Bryan Lee Cranston was born inHollywood, Los Angeles,[4][5] on March 7, 1956,[6] the second of three children born to Annalisa "Peggy" (née Sell), a radio actress, andJoseph Cranston, an actor and former amateur boxer.[7][8] His father was of half Irish, quarter Austrian Jewish, and quarter German descent, while his mother was the daughter of German immigrants.[9][10][11] He has an older brother, Kyle, and a younger sister, Amy. Cranston was raised inCanoga Park, Los Angeles.[12][13][14] His father held many jobs before deciding to become an actor, but did not secure enough roles to provide for his family. He eventually walked out on the family when Cranston was 11 years old, and they did not see each other again until a 22-year-old Cranston and his brother Kyle decided to track him down.[7] Cranston later starred in a film directed by his father entitledThe Big Turnaround in 1988.[15] He then maintained a relationship with his father until the latter's death in 2014.[16]
Cranston has claimed that he based his portrayal ofWalter White on his own father, who had a slumped posture "like the weight of the world was on his shoulders".[7] After his father left, he was raised partly by his maternal grandparents[17][18] and lived on their poultry farm inYucaipa, California. He has called his parents "broken people" who were "incapacitated as far as parenting" and caused the family to lose their house in aforeclosure.[18] In 1968, when he was 12 years old, he encounteredCharles Manson while riding horses with his cousin atSpahn Ranch.[19] This happened about a year before Manson ordered theTate–LaBianca murders.[20] Cranston graduated fromCanoga Park High School, where he was a member of the school's chemistry club,[21] and earned anassociate degree inpolice science fromLos Angeles Valley College in 1976.[22] While at Los Angeles Valley College he took an acting class for an elective, which inspired him to pursue a career in acting, saying "And at 19 years old, all of a sudden, my life changed."[23]
After college, Cranston began his acting career in local and regional theaters, getting his start at the Granada Theater in theSan Fernando Valley. He had performed as a youth, but his show-business parents had mixed feelings about their son being involved in the profession, so he did not act until years later.[8] Cranston was ordained as a minister when he was 19 by theUniversal Life Church, and performed weddings for $150 a service to help with his income. Cranston noted "I think I was 19-years-old when I first started doing that on Catalina Island, where I was spending my summers working. Unbeknownst to me, I didn't realize how easy it was to do that. You simply fill in the application, send it to the Secretary of State of whatever state you're in, and you are ordained ... Bless you."[24][25][26] He also worked as a waiter, night-shift security guard at the gates of a private LA community, truck loader, camera operator for a video dating service, and a CCTV security guard at a supermarket.[27]
Cranston started working regularly in the late 1980s, mostly doing minor roles and advertisements.[28] He was an original cast member of the ABC soap operaLoving, where he played Douglas Donovan from 1983 to 1985.[8] Cranston starred in the short-lived seriesRaising Miranda in 1988. Cranston played Tom Logan in an episode of the first season of the TV seriesBaywatch in 1989. Cranston'svoice acting includes English dubbing of Japaneseanime (for which he primarily used the non-unionpseudonym Lee Stone),[29] includingMacross Plus andArmitage III: Poly-Matrix, and most notably,Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie asFei-Long, and the children's seriesMighty Morphin Power Rangers. Cranston did voice work for the 1993–94first season of that series, playing characters such as Twin Man and Snizzard, for which he was paid about $50 an hour for two or three hours of daily work. The Blue Power Ranger,Billy Cranston, was thought to be named for him but this has since proven false.[30][31][32]
1994–2006: Breakthrough andMalcolm in the Middle
In 1994, Cranston got the recurring role of Dr. Tim Whatley,Jerry's dentist, onSeinfeld. He played the role until 1997. In 1996, he played the first of his two biographical roles as an astronaut when he portrayedGus Grissom in the filmThat Thing You Do!. In 1997, he played a supporting role in theMichael Dudikoff action filmStrategic Command, alongsideRichard Norton,Paul Winfield, andStephen Quadros.[33] Later that year he had a small role inBabylon 5 as Ericsson, a starship captain who sacrifices himself as part of a plan to save the galaxy.
He has had guest roles in many television series, including awhite-collar criminal searching for his estranged wife and daughter onThe Flash, and a lawyer attempting to free the title character from a contract inSabrina the Teenage Witch. He also had a guest role in late 2006 on the CBS sitcomHow I Met Your Mother, playingTed Mosby's obnoxious co-worker and former boss Hammond Druthers. He playedLucifer in theABC Family miniseriesFallen and appeared as Nick Wrigley, an irresponsible uncle who accidentally bringsChristmas close to destruction when he stealsSanta's sleigh to have a crazy ride, in the 2001Disney Channel Original Movie'Twas the Night. In that same year, he provided the voice of Gary's father inGary & Mike. He appeared as the more successful business colleague ofGreg Kinnear's character in the filmLittle Miss Sunshine (2006). In September 2008, Cranston narrated a pre-teen adventure/fantasyaudiobook calledAdventures with Kazmir the Flying Camel.[38]
From 2008 to 2013, Cranston starred in theAMC seriesBreaking Bad, created byVince Gilligan, in which he played the show'sprotagonist,Walter White, a high-schoolchemistry teacher who is diagnosed withterminallung cancer. Determined to ensure the financial well-being of his family after he dies, Walter teams up with former studentJesse Pinkman (played byAaron Paul), to manufacture and sellmethamphetamine, in the process becoming increasingly ruthless and violent. Cranston's work on the series was met with widespread critical acclaim, winning him thePrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in each of the show's first three seasons and being nominated in 2012 and 2013 for seasons four and five (winning again in 2014 for the second half of season 5). Cranston andBill Cosby are the only actors to have won the award three consecutive times.[12] Cranston was also a producer for the fourth and fifth seasons of the series, and directed three episodes of the show during its run.
