's going on here"? >> to -- i have to say one of the best meetings i ever had was with two network executives who turned this project down. >> rose: what did they say in >> i pitched it to them. it's not a natural thing for me but you have to go in and pitch the first episode and you say okay, we open on red rocks of -- whatever, new mexico and here comes an r.v. and a pair of pants flying through the air. see, i'm already messing it up. you get the flop sweat going. i pitched it to a network -- to two network executives who were the best audience i ever had aside from you guys. the best audience i ever had. these two people are leaning forward, closer and closer leaning forward in their seats. "then what happens? then what happens?" yeah, that's great! and i felt so good about the pitch and then when it ended they looked at each other and

they said "we're going ask the question we hate to ask, we feel stupid asking it. does it have to be meth? could it be, like, counterfeiting money?" and they weren't a couple idiots. they said to me they were good guys -- a man and a woman. they were great. they said -- pretty much this exact quote "we love this thing. we would love to buy it right in the room. if we bought it, we would be fired." >> rose: (laughs) >> "we have a specific -- we have a specific plan." and they were wonderful. and, by the way, if they're not going to buy it in the room, a surprisingly close second is a quick no. a quick and respectful no because most folks will not give you that. most folks you pitch it, they're stone faced, doing this the whole time. looking at their watch. and then they stand up and limply shake your hand and you're out the door and you never hear from them again. you don't even hear no half the time. >> rose: did more than one say yes? >> we -- we -- f.x. bought our

pitch. the f.x. network and this was before a.m.c. was involved and they bought it and i developed it with them, wrote the pilot script for them and the man who runs the network is a wonderful -- i said wonderful again, but it's true. he's a wonderful guy. when they ultimately turned it down it was for a good reason. no one in this industry has a crystal ball and, b, they could only make one pilot that particular year that "breaking bad" was up. they had "breaking bad" and a show called "dirt." and "dirt" was -- no, they had a mandate from their bosses "make f.x.x. more femalecentric. request sots they had this script "dirt" and a bona fide t.v. star already attached to it. they had courteney cox. when i was working with them we

didn't have bryan scranton attached. on painer they made a decision based on factors. i would have made the same exact decision and they very respectfully said "we can't do this, we can only do the one and it's going to be dirt." and i've talked with john since then, he's a great guy and he says -- i keep saying, no one has -- no one has a crystal ball. but to his credit i will always respect that gentleman because he let it go. because they owned it and he let it go to a.m.c. and a lot of these executives won't do that and he was a stand-up guy. he was a real mench. >> rose: so you went to a.m.c. and... >> and the rest is history. >> rose: five years later we're waiting for the next eight episodes which will tell us what happens. all right. so one last thing before we talk about what's happening within the five years of this series. while albuquerque? >> i hate to admit it, but

money. initially. i wrote the original pilot for riverside county, california. riverside -- i was thinking in terms of that because i had a friend who was a drug enforcement agent who was working out of the riverside district office. he was nice enough to let me buy him lunch and he told me stories for an entire afternoon, he and his partner, about meth interdiction out in riverside and i thought why not shoot it 30, 40 miles from my house and sleep in my own bed at night and that's, indeed, the very first version of the pilot script reflected. and the sony folks in charge of the money came to me and said, hey, what do you think about shooting in albuquerque, new mexico? i said why? they said because the state of new mexico has this wonderful rebate that will save us all a

lot of money and allow you to put much more on the screen. and it was -- that was the initial impetus. having said that, albuquerque, i think, is as important a character to "breaking bad" as walter white or skyler white or jesse pinkman is. >> rose: because? >> you know what it is? first of all, i love shooting there. we had the best crew, great bunch of people. the skies there, unlike typically the case in southern california, the skies of southern california, is it's beautiful weather in southern california but it's either a nice blank blue sky or the marine layer comes in it's whitish gray. but in albuquerque typically they have these astounding clouds that really give you a feel for the scope of the distances that exist out there. so these amazing -- i don't know the latin term bus the fluffy sort of cumulous clouds going

