YouSaid · the spoken record

Bryan Cranston

lines on the record: 59
first: 2019-04-29
most recent: 2019-04-29
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“By the way, unadulterated, not changed by Patty Chaevsky's original screenplay. Same thing when I talk about, I'll tell you who's trying to buy up this corporation now. It's the Saudi Arabian Investment Corporation. Nothing has changed. So we are exposed to things that stay the same and yet change in different ways. It's eerily prescient.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I look at the camera as a character. I'm looking into that dark lens with nothing staring back at me and I'm imagining that I'm speaking to millions of people and trying to convey a message and trying at times to manipulate them, to sway their sentiments to my side, to my way of thinking. So I look at it like another character on stage with me.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right. The conflict also, it's akin to the health situation in our country, healthcare. As long as healthcare is attached to profit and the lack of giving healthcare is more profit for the company, we are going to be in a situation that is unhealthy and inhumane. Just put my little political stamp on things there for you.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it never occurred to me growing up with Walter Cronkite and Huntley Brinkley and those folks that I was being packaged. That news was being packaged and presented and that there were stories that were not going to be told that night that happened. And now I know, oh, wow, I was so innocent and naive. Of course it was. Walter Cronkite had to say what was in the producers meeting this is what we're going to do. This is what we're not going to do. And you hope that it was an altruistic decision being made, but come on, some political ideology. Well, not just political.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it was written satirically back in the mid 70s by Patty Chaiowski and adapted for the stage by Lee Hall really wonderfully. And so here we are. Now is it a satire?”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ratings, and I but I wanted to have more than that. He's a widower. He doesn't have any kids. He drinks too much. He was caving in.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Basically, for me, when I recalled Peter Finch's performance as Howard Beale in the movie, He railed. He was angry. He vented his fierce anger. At the world and his followers, millions of followers on television. And that works. That works. And certainly he won an Oscar for it. A really good performance. And I thought, is there something I don't want to be derivative of that? I want to carve out my own Howard Beale. So I started thinking about it. And what I realized where I want to go first is what's the emotion that happens before anger? It's usually pain. Right. Harm done to your soul somehow. You've been deprived, you've been rejected, you've been”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The thing that he feared the most is he feared a lot of things and he feared that he would die of a heart attack and sure enough he did. What was great about all the way, and Robert Schenkin, who wrote it. Was that He was a president and a man worthy of revisiting. It wasn't to rewrite history. It was to revisit history. And the rap on LBJ up until, I think, all the way was that as a failed president because of his actions in decision-making for Vietnam.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was a very tough woman and was angry at his father for business losses that he suffered when she was displeased with Lyndon's behavior or grades or something like that. I read in a couple accounts. I can't quite give you which source material it came from, but that she would withhold Her love to him she would withhold her appreciation or even her recognition of him almost Treat him like he's invisible.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was known to say Well, if they don't love me, I'll just go back to the ranch to hell with it all. I don't need this, you know, and almost like threatening emotional suicide. And Ladybird would come to his rescue now, Lyndon. That's not the case. You know this country loves you, and she would pull him back. Well, I don't know, Yen. She'd pull him back in. But his neediness really stemmed from his childhood, like most of ours does. The formative years his mother...”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Speechwriter and was with him from very early on. He told me in a time that I spent with him and his wife, Judith, he said, I guess I can sum it up by saying, I didn't like him, but I loved him. That hit me like a ton of bricks. How can that dichotomy exist within someone? And I realize, oh, there is ways there are ways and that's that pointed me toward his mood swings and toward what he vacillated between good and bad.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As they can be, you have to trust the source. Some people remember him from a different way. Bill Moyers, for example, was press sector.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really was. But the other flip side to that, so certainly you can't do LBJ without getting into that hill country twang that he had I don't have his height, so I was on stage. I was wearing elevated shoes as well as in the movie. But the other sense that makes it difficult for a nonfictional character is There's a responsibility connected to this. You can't just, I can't willy-nilly go in there and go, well, I think I'll do this, and that's going to be good enough. I felt a tremendous weight on my shoulders to get it right. When you're creating a fictional character, you have a lot more latitude to be able to create what you think it could be And no one's going.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, and knew him well And it's not to say that you're going to create an impersonation of someone. That's the mistake. And sometimes you see a performance where it's an impersonation. And I told his daughters, Linda and Lucy, that I have no intention of impersonating your father. I want to get his essence. I want to get his sensibilities, his rightfulness where he was strong, and also where he was weak, where he was fragile, where he was shy.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it is. I think it's more difficult to take on a character who lived and was notable enough to write a story about him. Because it's not only that people alive remember that person in the case of Dalton Trumbo or Lyndon Johnson I met with his daughters and speech writers and his attorney.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When diplomacy became a bad word, a show of weakness, it stunned me that you would have that ability to negotiate and be cordial about it and not lose respect to a person who you may be completely at odds with. We've lost a little civility A lot has been said and talked about this presidency, and I am not a fan of this president. I've been open about that. What I lament more than that is the loss of civility in Washington, that it's a cruder place. It's a harsher place. It's filled with such animosity and vitriol that if someone believes something opposite of your point of view, they're out to ruin the country. And it's like, well, let's keep the hyperbole aside. It's a different point of view. Can we get to a point where we can establish things that we do agree on and then maybe step off from there?”