Cranston at theAll the Way premiere at theLBJ Library, Austin in 2016
From September 2013 to June 2014, Cranston played U.S. presidentLyndon B. Johnson in theAmerican Repertory Theater andBroadway productions ofAll the Way. The play depicted President Johnson's efforts to maneuver members of the88th United States Congress to enact, and civil rights leaders includingMartin Luther King Jr. to support, theCivil Rights Act of 1964. The performance has received widespread acclaim with Charles Isherwood ofThe New York Times writing, "Mr. Cranston strides onto the Broadway stage with an admirable confidence, meeting the challenge of animating Mr. Schenkkan's sprawling civics lesson as if he's thoroughly at home...Mr. Cranston's heat-generating performance galvanizes the production".[42] He went on to win theTony Award for Best Actor in a Play for the role.[43][44][45] He also played scientist Joe Brody in the 2014 reboot ofGodzilla.[46] From 2015 to 2019 he played Vince Loniganin theAmazon Prime Video seriesSneaky Pete. Cranston also served as a co-creator, writer and executive producer on the project.[47]
Cranston has produced an instructional DVD calledKidSmartz, which is designed to teach families how to stay safe from child abductors and Internet predators.KidSmartz raises money for theNational Center for Missing & Exploited Children by donating half the proceeds from sales. Also, following the success ofBreaking Bad, the year 2014 saw reports of Cranston developing new TV projects in collaboration withSony Pictures Television.[48] In 2016, it was announced that he would star in an episode of theChannel 4/Amazon Video seriesPhilip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, and would also serve as an executive producer on the series.[49][50]
In 2024, Cranston appeared in the filmEverything's Going to Be Great.[75] It was also announced that he would star alongsideLily Gladstone in the action-thrillerLone Wolf, playing a contractor who recruits a troubled veteran for a covert mission.[76]
From 1977 to 1982, Cranston was married to writer Mickey Middleton.[80] On July 8, 1989,[81] he marriedRobin Dearden whom he met on the set of the seriesAirwolf in 1984; he was playing the villain of the week and she played a hostage he held at gunpoint. Both Dearden and her daughter with Cranston, actressTaylor Dearden (b. February 12, 1993),[82] appeared in theBreaking Bad episode "No Más", directed by Cranston.[83]
Interests
Cranston played baseball when he was a student, and remains a collector of baseball memorabilia.[8] His collection includes pennants, signed cards and jerseys. A notable item in his collection is anAtlanta Braves jersey signed by numerous players in the500 home run club.[84] He is an avid fan of both theLos Angeles Dodgers[85] and theLos Angeles Rams.[86] During the 2022 MLB Celebrity Softball Game, Cranston was the first celebrity to be ejected after being struck by a pitch and jokingly throwing a bucket of bubble gum at an umpire.[87]
Cranston and castmateAaron Paul both gotBreaking Bad tattoos on the last day of filming to commemorate the final episode ofBreaking Bad. Cranston's tattoo consists of the show's logo on his right ring finger, while Paul's tattoo consists of "no half measures" on his biceps.[92]
Cranston and Paul announced the release of their signaturemezcal,Dos Hombres, in July 2019.[93]
Cranston supportedHillary Clinton in the2016 United States presidential election and opposed the candidacy ofDonald Trump. However, upon Trump becoming president, Cranston expressed disappointment with those who hoped Trump would fail: "President Trump is not the person who I wanted to be in that office, and I've been very open about that. That being said, he is the president. If he fails, the country is in jeopardy. It would be egotistical for anyone to say, 'I hope he fails.' To that person I would say, fuck you."[98] He openly criticized Trump in a 2023 interview onCNN, where he stated "The 'Make America Great Again' – my comment is: Do you accept that that could possibly be construed as a racist remark? And most people, a lot of people go, 'How could that be racist? Make America Great Again?' I said, 'So just ask yourself from an African American experience, when was it ever great in America for the African American? When was it great? If you're making it great again, it's not including them."[99] He supported the Democratic candidateKamala Harris in the2024 presidential election.[100]
^Cranston, Bryan (2016).A Life in Parts.Scribner. p. 144.On March 7, 1986, I ran in the first Los Angeles Marathon. It was also my thirtieth birthday...
^abcdReichardt, Nancy M. (October 5, 1983)."Soap star loves his craft".The Prescott Daily Courier. p. 3.Archived from the original on October 22, 2021. RetrievedFebruary 8, 2014.
^Cranston, Bryan (October 11, 2016).A Life in Parts. Simon and Schuster.ISBN9781476793856.Archived from the original on February 1, 2017. RetrievedFebruary 2, 2017.
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