into infinity and you have everything -- every -- there's a feeling -- as great as southern california is for many reasons and wonderful crews work there, but you can't point a camera anywhere that hasn't been filmed before. not so albuquerque. it felt like virgin territory for cinematography and it really allowed us -- allowed me to realize what the show could be, the missing element that was not an idea they had in the pilot script but what we came up with was kind of a post-modern western and we started to use the cinematic language of john ford -- we mimicked -- we didn't -- john ford, sergio leoni. >> rose: see, that's fascinating. i never knew that. you were thinking like spaghetti western, thinking about john ford, thinking about a modern western. white hats, black hats. >> yeah, although so many folks on the show -- maybe guys wear

the black hat, some guys on the show wear gray hots, but nonetheless, yeah. >> rose: it is that. so when did walter white break bad? everybody has a different idea. >> that's a very good question. i had great engaging arguments. not heated but i was talking to bryan cranston, he thinks it's the very first episode and he has a very smart -- >> rose: what does he think? >> he says once you make that decision in that first episode you're committed. you are a criminal when you engage in that first criminal act and -- >> rose: as soon as he makes the crystal meth he's a criminal? >> yeah. i don't think he means to say he'ser redeemable at that point but i think he means that that's the moment whereas he could have you know, found a different try make that money. >> rose: so what do you think? >> i think it came in episode

four of season one. we had an episode and it's one of the proudest moments we've had, i've had in the writers' room. my writers and i were four hours into -- three hours into the story and at that point we were thinking okay, he's a good guy, we have to keep him as likable as possible, we don't want to lose what little audience we have. we wanted to build. we want people to remain in sympathy with our main guy, he's cooking crystal meth, it's a bad thing, it destroys whole communities but we want people to like the show enough that they keep watching. so how does he keep cooking meth and remain likeable? is it like that he cooks -- he makes $100,000 and robbers steal it and he has to cook more meth? and two episodes from now he makes more money but then crows fly away with it and build a nest? the plot machinations of keeping the guy likable, you know, as it were -- >> rose: stone crows. >> right.

exactly. so in that fourth episode we did what you're never supposed to do. we employed a deus ex machina kind of a device and it was in the guise of these two wealthy friends who had gone to grad school with walt and they are billionaires now and they're -- by every indication, they're really good people and they say to him "your wife has told us on the sly that you've got cancer, we feel terrible about it, we are going to pay for your treatment, get you the best of everything. off job with us for life. and deus ex machina like they descend and offer him everything he needs. and at the end of that hour he says "thank you, no." and he goes back to jesse pinkman and he says "let's cook." and that was really where the story, the character truly got interesting for me and we had

fear about hit in the writers room. we said "seriously? we're going to do this this early?" but the character has to -- there has to be another reason other than mechanical plot machinations for someone to continue -- you can't have it both ways and have it feel authentic or legitimate and so we realized this guy's got some serious pride issues. a serious damaged ego. a serious pride about who he is or how he perceives himself and he won't accept that kind of charity and that's where it got interesting. >> rose: like honor among thiefs? >> like i can't see myself as a man if someone else is footing the bill. i'm not saying i agree with that but it made it very interesting. i think he should have -- not as a show -- but if i was just watching the show it's like "if you were a man, you'd take this

largess that they're offering you, you would thank them." >> rose: why do you love walt? >> why do we love him? >>. >> rose: yeah, he's an anti-hero but we're rooting for him, aren't we? he lets jesse's girlfriend die. >> yeah. >> rose: he watches kids blown away. >> you're right. >> rose: this is not a nice guy. >> no, he's not. >> rose: don't you think audience is rooting for him? >> quite a large percentage of the audience is rooting for him and i don't want them to not root for him -- the deeper we get the more it surprises me because i -- (laughter) and i don't want you to not root for him but it's a very complex -- sometimes i can't see the forest for the trees being right in the middle of it. some of these questions are for smarter people than me who are removed from it to be able to answer. i think his behavior is pretty

