Jesse Pinkman was originally planned to be killed off. (In Season 1.) When Vince Gilligan was impressed by Aaron Paul, who played the character, he gave up on killing him.
Anthony Hopkins watched the entire series in two weeks and loved it. He wrote Bryan Cranston a fan letter.
RJ Mitte, who plays Walter Jr., actually has cerebral palsy in real life, but not as severe as in the series. He slowed down his speech to portray the character.
The decision to end Breaking Bad in Season 5 was Vince Gilligan's. He did not want Breaking Bad to go bad the way many series do later on.
Fans of the series were surprised that it featured no well-known star actors. According to Vince Gilligan, this was a choice, and he turned down offers of stars.
Walter White was initially conceived as 40 years old. AMC said Walter was too young to be having a midlife crisis, and his age was changed to 50.
Walter White is an expert in chemistry. Marius Stan, who plays Bogdan in the series, has a doctorate in chemistry, and Breaking Bad was his first acting attempt.
Gus Fring was originally supposed to appear in three or four episodes. They asked Giancarlo Esposito to play seven more episodes. The actor turned it down in order to play in more episodes. In the end, he played 11 episodes in the third season.
The reason Season 1 of the series consisted of seven episodes was that there was a strike in America at the time. But Vince Gilligan later said that the first season being short was a good thing.
When Vince Gilligan offered Bryan Cranston the role, he said he wanted to turn the character of Walter White from a nerd into Scarface.
Vince Gilligan constantly criticized in front of Bryan Cranston how bad a character Walter White was evolving into. Then, when he realized his criticism was hurting Bryan Cranston's feelings, he stopped doing it.
Breaking Bad was initially planned to be shot in California. They made Albuquerque the shooting location in order to benefit from a production tax rebate.
Sony and AMC initially did not want Bryan Cranston because of his comedy roles.
Samuel L. Jackson was at Los Pollos Hermanos during the shoot. While Breaking Bad and Avengers were being shot in the same area, Samuel L. Jackson wanted to appear in Breaking Bad in his Nick Fury costume. The producers turned this down.
Breaking Bad went to Showtime, TNT and HBO, in that order. After the channels turned it down, FX stepped in, but it too passed on the project. According to Vince Gilligan, HBO showed no interest from the very beginning. TNT liked it but said they could not broadcast a series whose main character was a crystal meth dealer.
After the series premiered, people who thought it would make the meth world look appealing began sending letters to AMC. After the series aired, these letters stopped.
At the start of every episode, just before the Breaking Bad title, the chemical formula C10H15N, the number 149.24 and the word "meth" appear. C10H15N is the formula for methamphetamine, whose molecular weight is 149.24.
During the fight between Jesse and Tuco, Aaron Paul fainted and suffered a concussion.
The crew's cars had to be kept somewhere in the series. They wanted to use a church parking lot for this, but the people at the church did not want the crew because they were shooting a series about drugs.
Walter White's alias Heisenberg comes from Werner Heisenberg, who discovered the uncertainty principle. It was a tribute to him.
In the third season, a storyline was written in which Walter visits a South American drug baron in prison to convince him to help bankrupt Gus Fring. The writers gave up on it because they could not work out how Walter could establish a connection with this drug baron.
The actor who plays Tuco would have been in the whole of Season 2 if he had not been playing in the series The Closer.
Hank Schrader's surname is also related to chemistry. The German scientist Gerhard Schrader accidentally discovered the first nerve gas.
In the first script, Jesse Pinkman's name was Marion Alan Dupree, and he was always referred to by his surname.
Mark Margolis, who plays the role of Hector Salamanca, said in an interview that he was influenced by his mother-in-law, who lived in a nursing home, while playing the character.
Breaking Bad is the first series to win an Emmy for best drama series without being nominated for an award in its first season since Law & Order in 1997.
The reason Walter White's daughter is named Holly is a reference to Holly Rice, Gilligan's long-time girlfriend.
In an interview, Vince Gilligan stated that he was inspired by "Frosty the Snowman" when creating the Heisenberg character for Walter White.
The series' popularity created a small cottage industry for some Albuquerque citizens in cosmetics, spa, bath and blue rock candy products.
The real-life owners of Walter White's house were being disturbed by fans of the series. Because there were people trespassing on the house, the owner had an iron fence and a security camera installed.
In Season 1, Anna Gunn asked Vince Gilligan what her profession was when she was not with Walter; Gilligan said Skyler was pregnant, and Skyler argued that pregnant women could also have a job and asked him to write something. This plan did not make it into the script because of the strike in Season 1.
Skyler and Marie's father was going to be in the series, but it did not happen because the writers thought they would stray too far from the main story.
In the series' first script, the story was about them making meth in a cow pasture, not in the desert with the RV. This changed because the shooting location of the series changed.
The real Albuquerque DEA office is about 1/2 mile from the Albuquerque studios where most of the series was shot.
The name Gale Boetticher was taken from the notorious film director Budd Boetticher, known for the film "Seven Men from Now."
