CHARACTER · BREAKING BAD
Skyler White
- Appears in
- Breaking Bad (2008)
- Played by
- Anna Gunn
8 archived facts 6 topics
Skyler White is a character in the TV series Breaking Bad (2008), played by Anna Gunn.
8 Interesting Facts About Skyler White
Behind the Scenes (1)
Characters & Cast (1)
- #002
Contains a major spoiler — show
Although the main character commits many serious crimes, including money laundering, murder, and manufacturing and distributing an illegal and very dangerous drug, a great deal of fan hatred focused on Skyler. Fans have created many Facebook and other Web pages dedicated to Skyler's perceived flaws. Anna Gunn wrote a New York Times op-ed titled "I Have a Character Issue," published on August 24, 2013, a month before the finale, about the phenomenon of TV viewers hating strong female characters such as Skyler, Carmela Soprano of The Sopranos (1999), and Betty Draper of Mad Men (2007), despite the fact that they are wives of male characters who engage in much less sympathetic and often outright criminal behavior. Gunn wrote, "Viewers are entitled to have whatever feelings they want about the characters they watch. But as a human being, I'm concerned that so many people react to Skyler with such venom. Because Skyler didn't conform to a comfortable ideal of the archetypical female, she had become a kind of Rorschach test for society, a measure of our attitudes toward gender." She acknowledged that attitudes changed over time in a 2024 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, "[Fans] say, 'The first time I watched it, I hated that character. But the second time I watched it, I realized, 'Oh my God, that poor woman.'" Bryan Cranston reflected on the backlash in 2026, "She got a lot of blowback from that. Well, first of all, Anna Gunn is a superb actor. Her husband leaves without any explanation. She's pregnant. He's making crystal methamphetamine. People have died... and she's the bitch?!"