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And how that little act has been lost. David, if you or I were of opposing political ideology and we had dinner together with our families even? The next day, when we are in Congress or whatever, I'm not going to throw you under the bus. I like you And you gave me that number of that physician from my mother that helped me”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He knew that it was horse trade. I got to give you something, but I want something from you. And he didn't vilify someone who was on the opposite of the aisle. He engaged with them. It was very common. You'll recall, and what I read from all these beautiful historians who wrote these marvelous books. About how they used to socialize with each other.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Zero sum game. It is not the way politics should be. And I harken back to LBJ when I was doing the research on LBJ. Boy, he knew politics better than anybody of his era.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Relevant to today's world because what we have now as a polemic of ideals we have my side and your side and if I don't win you win and that's”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Eccentric and righteous and And justified in his motivations. And he was not going to be cowed. And he was going to demand justice for himself. Well He paid a price for that. You know, he went to jail for a year. He was in prison. I shouldn't say jail. He was in prison. In Kentucky for a year, not because he committed a crime, but because he was founding contempt of Congress, because he didn't respond to Congress the way that Congress demanded he respond. He said he didn't want to answer the question the way it was posed. He wanted to make a statement.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's it. That's what stimulates an actor's decision making as well. And certainly mine for Dalton Trumbo. And this man who He was irrascible and cantankerous and a wordsmith and brilliant and”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's always story. It's always the impact of the story. Is it socio-politically important? Is it pure entertainment? Is it something that resonates with you? Is it something you relate to? And all of those things, when we read a good novel and we are just, we can't wait to get back to the next chapter.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, he had a metamorphosis. along with that sense of pride and achievement was also ego and hubris and Greed and resentment and anger and all the things that can seep into someone, he was fully alive. He was He relinquished the last two years of his life of boredom and complacency for a world of excitement and achievement and danger and ultimately death.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of pale skin. He just didn't care anymore. He was losing his sense of desire to try to do his best. He was kind of beaten down. And that made him susceptible to a decision that was fatalistic”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They show nothing but apathy toward it and push it away. So he's lost his And we catch him at a point where depression has seeped into his life. He's allowed his body to go to seed and he's pudgy. He looks like he needs a haircut all the time. He grew this silly mustache. This was all by design when I was creating the character and discussing it with the wardrobe department, the makeup department, and with Vince Gilligan and figuring out this is how I think he should wear clothes. The whole thing about the clothes were I want him to be invisible so the clothes in the beginning of the show are pale. Avocados and Taupe and sand colors and cream, and things that would just make him kind of disappear into the walls, and nothing his mustache was senseless, either grow it or shave it. But what is going on? Get a haircut, his pudgy”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What was interesting about that is when you usually take on a character, you take on the entire character, the scope of that character, because you're going to be playing him in a play or in a movie. And the play is one night you go through beginning, middle, and end in a movie, you go, it's shot out of sequence, but you have a beginning, middle, and end for a finite amount of time. In doing this series, I couldn't project where and how I would behave as Heisenberg when he turned dark. I can only start my work as Walter White, a devoted husband, father, teacher, a man of science who is excited but trying to share that excitement with With a bunch of kids who are not in knuckleheads or knuckleheads.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. Yes, the book was that way too. It was very therapeutic. It was a cathartic experience for sure. The book was the same as when I go on stage or in front of a camera. I have to seek the honesty of that. Where's the truth in that? A lot of people say, well, actors are a bunch of liars. And I look at it the opposite. We are always looking for the truth. Where's the honesty? Where's the authenticity of this character? And that's what I want to hold on to to present. And in some cases, you protect yourself even more when you go deep into a character. I then can live vicariously through where the character is going.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was certainly something that was a part of my life and I grew accustomed to being able to open up that. I draw back the curtain of my own personal experiences all the time. I'm willing to do it. I want to do it. I know that it's what I need to do to be able to honestly express myself. The vulnerability factor of that is the risk factor that actors take, your emotional risk in particular.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's where if you fall in love is another way of saying it. This is my home. This is where I love to go. So whether that puts me on stage or in television or film or wherever or writing a book or whatever you're expressing yourself creatively, that's where you should be.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can't have a question in your mind. What I tell young actors now is that it's If you just want to act, go act. There's any community theater that you can go do that. That's great. If you want to do this as a profession, you have to fall in love. Have to be committed to this as a relationship, a lifelong relationship. If you are going into this saying, I'm going to give it five years to achieve such and such, stop now, turn around and go do something else that you can be happy doing. This is not it for you. It is only if that flame is burning and you say, I just want to be in, like Tom said, I found a community. I found my home.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I appreciate the sentiment behind that, but the truth is that Almost all actors who are working for a living work their way up to what? We don't know. There's so much uncertainty to this. I certainly didn't set out to be a star. My goal was to be a working actor. That is still my proudest professional achievement is that I say, and I have since I was 25, I make my living as an actor. However that living was in the beginning, it's okay, just as long as you can make a living as an actor, you are the luckiest person in the world.