‘Breaking Bad’ season 5 spoilers: Charles Baker on Skinny Pete, ‘Star Trek’ conversation
No matter where you are in the world of “Breaking Bad,” it has to feel like a joyful experience just to be a part of the show. Over the past few years, it’s gone from a cult phenomenon to an international sensation, and managed to take many of the show’s actors along for the ride.
One of those actors is Charles Baker. This is the classic case of an actor being brought in for just one gig (a la Michael Emerson in “Lost”), and then just being so freakin’ phenomenal as Skinny Pete that the show just can’t get rid of him and wouldn’t want to. Just in this past episode alone, he had one of the more memorable moments as we saw him and Badger engage in a rather thorough conversation about “Star Trek,” all while the once-gregarious Jessie made it clear (by not talking) that he wanted no part of it.
So is Pete really that oblivious to what Aaron Paul’s character is going through? It doesn’t seem like it; instead, Baker explains to The Hollywood Reporter that Pete and Badger are really just trying to stay out of it, since they really don’t know what else they can do for him:
“He’s noticed the change, but, like they say, ignorance is bliss. We’re kind of trying to be respectful of his privacy and just trying to be there for him. I think that’s why we work so hard at taking him away from it. We know that something is affecting him, but we don’t really know what is affecting him. We don’t really feel like it’s our place to try to get it out of him. Even if we had tried, I don’t think he would have told us.”
Baker also went in-depth with the publication on working with director Bryan Cranston on some of these “Star Trek” scenes, which bridged the line between being humorous and also sad:
“Those scenes come from [writer] Peter Gould, most of the time. He’s our resident geek on the show. Bryan mostly let us go with it to see what we do. That was the first time I’d worked with Bryan as a director. He would help us with some beats, some comedic timing, which he’s brilliant at, but for the most part he let us do what we do.”
If you click here, you can take a look at what is coming up during Sunday night’s episode and we will have our full review of “Buried” coming up in a matter of hours.
Photo: AMC