Bryan Cranston

Bryan Lee Cranston (born March 7, 1956) is an American actor, comedian, voice actor, producer, director and screenwriter. He is best known for his roles as Walter White on the AMC crime drama Breaking Bad, Hal on the Fox sitcom Malcolm in the Middle, and Dr. Tim Whatley on the NBC sitcom Seinfeld. Cranston's performance as Walter White on Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the best performances in television history.

For Breaking Bad, Cranston won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series four times (2008–2010, 2014), including three consecutive wins, the second time in television history after Bill Cosby in I Spy during the 1960s. After becoming one of the producers of Breaking Bad in 2011, he also won the award for Outstanding Drama Series twice. Cranston was also nominated three times for the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his role in Malcolm in the Middle. His role in Breaking Bad also earned him five Golden Globe nominations, with one win in 2014, nine Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, with four wins, and six Satellite Award nominations, with four wins. In June 2014, he won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his portrayal of Lyndon B. Johnson in the play All the Way on Broadway, a role he reprised in the television film of the same name, which debuted on HBO in May 2016. In April 2018, he won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Howard Beale in Network at the National Theatre, London. For the film Trumbo (2015), he received widespread acclaim and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Cranston has directed episodes of various television series, including seven episodes of Malcolm in the Middle, three episodes of Breaking Bad, two episodes of Modern Family, one episode of The Office, and ten episodes of Sneaky Pete. He has also appeared in several acclaimed films, such as Saving Private Ryan (1998), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), Drive (2011), Argo (2012), and Godzilla (2014). In 2015, Cranston, together with David Shore, executive produced and wrote the story for the Amazon Studios original crime drama Sneaky Pete.

Early work
After college, Cranston began his acting career in local and regional theaters, getting his start at the Granada Theater in the San Fernando Valley. He had previously performed as a youth, but his show business parents had mixed feelings about their son being involved in the profession, so he did not continue until years later. Cranston was ordained as a minister by the Universal Life Church, and performed weddings for $150 a service to help with his income. He also worked as a waiter, night-shift security guard at the gates of a private LA community, truck loader, camera operator for a video dating service, and CCTV security guard at a supermarket. He started working regularly in the late 1980s, mostly doing minor roles and advertisements. He was an original cast member of the ABC soap opera Loving, where he played Douglas Donovan from 1983 to 1985 Cranston starred in the short-lived series Raising Miranda in 1988. Cranston's voice acting includes English dubbing of Japanese anime (for which he primarily used the non-union pseudonym Lee Stone), including Macross Plus and Armitage III: Poly-Matrix, and most notably, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie as Fei-Long, and the children's series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Cranston did voice work for the 1993-94 first season of that series, playing characters such as Twin Man and Snizzard, for which he was paid about $50 an hour for two or three hours of daily work. The Blue Power Ranger, Billy Cranston, was named for him.

Career breakthrough and Malcolm in the Middle
In 1994, Cranston got the recurring role of Dr. Tim Whatley, Jerry's dentist, on Seinfeld. He played the role until 1997.

In 1996, he played his second astronaut when he portrayed Gus Grissom in the film That Thing You Do!

In 1997, he played a supporting role in the Michael Dudikoff action vehicle, the air hijack picture Strategic Command, with alongside Richard Norton, Paul Winfield, and Stephen Quadros. Later that year he had a small role in Babylon 5 as Ericsson, a starship captain who sacrifices himself to save humanity.

In 1998, Cranston appeared in an episode of The X-Files written by Vince Gilligan. That same year, he portrayed astronaut Buzz Aldrin in the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. In 1999, Cranston wrote and directed the film Last Chance. That same year he made his second appearance for a recurring role on the CBS sitcom The King of Queens, playing Doug Heffernan's neighbor, Tim Sacksky.

In 1998, he appeared in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, as one-armed War Department Colonel I.W. Bryce, who reported to General George Marshall that Private Ryan was the last survivor of his brothers, and his assumed location. His theatrical credits include starring roles in The God of Hell, Chapter Two, The Taming of the Shrew, A Doll's House, Barefoot in the Park, Eastern Standard, Wrestlers and The Steven Weed Show, for which he won a Drama-Logue Award. In 2000, Cranston landed a leading role as Hal on the comedy series Malcolm in the Middle. He would remain with the show until its end in 2006. Cranston ended up directing several episodes of the show and received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his performance. Cranston reprised his role in a cutaway gag during the Family Guy episode "I Take Thee Quagmire", killing Lois (his wife on Malcolm in the Middle) with a refrigerator door, and in a leaked alternate ending of Breaking Bad with Jane Kaczmarek reprising her role as Lois.