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't crave the limelight. It came to me. I didn't go after it. Is part of it, it is a residual of what I love to do. But I am not someone who craves.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's right. But see, that's where you see it. where Deniro and many other actors can turn it on and where they see a need for a character to be boastful or to be big as life or something like an LBJ. I can put it in there. And you're so tired after doing that that what you really want is to go home and put on pajamas. This is so true. And, you know,”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, he's not a large presence. He doesn't say, hello, everybody. Right. It's a very, I wouldn't say introverted, but calm and not the guy who taxes you.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is less me and more that other person. And so you don't have to reveal the real you. There are many, many shy actors.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, they probably are judging me as well. Certainly there's merit to that. But where an actor needs to get to, and I actually learned a lot of this through Tom and his comportment on the set and his approach to how he develops a character and how he appreciates with every fiber in his body that he is a professional actor. That's his true joy, and that became my true joy as well. We are judged by what we're doing, but if you judge yourself even more, not in a helpfully critical way, in a constructive way, that I am just going to pour myself into this character. I am going to learn everything that I can and develop a physicality for the character, a backstory for the character, and how he handles himself, how he speaks, all these things. The more of those items I can control, The more of a cloak that I'm wearing”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Through that you're working on other characters, there's a little bit of a safety net to that. As long as I'm focusing on someone else, I don't necessarily have to focus on.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It I think. Being an actor taking on other characters, it helps to Illuminate who you might become. So if you are a little retardant in being able to present who am I, well, until I figure that out, I can be this other person. I could put all my energies into something else and someone else. And that's not me. So it's not self-examination, it's examination. It's almost like doing a biography as opposed to an autobiography.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I had a book of plays with me that I brought on a motorcycle. You can only take very few items, and I was reading the play and reading the play, had a gabbler. It happened to be. And at the end of it, I was so taken away by the journey that this story had that I forgot to look up. I didn't know what time it was. It was already dark, and it threw me. And I realized then that that powerful tool was where I wanted to go. And I created a credo for myself that I'm going to attempt to do something that I love and hopefully become good at as opposed to doing something I was apparently good at, but not in love with.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not so great. We pulled off at a picnic spot, which was really just a cement slab, a four post and a roof and a picnic table. And we decided to wait out the rain. And well, we were there for six days.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Found my brother and I were traveling all around and we were it was probably late October I was on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia pouring rain beautiful parkway but on a motorcycle in fog and rain”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, it was time to transfer to that university to continue administration of justice major. And I just wasn't committed to it. I was now thoroughly in neutral. I didn't really know what to do. So my brother and I had motorcycles as our only means of transportation at the time. And we decided to leave California just to go on an adventure. And we were gone for two years. You'd get jobs. Here and there And what I realized from that was I was protecting myself. I was allowing myself to go get lost, go figure things out, go mature, take your time, don't dive into something because”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She was acting. She was acting. So the power of that hit me like a ton of bricks. And I was in a flop sweat that after kissing this girl and now she really was just acting. And I was spinning. And I had to get away.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I asked her out at the break and she said no, she has a boyfriend And to which I went, oh, okay, and when she walked away, I realized I would have bet you any amount of money that that girl liked me”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I kind of bury that, I think, because of the destruction of the family nucleus. And I was trying to carve my own pathway. And I remember when I did a school play or two and acted in my garage and that was fun. And so then I thought, okay, I think that would be fun again. And then my first acting assignment in that class was given simply by random wherever you happen to be standing. And I was supposed to do this scene with this really pretty girl and it was a couple is making out on a park bench.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I happenstance. I wanted a transfer from a junior college to a university so that before I went into the LAPD, I had a degree. And that also seemed very pragmatic to me. And then the counselor said, well, you have to take elective courses. You can't just take all your major. Oh, okay, and acting. Oh, that's good.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's what my pathway was because I didn't have parental guidance on anything. And so I made it myself. And that seemed to be a logical choice until I took an acting class.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The gas department, and what are you where are you going to work? And my brother joined the LAPD Explorers. I didn't really know why. But they traveled. He's 16 years old and the group went to Hawaii for three weeks. And I was amazed by that. Second year, they went to Japan. And I thought, okay, as soon as I'm 16, the minimum age, I am joining this. And that's the end of it. Well, I joined, and you have to go to the LAPD Academy eight Saturdays in a row to train in police procedure because they're grooming you to become a police officer. And I graduated first in my class. Out of 111 other 16-year-olds, I was number one. And all of a sudden I said, oh, I guess I have an aptitude for this. This is what I should do. And so that's...”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did. I guess it's very clear in retrospect that you look back and as a 12-year-old boy and my brother was 14, and he joined the LAPD explorer group back then, if you remember, they used to bring all on visit day. It's like Occupation Day, and they used to bring people from the military and the fire department and the police department and all these things.”
2019-04-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 322 — Bryan Cranston · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source