When you and Vince Gilligan talked about the role four years ago, did you imagine Walt would become quite so dark?
What was explained to me was that he wanted to change a man from good to bad. From Mr. Chips to Scarface. And that’s something that has never been done on television. You risk having alienation from an audience to your lead character. And we were talking about it and he said, “Yeah, we don’t care, we are not out to … ” And I get that question a lot, like, “Boy, what is Walt doing now? Do people still really like him?” Well, we are not out to have people like him. We are out to have people understand him, relate to him, and watch his disintegration.
The series had a lot more humor in it in the beginning, especially between Walt and Jesse. Do you miss that levity?
Um, no. I don’t. What we owe the audience is to be truthful in the telling of this story. And in the beginning, when the pressure was not nearly as great — our anxiety levels weren’t as high or the threat to lives was not as imminent — there was more room for natural comedy. As it twists and turns and the noose gets tighter and tighter around the characters’ necks, naturally you are gonna lose opportunities for reflective or comedic moments. And it is just the nature of the story, the way it has to be told in earnest. It’s forced into this dark place.
It’s hard to believe the ending of the series is in sight.
We have sixteen more episodes. The likelihood is that they will split it [into two seasons]. You know, the whole business model is kind of upside down: Does eight episodes create a season? I don’t know. I guess so? It’s an arbitrary number. So they are going to go back into the writers' room in November and start looking at it from that standpoint, from what happens over the course of sixteen more episodes. And then I think if they get the final okay that we are gonna split the seasons, then [Vince] will cut it in half and figure out a good cliff-hanger for the eighth episode and how it picks up.
Source: Full interview @ Vulture
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