The Bryan Cranston flop he insisted was actually great: “I was thoroughly entertained”

Posted On May 16, 2025May 16, 2025

Tell someone that you think Bryan Cranston is the greatest television actor in history, and you’ll likely get a nod of approval. After all, Cranston’s tenure as Walter White in Vince Gilligan’s incredible drug opus Breaking Bad put him in rarified air in terms of TV stars. He won four ‘Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series’ Emmy awards, including three in a row between 2008 and 2010, becoming the bane of Mad Men star Jon Hamm’s professional life in the process.

To this day, Cranston’s performance as White, a roiling maelstrom of repressed rage, male pride, arrogance, and hunger for power, is viewed as one of the best examples of what can be accomplished with long-form television. It was such a titanic performance, in fact, that Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins actually sent Cranston a letter telling him he had delivered “the best acting I have seen – ever.”

Of course, Cranston was a beloved TV star long before he shaved his head and donned a pork pie hat as White’s alter-ego, Heisenberg. He spent seven seasons delighting audiences as the hapless ball of energy Hal in Malcolm in the Middle, which also landed him three Emmy nominations. Then, after Breaking Bad finished, he starred in another crime drama, Your Honour, which netted him a Golden Globe nomination.

Sadly, it could be argued that Cranston has never been able to transfer his TV dominance to his film career, which has always seemed haphazard, at best. Sure, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his brilliant portrayal of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. However, the rest of his big-screen CV reads like the ramblings of a madman: Rock of Ages, Why Him?, Power Rangers, The Disaster Artist, Jerry & Marge Go Large. Not a looker in the bunch.

Horrifyingly, in 2024, Cranston’s movie career sank to an even lower low when he played the cartoonish, villainous leader of a rogue spy organisation in Matthew Vaughn’s atrocious action-comedy Argylle. Rarely before had such a strong cast assembled for such truly dismal material, with Cranston finding himself up shit creek along with charismatic performers like Sam Rockwell, Bryce Dallas Howard, Henry Cavill, Samuel L Jackson, and Catherine O’Hara, none of whom could raise a chuckle for the movie’s excruciating 139-minute runtime.

Having said that, though, there is one person who would disagree with that scathing assessment of Argylle. “I was thoroughly entertained while watching the entire thing, which doesn’t always happen,” Cranston told The Gentleman’s Journal. “Sometimes, what works on paper doesn’t necessarily translate, and in my own writing and directing, I would never conceive this sort of enormous, ridiculously fun environment to play in.”

Indeed, Argylle’s inherent absurdity meant Cranston had a blast making the film, regardless of whether anyone else enjoyed watching it. His exaggerated, loony performance also begins to make much more sense when you find out he was literally inspired by a cartoon character when figuring out how to craft a character that fit Argylle’s world. He drew from an animated supervillain played by his old Last Flag Flying co-star Steve Carell, and decided to play the evil Director Ritter as Gru from Despicable Me.

“I thought, what if I could do a live-action version of that kind of sinister, evil operator?” Cranston grinned. “Because Gru made me laugh.” With a knowing nod, he added, “When you’re doing this, anything is fair” – and now we know that must extend to defending an egregiously terrible movie because you had fun making it.

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