Bryan Cranston has good reason to believe Breaking Bad bested The Sopranos in 1 aspect everyone will agree on

The Sopranos And The bad news are giants in their field with a passionate fan base that is rarely seen. At first glance, the leads of the two shows, Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and Walter White (Bryan Cranston), may seem similar. Both are complex characters, with their morality in question. However, there is something that sets the two apart.

While Tony is a mob boss from the start, Walter is a regular guy – a high school teacher and cancer victim. Driven into the world of drugs by his desperation, Walter gained a lot of empathy from viewers, as they could relate to his character on some level. Drugs aside, Walter was just a guy trying to provide for his family, against all odds. Despite his crimes, fans love him, and Bryan Cranston knows exactly why.

Bryan Cranston on the The bad news Experiment

As the main character, viewers would feel sympathy for James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano. But Tony, hidden beneath the fans’ naiveté, was just a bad guy in general. Sure, he loved his family, and sure, he loved animals, but that doesn’t make him someone you’d want to be friends with. In fact, you’d run the other way if he walked toward you.

He cheated on his wife, murdered his nephew, was brutal to his son, and was an outright racist. There was no way you could identify with him. On the other hand, Bryan Cranston’s Walter White had much more complex layers to his personality.

He was a high school chemistry teacher who had just been diagnosed with stage III lung cancer. He knew his job wouldn’t be enough to support his family, so he turned to drug dealing to help out. Of course, that didn’t mean he was free of wrongdoing. Walter had his share of atrocities, but people still sympathized with him. After all, he wasn’t a villain from the start. Life happened.

If you are one of the few who doubts the fans’ loyalty to Walt, Cranston may have the answer to your questions. Apparently, it was all a big experiment behind the scenes.

During his appearance on Who’s talking to Chris Wallace?Cranston revealed how the show tested the limits of fans’ empathy.

That was all intentional, creating empathy… Everyone was signed up and supporting him. But then he did something illegal? Well, I give him a pass. And something a little bit more brutal, a little bit more, a little bit more. And Vince Gilligan (showrunner) wanted to see how long he could last and how far he could go from that first guy and still maintain the loyalty of the audience. So it was a real test. And it’s never been done before in the history of television.

They started small and gradually increased the dosage, only to find that audiences weren’t changing their minds about the polarizing antihero.

Vince Gilligan stops supporting Walter White

Just like everyone else watching Breaking Bad, Showrunner Vince Gilligan was also for Walt. However, when the show ended, he sat down to question his position.

Gilligan told the New Yorker that he regretted feeling any empathy for his lead character.

After a certain number of years, the magic wears off. Wait a minute, why was this guy so great? He was really self-absorbed and he was really full of himself. He had an ego the size of California. And he always saw himself as a victim. He was constantly whining about how the world was failing him, how his genius was never getting the attention it deserved. When you take all that into account, you finally say, ‘Why did I cheer for this guy?’

He wondered how Walt would leave destruction everywhere he went.

The further I get away from Breaking Bad, the less sympathy I have for Walter. He was thrown a lifeline early on. And if he had been a better person, he would have swallowed his pride and taken the chance to treat his cancer with the money his former friends offered him. He leaves on his own terms, but he leaves a trail of destruction in his wake. I focus on that more than I used to.

Cranston and Gilligan may not be happy with Walter’s decisions anymore, but that doesn’t change the fact that fans have always had and will always have respect for the character, despite his actions.

The bad news is available to watch on Netflix.