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Most TV viewers are familiar with the narrative premise of Breaking Bad: A high school chemistry teacher learns he has cancer, and – in desperation – turns to a life of crime to earn money to leave behind for his family when he dies. Beyond the narrative, what was your vision on a thematic level for the show?
Vince Gilligan: When I first thought of the idea for Breaking Bad, I was thinking of mid-life crises. I was about to turn 40, so that was front and center on my mind. (laughs) Walter White is a man suffering from one of the world’s worst mid-life crises, which then becomes an end-of-life crisis when he learns he’s dying of cancer. While writing, I was thinking of men who live lives of quiet desperation, as the poet says. But mainly, I was thinking: “What’s the most entertaining and original story I can tell?” That’s all any writer can think about at any given moment.

It’s interesting from a timing perspective that you’re kicking off the 2012 season for the National Writers Series, as the guest who wrapped up the 2011 season was Chuck Klosterman, who discussed Breaking Bad extensively on stage and also wrote a popular essay on Grantland.com about the show. Klosterman praised the series as better than The Wire, The Sopranos and Mad Men, in large part because of its moral clarity, saying: “There's one profound difference between this series and the other three, and it has to do with its handling of morality: Breaking Bad is the only one built on the uncomfortable premise that there's an irrefutable difference between what's right and what's wrong, and it's the only one where the characters have real control over how they choose to live.” Could you comment on that?
Vince Gilligan: I read that essay, and it pushed the circumference of my head about five or six sizes. Chuck is a wonderful writer – I was very honored by that. Deep down inside, I truly believe in right and wrong, and in karma. I have to believe there’s a right way to live your life and a wrong way. My girlfriend always says to me: “I’m not sure if there’s a heaven, but I have to believe there’s a hell. I have to believe people like Hitler wind up paying for their sins.” We try hard as human beings to create justice or a sense of justice in our civilizations and lives, but it’s fallible and often fails. So we desire to believe that there’s some universal justice out there, beyond our fallible human system of justice.
Walter White is the ‘hero’ of Breaking Bad, but I use that term very loosely, because he’s no hero of mine. He’s a bad guy. He started off as a good man who had justifiable reasons for the bad decisions he was making, but as the show has progressed, the ends are less and less clear. Walter is less concerned with his family and more concerned with his own self-aggrandizement. Our hero has become, episode by episode, a villain. I feel like what he’s doing is wrong, and having said that, he’s probably in for some payback.

Source: Full interview @ MyNorth.com