'Breaking Bad' Creator Vince Gilligan Reveals Why Walter White Ditched His Grey Matter Stock (And Gretchen) Instead Of Becoming A Billionaire
It's a question that's undoubtedly been asked by millions of "Breaking Bad" fans around the world--why did Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston in one of TV's seminal performances) abandon Gray Matter Technologies, the company he co-created with his friend Elliot Schwartz, selling his stock for $5,000?
And, perhaps most importantly, why did he abandon his beautiful girlfriend and lab assistant Gretchen while on vacation with her family?
With Gray Matter going on to become a multi-billion dollar company and Schwartz going on to marry Gretchen, who it becomes clear in throughout series flashbacks was the love of White's life, it was these two events that set the high school chemistry teacher on the path to being forced to cook meth so he can pay his medical bills after being diagnosed with cancer.
In an interview for the AMC network back in 2009, Jessica Hecht, who played the part of Gretchen Schwartz on "Breaking Bad," attempted to shed some light on the subject.
"Vince Gilligan told us exactly what went down between the characters off screen," Hecht said.
"We were very much in love and we were to get married. And he came home and met my family, and I come from this really successful, wealthy family and that knocks him on his side. He couldn't deal with this inferiority he felt--this lack of connection to privilege. It made him terrified and he literally just left me and I was devastated."
On Thursday, in an interview for the Huffington Post with "Breaking Bad" writer-director and co-creator of the series prequel "Better Call Saul" Peter Gould, Gilligan finally confirmed that Hecht was right about the backstory.
"She's correct and that's what I explained to her and to [Bryan Cranston] before they shot that big scene between the two of them where they were at the restaurant," he said.
"It ends with him being so nasty to her saying, 'f*ck you' and then she leaves tearfully. In my mind, the interesting thing here--and I always kind of hate to nail it down so explicitly--but let's put it this way, most viewers of 'Breaking Bad' assume Gretchen and Elliott are the bad guys, and they assume that Walt got ripped off by them, got ill used by them and I never actually saw it that way."
"I think it was kind of situation where he didn't realize the girl he was about to marry was so very wealthy and came from such a prominent family and it kind of blew his mind and made him feel inferior and he overreacted," added the former "X-Files" writer turned "Breaking Bad" creator.
"He just kind of checked out. I think there is that whole other side to the story and it can be gleaned. This isn't really the CliffsNotes version so much. These facts can be gleaned if you watch some of these scenes really closely enough and you watch them without too much of an overriding bias toward Walt and against Gretchen and Elliott."
According to Gould, the whole backstory demonstrate Walter White's complete lack of self-awareness.
"I think the interesting thing is not exactly what happened but the fact that Walt hasn't let it go over all these years," he said. "He has no perspective on himself. He gets to the point where all he can really do is try to justify everything that he's done."
So why was the truth so hard for "Breaking Bad" fans to see, despite the fact that all the evidence was played out onscreen? Gilligan believes the reason could have to do with the sympathy generated by Cranston's inspired acting.
"The short answer here is that I think people tend to think of Gretchen and Elliott as the villains because they're a couple of rich happy people and they seemed to be arraigned against our hero Walter White, but the truth may be not so quite on the nose," he said.
"Better Call Saul" currently airs Monday nights on AMC.
