Bryan Cranston's Quotes

We've been trained since kindergarten: Be nice, be kind, share, put on a smile. So we're conditioned to squash our natural selfish instincts, and that's the right thing for society.

Hollywood has known this for quite a while: Cable is the place to go because they truly have a supportive network and they want to do things that cannot be seen on broadcast. That stimulates the writer-producer. Cable is king.

I admit, I do a lot of projects, but it's because I'm in a position now where I'm reading a lot more scripts and plays and things, and I'm really listening to offers and trying to think what I want to do at any given time.

I think naturally, if you're an actor, there's a high level of assertiveness that you need to have to survive this business. There's boldness in being assertive, and there's strength and confidence.

I think, and I mean this sincerely, I was raised humbly. We were a lower middle income family and a household that was scrimping by at times. We were watching the dollar, stretching the dollar, and coupons. It was all those things.

I want to be able to experience everything. I want to experience being a husband, experience being a father, experience, maybe, hopefully, someday being a grandfather, and all those things. I want that experience. When I die, I want to be exhausted.

I wish Americans thought more like Europeans when it comes to money and work. They take time off, they do what they love. We think work is the most valued commodity. Really the most valued commodity is time.

I'm not crazy about being out of control, and I get emotional when things are unclean. When things are out of order. When things are messy. Because I lived in a mess as a child.

I'm telling you, until I shaved my head, I never realized how much heat is lost through the top of the head. I walk out in winter and it feels like I have an ice pack on my head. Unbelievable.

I've done more crap than I care to remember. I really have. 'Airwolf.' 'Murder, She Wrote.' 'Amazon Women on the Moon.' But you learn from all these bad shows. What you don't want to do and what you don't want to be involved with.

If something is well-written, it has a chance to be good and if it's not well-written, it will not be good. It could even become popular, but it won't be good.

If you have a level of expectation in your life that you have to be a quote-unquote star, whatever that means, you might be setting yourself up for failure.

If you like vanilla, you're not going to like 'Breaking Bad' - you need to like a specific flavor that is unusual, that is different, that takes risks.

If you're a person who complains about everything all the time, then you're just the boy who cried 'wolf.' But if you do it on occasion and about the right reasons, then people listen.

In order to be an actor you really have to be one of those types of people who are risk-takers and have what is considered an actor's arrogance, which is not to say an arrogance in your personal life. But you have to be the type of person who wants the ball with seconds left in the game.

It used to be that people would watch TV shows because they knew the characters would stay the same. Whether it's Archie Bunker or it's Thomas Magnum you watch it because it's like, 'I'm comfortable, this is the same guy.'

Luck is a component that a lot of people in the arts sometimes fail to recognise: that you can have talent, perseverance, patience, but without luck you will not have a successful career.

My personal feeling, if I can interject a political note, is that I don't think it is right that basic health care is a privilege. It shouldn't be. It should be a right of all human beings. And certainly in the richest country in the world.

Something's happened in our society which I don't think is beneficial, and that's that you see the public being fed box-office news. Newscasts now, every local station - I've been traveling around the country a lot, and you see the local news, and they give box-office reports.

The TV business is like the produce section of the market. Today everything is fresh and glistening and firm. And tomorrow, when they find a bruise on you, they toss you out.

There's so many things that can go wrong in the execution of a project like a television show or a movie, so many little elements, any number of things, all the way to marketing - like they could market it poorly and nobody finds it and down it goes.

There's this notion that in order to draw attention and to be considered for roles I want to be considered for, you need a certain amount of notoriety.

What's interesting is a man with no facial hair is less intimidating than a man with facial hair, and a man who is bald is more intimidating than a man with hair.

When I was a kid there were a very select few channels - programmes had to have more of a large appeal and they just didn't offer very much. Now you have a situation where the television world has expanded and there's hundreds of channels.

When you're an actor in grade school, high school, college, whatever, you start to realize what you're really good at, what you're kinda good at, what you're okay at, and you start to compartmentalize. But if you know yourself and what you're capable of, it's just a matter of opportunity.

When you're directing an ongoing series, the tone has already been set. So a director will come in and fulfill that tone - reinforce the characters and their behavior. The challenge is to find unique ways that you can visually tell the story while keeping the established tone and the pace and the characters.

You get addicted to emotions. Our endorphins kick in and it's like a high. On the low end you might love roller coasters. On the high end you might be a bank robber or something.

Love is not as important as good health. You cannot be in love if you're not healthy. You can't appreciate it.

Any kind of civil rights oppression is wrong.

I have some anger issues.

What's great about comedy, obviously, is that you set up a situation that people assume one thing and then you break the assumption. That's basically the backbone to comedy. You set up a situation, let people make an assumption, and then you break the assumption.

Actors are inherently self-centered.

As a director you come in and tell the actors how good they are.

At my age, I don't think anyone is untouched by cancer.

Bad for the sake of bad is boring to me and not believable.

Being a day player, period, is one of the hardest things you can do as an actor.

Danger is cool.

Every experience feeds an actor, and I've learned that depression is all around us.

Every time you start a project, you're hopeful that the critics receive it warmly.

Given the right set of circumstances any one of us could become dangerous - so why not show that in our programmes?

I appreciate my role as an actor much more after I direct because it's just easier.

I can tell you for sure: people who are at their peak right now will not sustain that. You can't. It's against the law of nature.

I don't have spare time.

I don't really relax. When I sleep, I relax.

I enjoy doing comedy for the fact that you go to work and you laugh. That's a good combination.

I have a lovely family who supports me and it's great.

I have talked to stunt drivers all my life, 32 years of talking to stunt drivers. There's a craziness to them.

I intend to do more directing TV.

I learned long ago to focus on things you can control and don't even pay attention to things you don't.

I look like everyone.

I love acting because it's empowering. It empowers me.

I'm a big fan of 'Mad Men.'