hard to accept at this point. this point up to -- >> rose: to condone. >> it's hard to condone. this is a guy -- it's funny, isn't it? i think we had this a lot. people love to watch on the silver screen, as it were, big screen, little screen, whatever, as fictional characters are people we would flee in real life. i love al pacino in "scarface." if you were in that restaurant when he had that meltdown and he's like, you know "say good-bye to the bad guy." i'd just be like "check, please." (laughter) >> rose: i'm out a here." >> but we love -- what is it about that? i find it fascinating. but my best guest is that because -- the more heroic to me

is skyler. her character does indeed become a bit corrupted. but she does it for good reasons. >> rose: what's the reason? >> keeping the family intact. being, as she puts it in one episode "someone has to protect this family from the man who protect this is family." >> rose: that's a great line. >> doesn't mean it's a perfect way to do it but she is compromised by this man who essentially in an earlier episode he plays chicken with her. she finds out that he is doing what he's doing and she says to him "walt, i'll make you a deal. i won't be the one to call the police on you, that information will never come from me. but in the meantime, you have to stay away from other family." because -- d'uh. and he plays chick within her and he shows up and moves back in and she says "i will call the police now." and he says "do it." and she gets to the point of calling the police -- >> rose: because he knows she

will not? >> i think in that moment he doesn't care because he loves his family as well. that's -- you know, i don't think he's playing chicken just to win, he loves his family, he doesn't want to not be with them. that's what made that episode interesting for me. he's willing to accept the consequences it seemed to me at that moment. she is unwilling to when push comes to shove to do that to her son. >> there's money here that we could spend -- more money than we could spend in ten lifetimes. i certainly can't launder it. not with 100 car washes. walt, i want my kids back. i want my life back. please tell me how much is nufz. how big does this pile have to

be? >> rose: as we start this last season, where is jesse in his head? >> as we end the final season, he's in a very dark place because something absolutely unacceptable happened in an episode you guys saw where a young 14-year-old boy got -- on his motorbike got killed. >> rose: he can't get over it. >> no, he can't and what decent person would be able to? >> brilliant! so go ahead. if you keep doing this, go ahead! put a bullet in my head and kill me right now! do it! >> and jesse's a character who -- he's not driven by money, we've seen this many times. and he's driven, it seems to me

-- more than anything he's driven by a desire to please this father figure who has come into his life. unfortunately it's as if luke skywalker were trying to please darth vader. >> rose: tell me about this idea of writing a scene and you find yourself in a terrible place and you don't know how to get out of it. >> rose: we -- we -- (laughs) we have painted ourselves into some corners over the seasons, my yiers and i. and there's been couple times when we thought we'd have to go backward. >> rose: when hank's outside and the two of them are in the trailer -- >> that was a memorable moment. >> rose: i'm saying -- >> i mean, for us in the writers' room, memorable as in painful. >> rose: yeah, painful. and how long did it take you to figure that out. was that a week of writers just scratching your head saying "what the hell are we going to do here? >> probably about a week. >> rose: you have to get a resolution to this problem.

>> oh, yeah. i wish i could be more specific. i -- there's a great old saying i learned from a writer -- from a producer, director of "the x-files" "the pain fades but the glory remains." i tend to forget some of the specifics of the pain but i think it was probably the better part of a week that seven of us sat around saying "we've got him in the box, how do we get him out of the box." and the idea that jesse frantically pitches to walt before walt comes up with this master plan are ideas that we asked ourselves. >> rose: oh, yeah, sure. >> and they were rejected. we just drive out of here! just drive out of here. >> rose: al the bad ideas you had, you have to use them. >> with jesse pitching them out. no, no, we can't do that. they'll shoot in the head if i drive uf here. do we create a hole in the floor of the r.v. and tunnel out? (laughter) but -- >> rose: i thought what you would do is take some easy way out, somebody would come up and

distract hank. >> we talked about everything we could humanly conceive of. >> rose: how much of you is in walt? >> probably more than i'd care to admit. >> rose: well, admit a little. >> i never even used meth. (laughter) i took too many sudafed one time and i really did not like the feeling of it. >> rose: have you ever broke bad >> not in any particularly cinematic way. (laughter) but i am -- well, i do feel a kinship to him. but he's willing to do things that i'd be too scared to do. also i was saying earlier, i don't aspire to be a criminal. on the other hand there were things that you see criminals do in "breaking bad" or in "the godfather" or "scar face" or some of the favorite movies, you see them get the job done. you see them not let social anxiety, for instance, stop them