Bryan Cranston, Anna Gunn, Bob Odenkirk and Larry Hankin (the owner of the car junkyard) had all previously appeared in the comedy series Seinfeld.
Mark Margolis, who plays Tio Salamanca, and Steven Bauer, who plays Don Eladio, previously appeared in Scarface.
Penn Badgley and Aaron Paul were the last two actors in the running for the role of Jesse.
David House, the actor who played Walter White's oncologist Dr. Delcavoli at the start of the series, died of brain cancer in 2016.
Gustavo Fring was named after the German footballer Torsten Frings.
Jonathan Banks (Mike Ehrmantraut) and Larry Hankin (the owner of the car junkyard) had previously appeared together in the film Armed and Dangerous (1986).
Aaron Paul and Giancarlo Esposito had previously worked together on the film Ghost Whisperer: Fury.
Despite many objections from his music team, Vince Gilligan personally chose Baby Blue by Badfinger as the song to be played in the series' final scene. The song was purchased more than 5,000 times on iTunes the night the finale first aired and re-entered the Billboard charts 40 years after its first release.
The scene in which the cousins blow up the truck used for smuggling immigrants could only be shot once. The actors had to get everything right. The heat coming from behind the actors who play the cousins after they set the truck on fire made their job difficult.
Bryan Cranston cried after the scene in which he watches Jane's death. The reason was that his own daughter came to mind.
In Season 5, Episode 1, an M60 machine gun is visible in Walter's trunk. Vince Gilligan initially did not know what Walter would do with that gun.
Dean Norris, who plays Hank, received an offer from a sitcom in the first half of Season 5. The actor told Vince Gilligan about the idea of killing off Hank in the first half of Season 5. Vince Gilligan turned this down, telling Dean Norris that he needed him for Hank.
Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul are the two actors who appeared in all 62 episodes of the series. The other characters are not in every episode.
The script was first written with Saul Goodman teaching Jesse how to clean up the crime scene after Jane dies. Bob Odenkirk, who plays Saul, had some commitments. As a result, Mike was brought into the series for this job.
Hector Salamanca was initially written as the series' main villain after Season 3. Later they made Gus the main villain.
In the Face Off episode, Gus straightening his tie and buttoning his jacket before falling to the ground was Giancarlo Esposito's idea.
The drug laboratory equipment at Jack's compound is the same equipment Walter and Jesse cooked with in the RV in the first season.
The GPS coordinates of the desert location where Walter White buries his money are actually the coordinates of the Albuquerque studios where most of the series was shot.
Krysten Ritter (Jane) was aware that her character would be killed off when she signed on to appear in the series. In an interview, Vince Gilligan simply said, "Jane had to die."
Before the series began, Bryan Cranston took lessons from a real chemistry professor, while Aaron Paul studied real meth addicts to prepare for the role.
The white underwear known as Walter White's underpants was Bryan Cranston's idea. Walter White's old-model car, Heisenberg's hat and his new car in Season 5 all came from Bryan Cranston.
AMC gave Breaking Bad permission to use the word fuck only once per season.
Every character in the series has specific color tones. For example, the character Marie mostly uses the color purple.
The reason the series' least-liked episode, Fly, was shot was to keep an out-of-control budget under control. The aim was to balance the budget by reducing the money spent in one episode, one that takes place in a single location and in which almost no one but Walter and Jesse appears. Vince Gilligan later said he was glad they shot such an episode to show the characters' inner worlds.
The scene in which Walter White throws a pizza onto the roof was shot in a single take.
Bryan Cranston played Walter White thanks to his role in The X-Files.
A real DEA agent showed the crew how to cook meth.
The "yo" and "bitch" lines in the series were in the script. Very, very few of them were improvised.
Dean Norris, who plays Hank, and Bryan Cranston appeared together in the film Little Miss Sunshine.
There are only 4 episodes in the series in which the characters Walter White and Jesse Pinkman do not appear together.
They made use of The Walking Dead's makeup team for Gus's death scene.
Aaron Paul had never received any acting training before.
The only one of the important characters whom Walter Jr. never meets is Jesse Pinkman.
After watching the Ozymandias episode, Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin said, "There is no character in Westeros as monstrous as Walter White; I will work on that."
When we put together the names of the first, fourth, tenth and thirteenth episodes of Season 2, we get seven thirty-seven / down / over / abq. And at the end of the season there is a plane crash.
In the first episode, one of Jesse's outfits (a long-sleeved blue shirt and a red vest) resembles Marty McFly's outfits in Back to the Future, which is fitting because Walter and Doc Brown share several character traits (an older, brilliant scientist).
Season 5, Episode 9 of the series ends with the words "dedicated to our friend Kevin Cordasco." Kevin Cordasco was a young boy with cancer. Before he died, he got the chance to meet the series crew, including Vince Gilligan. The crew told Kevin Cordasco that he could read the script if he wanted. Kevin Cordasco declined because he would not be able to keep the secret if he learned the script. Kevin Cordasco died before the second half of the series' final season aired. The episode ends with such a note.