He has had guest roles in many television series, including a white-collar criminal searching for his estranged wife and daughter on The Flash, a lawyer attempting to free the title character from a contract in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and a bigoted man being driven insane by extremely low frequency sonar waves in The X-Files episode "Drive". He also had a guest role in late 2006 on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, playing Ted Mosby's obnoxious co-worker and former boss Hammond Druthers. He played Lucifer in the ABC Family miniseries Fallen and appeared as Nick Wrigley, an irresponsible uncle who accidentally brings Christmas close to destruction when he steals Santa's sleigh to have a crazy ride, in the 2001 Disney Channel Original Movie  'Twas the Night. In that same year, he provided the voice of Gary's father in Gary & Mike. He appeared as the more successful business colleague of Greg Kinnear's character in the film Little Miss Sunshine (2006). In September 2008, Cranston narrated a pre-teen adventure/fantasy audiobook called Adventures with Kazmir the Flying Camel.

Breaking Bad and beyond
From 2008 to 2013, Cranston starred in the AMC series Breaking Bad, created by Vince Gilligan, in which he played Walter White, a high-school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Walter teams up with former student Jesse Pinkman (played by Aaron Paul), to manufacture and sell methamphetamine to ensure the well-being of Walter's family after he dies. Cranston's work on the series was met with widespread critical acclaim, winning him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in each of the show's first three seasons and being nominated in 2012 and 2013 for seasons four and five (winning again in 2014 for the second half of season 5). Cranston and Bill Cosby are the only actors to have won the award three consecutive times. Cranston was also a producer for the fourth and fifth seasons of the series, and directed three episodes of the show during its run.

In 2011, Cranston had supporting roles in three successful films, the drama The Lincoln Lawyer, as well as the thrillers Drive and Contagion. He voiced James Gordon in the animated film Batman: Year One (2011). In 2012, he had supporting roles in John Carter, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted as Vitaly the tiger, and Rock of Ages, and a major role in the hostage drama Argo. He also lent his voice to several episodes of the animated series Robot Chicken. In 2012, he starred in the remake of the 1990 film Total Recall, as Chancellor Vilos Cohaagen, the corrupted president of a fictional war-ravaged United Federation of Britain. In the same year, he made a guest appearance as Kenneth Parcell's step-father, Ron, on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, and was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

From September 2013 to June 2014, Cranston played U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson in the American Repertory Theater and Broadway productions of All the Way, in a performance that has received widespread acclaim, and he later won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for the role. He also played scientist Joe Brody in the 2014 reboot of Godzilla.

Cranston has produced an instructional DVD called KidSmartz, which is designed to teach families how to stay safe from child abductors and Internet predators. KidSmartz raises money for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children by donating half the proceeds from sales. Also, following the success of Breaking Bad, the year 2014 saw reports of Cranston developing new TV projects in collaboration with Sony Pictures Television. In 2016, it was announced that he would star in an episode of the Channel 4/Amazon Video series Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, and would also serve as an executive producer on the series.

On July 16, 2014, it was announced that Cranston would star in an HBO adaptation of his hit play All the Way. Steven Spielberg was set to be an executive producer on the film. Following the film's premiere on May 21, 2016, Cranston's performance was widely praised by critics, garnering eight Primetime Emmy Award nominations and a Television Critics Choice Award nomination. In 2015, Cranston starred as screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in the biopic Trumbo, for which he received his first Academy award nomination. In 2016, Cranston voiced Li, the biological father of Po, in Kung Fu Panda 3. Also that year, he appeared in many films, including The Infiltrator and Wakefield. Cranston's memoir, A Life in Parts, was published on October 11, 2016, became a New York Times bestseller, and received positive reviews. In 2017, he voiced Zordon in Lionsgate's Power Rangers, which marked his return to the franchise after providing voices for the series' first season.

On January 27, 2017, it was announced that Cranston would star in a stage adaptation of the 1976 film Network playing Howard Beale, directed by Ivo van Hove at the Royal National Theatre in London, opening in November 2017.

In 2017, he acted the role of Phillip Lacasse, a wealthy paraplegic in the movie The Upside along with Kevin Hart and Nicole Kidman. It was eventually released on January 11, 2019.

He was part of the ensemble cast of the 2018 animated film Isle of Dogs, by Wes Anderson, which premiered at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival, where he played the lead dog Chief. The film was released on March 23, 2018.

Cranston appears in season 9 of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, playing Larry David's therapist. He announced that he will guest star in season 10 of NBC's Will & Grace along with David Schwimmer and Courteney Cox.

Starting in October 2018, Cranston became the voice for a new series of Ford commercials featuring the tagline 'Built Ford Proud'.

On December 10, 2018, Cranston appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he was given the honorary title of "Buddy", as an alternative to the more royal title of "Sir".