from walking into tuco's lair to avenge in some fashion -- in an intellectual but not physical fashion but nonetheless walking into the lair of meth king pen tuco at the end of season one and going toe to toe to those guys. those are things i would not be able to make myself do. >> rose: but you want walt to do them. >> yeah. walt is a guy -- it's funny, we talked a lot in the writers' room about what walt's superpower was and we often said -- you know, as if he had one and we said it wasn't his intellect or chemistry knowledge or his ability to cook the best meth in the world rather it was his ability to lie so that anybody would believe his lie. first and foremost he himself. i mean, walter white lies to

himself. >> rose: that is his strength. >> that's one superpower but the other as i sit here is that it's one granted him-- much like being bitten by a radioactive spider let's peter parker -- gives him superpowers. walt's in this fictional world walt's cancer diagnosis, as he says in a particular episode, allows him to not worry anymore. and once he gets over that hump of my life is rapidly dwindling here he was a man beset by a great many fears when we first meet him. he's kind of a scared little man who has a great many anxieties. once he finds out he's dying he sleeps through the night and he's able to do these things because he just-- pardon my french-- doesn't give a [no audio] anymore. >> rose: but he's good at it. he's good at being bad. >> he's good at being bad. he finds that he is indeed

perhaps this is what he was cut out for all along. >> rose: talk about the idea of when jesse's girlfriend died. and there he is. >> that was -- we have been -- we have had -- i use this story as evidence of how good sony and a.m.c. have been to us you create a show like braeb and -- i've been doing this 15, 16 years or more when i embarked upon this and you realize very quickly working in either the t.v. or movie business that you are facing death by a thousand cuts. you know, selling an idea like okay, we're going to take this good guy, turn him bad and you feel that the company you've signed on to do business with will say great, i love it, a great idea and as it progresses they will come to you and say "does he have to be quite so bad?"

>> rose: (laughs) "we didn't mean for him to be that bad." >> exactly. so you have that fear going into a project like this. sony and a.m.c. were as good as their word from day one when they said we agree -- we have signed on to this, we love this idea and want you to take it to the finish line. i use this as an example. the one time we all of us-- me included-- got scared that walt was too bad was that episode that happened toward the end of season 2 and walt goes over to jesse's house and -- >> rose: he's had too many drugs. >> and jesse and his girlfriend are sleeping off a heroin high and his girlfriend rolls over on to her back and starts to aspirate her own vomit and dies and walt doesn't stop it from happening. and my original pitch was that he actually does it on purpose, he gives her a hot dose, or a

second dose. >> rose: you are bad! (laughter) >> everybody -- i didn't even know. my writers said no, that's -- no. >> rose: i get the picture. you've got these writers to keep the worst in you out! >> rose: it has come to that on occasion. but when we turned in the outline with the less active evil that walt -- you know, that makes use of is -- the company's called and said can we talk about this? this scares us a little. not that he's going to ever get that bad, we can buy into that. we said that when you take him from good guy to bad guy we have to ask you, are you doing it too soon? because at that point we were only 18, 19 episodes into the run of the show and their concerns were well founded and we talked it through but at the end of -- wasn't any more than a 15, 20 minute phone call i said

"i'm scared, too, but this feels right to me." >> you did something in which you showed us at the opening of every episode something that was going to happen later. >> very often, yeah. we would -- >> rose: where did that come from? "x files"? >> yeah, i have to say so much of "breaking bad" is things i learned from seven years writing for "the x-files. requests that was a great job. chris carter taught me how to be a writer for television. taught me how to produce television. ultimately i started to learn for direction because i was allowed to direct that series toward end and i have to say, too, that was network t.v. and network gets kind of in this wonderful golden age of television that other people have coined that term that i feel proud to be a part of network gets sometimes short

