Aaron Paul

What's up? I'm Tatiyana Diana. We're hanging out at the lovely Young Hollywood Studios at the Four Seasons with the very bad Aaron Paul. How are you?

I am fantastic. How are you?

I'm good. Congratulations. TV Critics Association nomination.

Yeah. What? I know, it's kind of crazy.

Can we talk about Breaking Bad a little bit?

Yeah, yeah.

For people who are living under a rock and don't know what the show's about, can you give us a little bit of a summary?

Yeah, yeah, it's uh it's a story about a uh a man named Walter White. He's a high school chemistry teacher. Um happily married, uh a teenage son with special needs, and he has a surprise baby on the way. And uh he finds out that he's dying of lung cancer. And so he decides to use his chemistry skills, um and teams up with one of his old students who I play, to start cooking and selling crystal meth to provide for his family once he dies.

When you're reading the script, are you ever like are they are they serious?

Yeah, there's a lot of things.

Do you have those moments?

When I first read the pilot, I was like, "Wow, this this is probably the best thing that I've ever read, but there's no way that it's going to make it on the air because you don't see television like this." It's just so it's just so dark, but funny, you know? I mean, in the in the second episode, we're like, I'm my character is melting a body in acid in a bathtub.

Normal.

It's a very normal day.

Yeah, standard.

Yeah, standard. Um, but uh, you find yourself laughing at it. And then you, you know, you realize that you yourself are also a very dark person.

So, um, just tracking back a little bit. You are kind of playing dark characters and twisted roles, very serious, controversial roles. How do you get there from playing a frog? Tell us what I'm talking about. There's no secrets in the Young Hollywood Studio.

Oh, wow. Take it away. Um, I uh my first job, really ever, was uh jumping around in a giant frog costume.

Mhm.

For a radio station.

Mhm.

That was a frog dressed up as a cowboy. And that frog was that frog was me.

How did it feel to be at the Emmys?

It uh it was great. Yeah. It's a really fun, you know, fun party. I took my mom last year and like watching her like in the gown was just a good thing to see.

I mean, you're from Idaho. Your mom's probably not that used to getting dressed up in these big ball gowns.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it was great. Yeah. She got to do a fitting over at Burberry and she just couldn't believe it. You know, uh she just shed so many happy tears, you know? My dad went with me as well, last year, my brother and um it was great.

Were you nervous?

Yeah, of course. Yeah, it was just such a crazy. I mean, I was not expecting to win. I was just happy to kind of go to the I mean, it's such an honor to just be there.

Yeah, exactly. Let alone be nominated like you were, which is fantastic.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And just the people that were in the category, I'm just such huge huge fans of. It's great.

I mean, this show's doing amazing on AMC. You guys definitely boosted up AMC. Mad Men's another great show. What do you think of Mad Men?

Yeah. I love Mad Men.

Are you tight with the cast?

Yeah, I mean it's it's great. AMC is like a really truly like a AMC is blowing up right now.

AMC's blowing up. Well done, AMC. Check out AMC Sunday nights.

Sunday nights. Watch it or die. It's pretty intense.

Or die. Breaking Bad, Aaron. What up?

What up? What up?