It’s OK, you can say their names. ‘Cause “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan says he wants Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) and Walter White (Bryan Cranston) to appear on “Better Call Saul” just as badly as you do. Actually, maybe more.
“I desperately want to see both of them on ‘Better Call Saul,’” Gilligan told Entertainment Weekly when the “Breaking Bad” cast recently reunited for an interview in honor of the show’s 10th anniversary. “[‘Better Call Saul’ co-creator] Peter [Gould] wants it, the writers do, the actors do.”
Both Heisenberg and the world’s sweetest fictional meth dealer said they would be happy to drop by.
“My attitude towards it is the same I had from when Better Call Saul first started,” Paul told EW. “If Vince decided to put Jesse in ‘Better Call Saul,’ it’s going to be for a reason, and that reason’s going to be very satisfying for me. I trust in Vince. I don’t think he would just do that to satisfy the fans. It would have a purpose, and whether or not he decides to find that purpose or searches for the purpose, I don’t know. But if he does find that purpose, I’m happy to jump on board.”
“If he asked, I would just say yes,” Cranston, who says he has a “couple of ideas” to pitch too, added. “[Vince] takes such meticulous care of his characters and the story, and he changed our lives. ‘Yes’ is the answer. Even if it’s just a brush-by. A quick little something.”
“We’ve come to know people who we’ve seen before but we don’t know that we’ve seen them before, because we were in the store and we just passed by them,” he continued. Or we might even have a word or two. ‘Oh no, please go ahead.’ ‘Thank you for holding the door.’ And then five years later, you would never remember that. So something as minuscule as that could be very interesting in the fabric of the whole thing.”
“We have those kind of encounters every day, and I think that would be fun for the audience — and the most honest,” Cranston added.
However, Gilligan doesn’t think a quick appearance on camera is what fans — or he and Gould — are looking for at this point.
“[I]t wouldn’t feel as satisfying if it was just a cameo or an Alfred Hitchcock walkthrough,” he says. “I think we’ve waited long enough. We damn well better have a good reason for them to show up. I just hope we figure it out because I’ve got to hear, ‘Yeah, bitch!’ one more time.”
Though Gilligan already admitted one more “Breaking Bad” character is coming to “Better Call Saul” in the upcoming fourth season, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be Walt or Jesse — this season, that is.
“Better Call Saul” Season 4 premieres August 6 at 9/8c on AMC.