shrift. i'm lucky to be working in cable. i love cable t.v. but i did seven years of network t.v. and that is a darn hard job to do and do well because you've got -- the greatest thing about cable, people think, oh, cable t.v. is great because you can be edgier and you can say bad words and you can show nudity and it's nice this for reasons. we have them a greater extent on add supported cable than we did on networks and x files. i can count the number of times i was really upset by not being able to say a certain bad word or whatever but what the great freedom that cable has over network is the folks weren't laboring in network, they have to do twice as many episodes. and when you have to make that much -- grind out that much more sausage it's -- i've said it before, it's like the old thing

about ginger rogers, she did everything fred astair did except backwards in high heels. it's like doing a great network show like "the good wife" that's way harder because you have way less time and time is such a blessing and we're allowed to work things through. >> rose: you think about house of cards and what netflix is doing and what's happening in terms of the whole range of starting with hbo and showtime and a whole range of cable companies. is it really the golden age of -- another golden age of television? you see it that way in the place the best want to work now because they can do things they can't do anywhere else? >> it does seem to be the case. and i'm lucky and proud to be a -- to be a part of it. it's not the first golden age of television. sometimes it's like, well, this is the golden age but i think there's been several before but i tell you what's -- the shame

-- the sadness for me at the heart of this golden age of television is that i think it is a golden age of television because television now does stories for grown-ups that hollywood movies don't allow filmmakers to make. i think of the last goalen age of hollywood films was, i guess, the 1970s. >> rose: have you been living year to year? when do you find out they're going to give you another year? or was there a commitment of five years from day one? >> no, no, it was -- and not unusual for television. we'd get to the end of the season and sweat it out for the end of time. >> rose: even after -- after the second season, for example? >> yeah, because it -- the

wonderful thing about "breaking bad" fans is that they are really, really enthusiastic but we don't get -- we've never had -- the good thing for us, the lucky thing for us is that our viewership was built ever since day one. it's not gone down but it's still -- >> rose: even now it hasn't gone down in the fifth year? >> as far as i know and hopefully that will continue through the final eight. but having said that, no matter what we end with on our final episode it still will be a fraction of viewership, i would think, of -- "the walking dead" another a.m.c. show, an excellent show, probably gets five times the number of viewers we get. you know, so the companies -- a lot of times in the early days especially pickups that we did we have to wait for a little bit, we sweat it out, the waiting process. it wasn't anybody playing games with us, it was probably just hard-fought decisions at the executive level.

>> rose: so who made the decision if this was to be the end. >> it was a decision that really -- it was a combination of things but ultimately it derived from the fact that i really in my heart of hearts i didn't -- i've had such a good experience doing the show i do not want it to pass its prime. i didn't want folks -- folks like you guys to say to themselves -- >> rose: you're stretching? >> yeah, the worst thing you can say about a t.v. show that used to be something people dig is "that used to be great. is that still on the air?" (laughter) i never wanted to hear that with "breaking bad" and so i communicated to sony and a.m.c. and i said i didn't think this had much more creative life left in it. >> rose: when you look at the series and what it's done, are

there any regrets at this stage? >> i have a few but they're not creative regrets. i regret i didn't spend more time on the set in albuquerque. i regret that i didn't direct more. >> rose: why didn't you do it, then? >> because my primary job, my most important job was running the writing room and so it would be seven of us sitting in this room and breaking the stories and i love being on the set. i love directing. i didn't -- but the good news was i didn't need to be there because we have better directors. we have michelle mclaren and so many others. >> rose: bryan directed a couple episodes didn't he? >> the first episode you see was directed by bryan cranston. he's directed three episodes for us. the first one he did an excellent job, the second was better, this is his best yet. >> rose: the third one is the best yet. you haven't seen it yet. it's his third as director of "breaking bad."

it's the first episode you will see. >> rose: aaron has said last season is dark. you said this was a victory for walt. >> i did say that in an interview when i was drunk. (laughter) i think in a sense it is but some of you may watch it and say "what was he smoking when he said that?" >> rose: heisenberg. where did you come up with that? >> i don't remember. the wonderful thing about t.v., one of the many things i love about it, is we have been seven of us-- myself in included-- sitting around in a room, felt like a sequestered jury that would never end. and you sit for hundreds of thousands of hours and you forget who says what. and we were talking about how did walt get himself out of the r.v. with hank looming.

that was a writer named peter gould who came up with that. the head on the tortoise -- the head blowing up on the tortoise was a writer named george masters. but by and large you tend to forget and that's as it should be, i think. if you are -- it's such a great old -- i'm full of cliches but it's like that great old expression -- i don't remember it. (laughter) but it's amazing the quality of work that get done. we seven of us would come up with things and i can't remember what who said what. it's all of us together, the hive mind, as it were. >> rose: let me mention one more character. the lawyer, saul. it's the comic relief of the show. >> it is. and, you know -- well, yes, and we -- we put as much come any this show even before saul goodman's first appearance as we can possibly fit provided it

doesn't feel shoe horned. but a show as dark as "breaking bad," if it had no leavening humor it would be -- i think it would be unwatchable. so we -- we put as much humor-- legitimately earned and derived humor-- as possible and saul goodman was a god send to us. you know, he was the tom hagueen as it were. he was the conditions larry of -- the kind of consiglierry that walter white would get. >> tom hagueen from "the godfather". >> yes. >> rose: people say the pacing of the show is fantastic. what is in your head? >> you all know exactly who i am say my name. >> what? >> i don't care really what you do. >> i'm the cook.

i'm the man who killed gus spring. >> bull (bleep). cartel got him. >> are you sure? that's right. now, say my name. >> heisenberg. >> you're (bleep) damn right. >> we love -- my writers and i love a good turn of phrase. we love it when people quote back to us like "i am the danger say my name." but to us writing is really about the stuff in between the dialogue. and cinema, you know, moving motion pictures -- >> rose: you mean writing making -- being able to have something exciting move forward even though the actors are not saying

anything? the moments i love most in my favorite t.v. shows and you see it a little more often in movies historically because t.v. doesn't have the time or the budget to -- for some of the shot making you see in motion pictures. but we have actors who are capable of putting complex emotions across without the necessity of dialogue. i can't tell you how many times i've been on the setnor the editing room and was overjoyed to realize i could cut a line of dialogue that i up to that moment thought was necessary to tell the story. the wordless communication is what motion pictures allow you -- sometimes theater doesn't. it's a wonderful thing.

>> rose: i know some people who like you a lot. and here's what they say: how is he gonna top this? (laughter) how do you go from "breaking bad" to something else. >> that is a darn fine question. and i -- because i am a very neurotic anxiety-ridden person. i am walter white before the diagnosis. (laughter) and the best advice -- and i know it's good advice. i don't know if i'm cape only of taking it is not to try to top this. this has been a -- just a magnificent experience on any level and i would probably be foolish to set out to top it because that's the kind of thing that cripples you. i remember earlier in my career i was writing a script that never got made. never went anywhere. but i got in the my head somehow

as i embarked upon writing it, it was a movie script, this is going to be important. this is going to be great and it's going to work on thematic levs and it's going to be entertaining and make people think. and it took me two and a half years to write the first draft and it was nothing anyone was remotely interested in making when it was done. and when i started off doing "breaking bad" i didn't say to myself "this is going to be --" i wouldn't be sitting here at the museum of the moving image talking about it with charlie rose. i didn't think any of those things would come of this. it just seemed like an interesting character to write about and that's the way to approach it and i hope i'm able to take my own good advice there. >> rose: what have we seen here in the ending approaching in the next couple months? what have you wrought in your own mind? >> i have to stress we -- because it's -- it's a

wonderfully collaborative medium that i take great pride in and that is collaborative. and i hope that we have wrought-- pleural-- is something that for the folks who have enjoyed it all along will feel like when you turn it off people say yeah, that's how it should end. and i hope that will be the case and i suspect that for some folks they will want something a little different. you can't be all things to all people. but i hope by and large for the vast ma joyty of viewers they will say "damn, that's how it should have ended." >> rose: you know what i think you have wrought? one great story. (applause) >> thank you. thank you. >> rose: vince gilligan. thank you.